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| President Barack Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, left, speaks about the crisis in Syria in the Rose Garden of the White House on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013 in Washington. Obama says he has decided that the United States should take military action against Syria in response to a deadly chemical weapons attack. But he says he will seek congressional authorization for the use of force. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Short on support at home and allies abroad, President Barack
Obama unexpectedly stepped back from a missile attack against Syria on
Saturday and instead asked Congress to support a strike punishing Bashar
Assad's regime for the alleged use of chemical weapons.
With
Navy ships on standby in the Mediterranean Sea ready to launch their
cruise missiles, Obama said he had decided the United States should take
military action and that he believes that as commander in chief, he has
"the authority to carry out this military action without specific
congressional authorization."
At the same
time, he said, "I know that the country will be stronger if we take this
course and our actions will be even more effective." His remarks were
televised live in the United States as well as on Syrian state
television with translation.
Congress is
scheduled to return from a summer vacation on Sept. 9, and in
anticipation of the coming debate, Obama challenged lawmakers to
consider "what message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of
children to death in plain sight and pay no price."
The
president didn't say so, but his strategy carries enormous risks to his
and the nation's credibility, which the administration has argued
forcefully is on the line in Syria. Obama long ago said the use of
chemical weapons was a "red line" that Assad would not be allowed to
cross with impunity.
Nor would the White House
say what options would still be open to the president if he fails to
win the backing of the House and Senate for the military measures he has
threatened.
Only this week, British Prime
Minister David Cameron suffered a humiliating defeat when the House of
Commons refused to support his call for military action against Syria.
Halfway
around the world, Syrians awoke Saturday to state television broadcasts
of tanks, planes and other weapons of war, and troops training, all to a
soundtrack of martial music. Assad's government blames rebels in the
Aug. 21 attack, and has threatened retaliation if it is attacked.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin, saying he was appealing to a Nobel Peace
laureate rather than to a president, urged Obama to reconsider. A group
that monitors casualties in the long Syrian civil war challenged the
United States to substantiate its claim that 1,429 died in a chemical
weapons attack, including more than 400 children.
By
accident or design, the new timetable gives time for U.N. inspectors to
receive lab results from the samples they took during four days in
Damascus, and to compile a final report. After leaving Syria overnight,
the inspection team arrived in Rotterdam a few hours before Obama spoke.
The group's leader was expected to brief Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday.
Administration
officials said Obama appeared set on ordering a strike until Friday
evening. After a long walk in near 90-degree temperatures around the
White House grounds with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, the president
told his aide he had changed his mind.
These
officials said Obama initially drew pushback in a two-hour session
attended by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel,
Director of National Intelligence James Klapper, CIA Director John
Brennan, national security adviser Susan Rice and homeland security
adviser Lisa Monaco. They declined to say which of the participants had
argued against Obama's proposal.
Whatever Congress ultimately decides, the developments marked a stunning turn.
France
is Obama's only major foreign ally to date for a strike, public polling
shows support is lukewarm in the United States, and dozens of lawmakers
in both parties have signed a letter urging Obama not to act without
their backing. Outside the gates of the White House, the chants of
protesters could be heard as the president stepped to a podium set up in
the Rose Garden.
Had he gone ahead with a
military strike, Obama would have become the first U.S. leader in three
decades to attack a foreign nation without mustering broad international
support or acting in direct defense of Americans. Not since 1983, when
President Ronald Reagan ordered an invasion of the Caribbean island of
Grenada, has the U.S. been so alone in pursuing major lethal military
action beyond a few attacks responding to strikes or threats against its
citizens.
Republicans generally expressed
satisfaction at Obama's decision to seek congressional support, and
challenged him to make his case to the public and lawmakers alike that
American power should be used to punish Assad.
"We
are glad the president is seeking authorization for any military action
in Syria in response to serious, substantive questions being raised,"
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other House Republican leaders
said in a joint statement.
"In consultation
with the president, we expect the House to consider a measure the week
of September 9th.
This provides the president time to make his case to
Congress and the American people."
New York
Republican Rep. Peter King was among the dissenters, strongly so.
"President Obama is abdicating his responsibility as commander in chief
and undermining the authority of future presidents," he said. "The
president doesn't need 535 members of Congress to enforce his own red
line."
For now, it appeared that the administration's effort at persuasion was already well underway.
The
administration plunged into a series of weekend briefings for
lawmakers, both classified and unclassified, and Obama challenged
lawmakers to consider "what message will we send to a dictator" if he is
allowed to kill hundreds of children with chemical weapons without
suffering any retaliation.
At the same time, a
senior State Department official said Secretary of State John Kerry
spoke with Syrian Opposition Coalition President Ahmed Assi al-Jarba to
underscore Obama's commitment to holding the Assad government
accountable for the Aug. 21 attack.
Obama said
Friday he was considering "limited and narrow" steps to punish Assad,
adding that U.S. national security interests were at stake. He pledged
no U.S. combat troops on the ground in Syria, where a civil war has
claimed more than 100,000 civilian lives.
In
Syria, some rebels expressed unhappiness with the president, one rebel
commander said he did not consider Obama's decision to be a retreat.
"On the contrary, he will get the approval for congress and then the
military action will have additional credibility," said Qassem
Saadeddine.
"Just because the strike was delayed by few days doesn't mean it's not going to happen," he said.
With
Obama struggling to gain international backing for a strike, Putin
urged him to reconsider his plans. "We have to remember what has
happened in the last decades, how many times the United States has been
the initiator of armed conflict in different regions of the world, said
Putin, a strong Assad ally. "Did this resolve even one problem?"
Even the administration's casualty estimate was grist for controversy.
The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization that monitors
casualties in the country, said it has confirmed 502 deaths, nearly
1,000 fewer than the American intelligence assessment claimed.
Rami
Abdel-Rahman, the head of the organization, said he was not contacted
by U.S. officials about his efforts to collect information about the
death toll in the Aug. 21 attacks.
"America
works only with one part of the opposition that is deep in propaganda,"
he said, and urged the Obama administration to release the information
its estimate is based on.
