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| House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio listens as President Barack Obama speaks to media, in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013, before a meeting with between the president and Congressional leaders to discuss the situation in Syria. Boehner said he will support the president's call for the U.S. to take action against Syria for alleged chemical weapons use and says his Republican colleagues should support the president, too. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- President Barack Obama gained ground Tuesday in his drive for
congressional backing of a military strike against Syria, winning
critical support from House Speaker John Boehner while administration
officials agreed to explicitly rule out the use of U.S. combat troops in
retaliation for a chemical weapons attack.
"You're
probably going to win" Congress' backing, Rand Paul of Kentucky, a
conservative senator and likely opponent of the measure, conceded in a
late-afternoon exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry.
The
leader of House Republicans, Boehner emerged from a meeting at the
White House and said the United States has "enemies around the world
that need to understand that we're not going to tolerate this type of
behavior. We also have allies around the world and allies in the region
who also need to know that America will be there and stand up when it's
necessary."
Boehner spoke as lawmakers in both
parties called for changes in the president's requested legislation,
rewriting it to restrict the type and duration of any military action
that would be authorized, possibly including a ban on U.S. combat forces
on the ground.
"There's no problem in our
having the language that has zero capacity for American troops on the
ground," said Secretary of State John Kerry, one of three senior
officials to make the case for military intervention at a Senate Foreign
Relations Committee hearing.
Kerry had said
earlier in the hearing that he'd prefer not to have such language,
hypothesizing the potential need for sending ground troops "in the event
Syria imploded" or to prevent its chemical weapons cache from falling
into the hands of a terrorist organization.
"President
Obama is not asking America to go to war," Kerry said in a strongly
worded opening statement. He added, "This is not the time for armchair
isolationism. This is not the time to be spectators to slaughter."
Obama
said earlier in the day he was open to revisions in the relatively
broad request the White House made over the weekend. He expressed
confidence Congress would respond to his call for support and said
Assad's action "poses a serious national security threat to the United
States and to the region."
The administration
says 1,429 died from the attack on Aug. 21 in a Damascus suburb.
Casualty estimates by other groups are far lower, and Assad's government
blames the episode on rebels who have been seeking to overthrow his
government in a civil war that began over two years ago. A United
Nations inspection team is awaiting lab results on tissue and soil
samples it collected while in the country before completing a closely
watched report.
The president met top
lawmakers at the White House before embarking on an overseas trip to
Sweden and Russia, leaving the principal lobbying at home for the next
few days to Vice President Joe Biden and other members of his
administration.
Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
sat shoulder-to-shoulder at the Senate committee hearing while, a few
hundred miles away, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged
caution. He said any punitive action against Syria could unleash more
turmoil and bloodshed, and he advised that such strikes would be legal
only in self-defense under the U.N. Charter or if approved by the
organization's Security Council. Russia and China have repeatedly used
their veto power in the council to block action against Assad.
In
the Middle East, Israel and the U.S. conducted a joint missile test
over the Mediterranean in a display of military might in the region.
Obama
set the fast-paced events in motion on Saturday, when he unexpectedly
stepped back from ordering a military strike under his own authority and
announced he would seek congressional approval.
Recent
presidents have all claimed the authority to undertake limited military
action without congressional backing. Some have followed up with such
action.
Obama said he, too, believes he has
that authority, and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said during the
day that even Congress' refusal to authorize the president wouldn't
negate the power of the commander in chief.
Still,
the president also has stated that the United States will be stronger
if lawmakers grant their support. But neither Obama nor his aides has
been willing to state what options would be left to him should Congress
reject his call.
As Obama has often noted, the
country is weary of war after more than a decade of combat deaths in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and there is residual skepticism a decade after
Bush administration claims went unproven that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction. Additionally, a spate of polls indicates
the public opposes a military strike against Syria, by a margin of 59-36
percent if the United States acts unilaterally, according to a new
Washington Post-ABC survey, and a narrower 46-51 if allies take part.
Among
major allies, only France has publicly offered to join the United
States in a strike, although President Francois Hollande says he will
await Congress' decision. The British House of Commons rejected a
military strike last week.
Yet the president's decision to seek congressional approval presents lawmakers with a challenge, as well.
Even some of Obama's sternest critics in Congress expressed strong concerns about the repercussions of a failure to act.
House
Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, R-Va., said after Tuesday's White House
meeting that a failure to respond to the use of chemical weapons "only
increases the likelihood of future WMD (weapons of mass destruction) use
by the regime, transfer to Hezbollah, or acquisition by al-Qaida."
America's largest pro-Israel organization, AIPAC, also announced its support for legislation to authorize a military strike.
Apart from the meeting with Obama, the White House provided closed-door briefings for members of Congress.
Sen.
Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said after attending one session that
administration officials told lawmakers that the targets the military
had identified last week were still present, despite the highly public
discussion of a possible attack. "Seems strange to see some targets
still available several weeks later," Flake said, adding that he was
"still listening" to the administration's lobbying.
Dempsey
addressed the same point later in the day. "Time works both ways," he
told the Senate panel. He said the United States has significant
intelligence about Assad's actions, and "we continue to refine our
targets."
Others were firmly opposed. Sen. Jim
Inhofe of Oklahoma said on Fox News, "It may sound real easy when
people like Secretary Kerry say that `it is going to be quick and we're
going to go in, we're going to send a few cruise missiles, wash our
hands and go home.' It doesn't work that way. This could be a war in the
Middle East, it's serious."
Paul, the
Kentucky Republican who has close ties to tea party groups, said he
probably would vote against authorizing Obama to use force. But he said
it also wouldn't be helpful to amend the resolution in a way that
constrains the president too much to execute military action, if
authorized.
He made his prediction that the
White House would get its way in an exchange with Kerry in which he said
Obama should agree to abide by Congress' decision, rather than reserve
the right to order a strike even if the vote goes against him.
Democrats,
too, were divided, although it appeared the administration's biggest
concern was winning support among deeply conservative Republicans who
have battled with the president on issue after issue since winning
control of the House three years ago.
The
United States maintains a significant military force in the eastern
Mediterranean Sea. The U.S. Navy released one of the warships that had
been in the region, leaving four destroyers armed with cruise missiles,
the USS Stout, USS Gravely, USS Ramage and USS Barry. Also in the area
was an amphibious warship, the USS San Antonio, with about 300 Marines
aboard.
In addition, there are two aircraft
carriers in the region - the USS Nimitz strike group, which is in the
southern Red Sea, and the USS Harry S Truman, which is in the Arabian
Sea.
While announcing his support for military
action and urging fellow Republicans to come to the same conclusion,
Boehner firmly put the burden of rounding up votes on the administration
Shortly
after Boehner left the White House after the meeting, his spokesman
Michael Steel said, "Everyone understands that it is an uphill battle to
pass a resolution, and the speaker expects the White House to provide
answers to members' questions and take the lead on any whipping effort."
Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was noncommittal about
Obama's request. "While we are learning more about his plans, Congress
and our constituents would all benefit from knowing more about what it
is he thinks needs to be done - and can be accomplished - in Syria and
the region," McConnell said in a statement.
Obama's
trip this week includes stops in Stockholm and then St. Petersburg,
Russia, where he will be attending the Group of 20 economic summit.
