Use of force in Syria will be a ‘very tough sell’
From the Democratic dean of
the Senate to tea party Republicans, lawmakers say that Obama’s
resolution will need to be rewritten and narrowed in its scope to gain
support in a skeptical Congress.
Video:
In Play’s Jackie Kucinich talks to The Post’s congressional
correspondent Ed O’Keefe about the week ahead on the Hill as Congress
prepares to debate the president’s proposed military action in Syria.
From the Democratic dean of the Senate to tea party Republicans in their second terms, lawmakers said the White House’s initial request to use force against Syria will be rewritten in the coming days to try to shore up support in a skeptical Congress. But some veteran lawmakers expressed doubt that even the new use-of-force resolution would win approval, particularly in the House.
Video
Congressman Scott Rigell (R-Va.) spoke with In
Play's Chris Cillizza about the letter Rigell wrote to the president
demanding a Congressional vote on Syria and the moral questions
surrounding the current conflict there.
In Syria delay, Kerry may prove himself a team player
Secretary turns from justifying a rapid U.S. attack to defending Obama’s decision allowing congressional vote.
Sarin gas used in Syria attack, Kerry says
Secretary of state’s announcement is the first time that U.S. officials have pinpointed the type of chemical used.Syria crows over ‘historic American retreat’
Syrian officials and state media mock President Obama’s decision to defer to Congress on military strikes.
Some Syrians say Obama’s decision will embolden Assad
Residents of Damascus were bracing for American military action after U.N. inspectors left country.
His remarks came after a more than 21 / 2-hour classified briefing that drew 83 lawmakers to the Capitol, GOP aides said. They flew in from across the country on 24 hours’ notice for a rare Labor Day weekend meeting. The briefing, run by five senior national security officials, began the administration’s all-out effort to win support for what Obama has said would be a limited strike against military targets to punish Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime for carrying out a chemical attack.
White House officials have less than two weeks to secure backing in the House and the Senate, which will not formally return from their regular end-of-summer break until Sept. 9. They are expected to then immediately begin debate on military authorization, with votes by mid-September.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who has been talking to his former colleagues in the Senate, predicted victory during appearances on five Sunday talk shows.
Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday that the administration has presented convincing evidence that Assad’s government carried out the attack, citing Sunday’s closed-door briefing in an auditorium in the Capitol Visitor Center and other classified presentations that they received in the past week. The key stumbling block, they said, was the concern that a limited strike would not be an effective deterrent and would only draw the U.S. military deeper into Syria’s civil war.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of doubt that the regime undertook this attack. There’s a great deal of skepticism that a limited strike is likely to be effective,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
The uncertain outcome is rooted in a Congress that has proved deeply factionalized and dysfunctional. With Democrats running the Senate and Republicans the House, the two sides have fought to a near legislative standstill on nearly every major issue. A proposal to stiffen background checks for gun buyers died in the Senate this spring, despite having the support of 90 percent of the public. A comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws, also backed by a majority of voters, has stalled.
Add to that mix a heated debate on something as consequential as war and its constitutional underpinnings, and the atmosphere on Capitol Hill could grow even more toxic.
The most difficult hurdle comes in the House, which has been incapable this year of approving what in the past were considered perfunctory measures. The farm bill, usually a bipartisan celebration of agriculture policy, failed in late June.
Compounding the troubles is that the debate on Syria comes just as Congress is poised to renew the fiscal showdown with Obama on federal spending and raising the debt limit so the Treasury does not default.
Video
Congressman Scott Rigell (R-Va.) spoke with In
Play's Chris Cillizza about the letter Rigell wrote to the president
demanding a Congressional vote on Syria and the moral questions
surrounding the current conflict there.
Sarin gas used in Syria attack, Kerry says
Secretary of state’s announcement is the first time that U.S. officials have pinpointed the type of chemical used.Syria crows over ‘historic American retreat’
Syrian officials and state media mock President Obama’s decision to defer to Congress on military strikes.
Some Syrians say Obama’s decision will embolden Assad
Residents of Damascus were bracing for American military action after U.N. inspectors left country.
Aware of the growing bloc of Republican isolationists, senior GOP aides warned Sunday that a large number of Democrats will have to support the use-of-force resolution for it to have any chance. Advisers in both parties described the measure as a “vote of conscience” that House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will not be lobbying lawmakers to support.
Obama’s allies said the first order of business will be to work with the administration to redraft the resolution, which was sent to Capitol Hill on Saturday night and barely filled one page. It had no prescriptions for what type of military action could be carried out or its duration.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the dean of the Senate and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters that the resolution is “too open-ended” as written. “I know it will be amended in the Senate,” he said.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said, “That has to be rectified, and they simply said in answer to that they would work with the Congress and try to come back with a more prescribed resolution.”
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a former Senate staffer who inspected chemical weapons attacks by Saddam Hussein’s government against its own citizens in Iraq in the 1980s, said he will push to add language that would limit the length of the mission and prohibit putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria.
Such provisions could gain support from lawmakers who want to rein in the Obama administration, without hampering the goals of the mission — which the president has said should be limited to missile strikes against military targets.
Two key Obama allies, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), are slated to meet with White House officials Monday, following their criticism this weekend that the president should be calling for a more expansive attack on Assad’s forces to help push him out of power.
McCain was also critical of the decision to seek congressional approval, pointing to Obama’s declaration months ago that a chemical attack would be a “red line” that, if crossed, would be met with military force.
“He didn’t say that ‘it’s a red line, and by the way, I’m going to have to seek the approval of Congress,’ ” McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The two Republicans’ support would be crucial to securing Senate passage, though the outcome in the House would remain in doubt.
“The evidence at this point is overwhelming,” said Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), adding that “we must respond” to such a drastic use of chemical weapons.
Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), who led the effort to force a congressional vote on an attack, said “80 percent” of the skeptics in the room doubted that a limited strike would achieve a clear result and feared that it might instead lead to bad consequences. “There is more a question of: Is this the right approach?”
Lawmakers said they expect to hear more from the Obama administration in the coming days.
“There’s more reading to do, and that will happen over the course of the week,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), who said he was undecided about how he would vote.
So is Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), who said: “I’m just not sure the case has been clearly made.”
Samples show sarin gas
used in Syria, Kerry says
The toxic nerve agent was found in blood and hair of emergency workers, he says.- Syria gloats over American retreatVideo: Secretary of State John Kerry stresses the need for military action in Syria and says congressional authorization of the use of force will allow the U.S. to act "with unity of purpose and in a concerted way."
The Obama administration asserted Sunday for the first time that the Syrian government used the nerve gas sarin to kill more than 1,400 people in the world’s gravest chemical weapons attack in 25 years as the White House intensified pressure on a skeptical Congress to authorize punitive military strikes against Damascus.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry said new laboratory tests showed traces of sarin, an extremely toxic nerve agent, in blood and hair samples collected from emergency workers who responded Aug. 21 to the scene of an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs.Timeline: Unrest in SyriaTwo years after the first anti-government protests, conflict in Syria rages on. See the major events in the country's tumultuous uprising.
Residents of Damascus were bracing for American military action after U.N. inspectors left country.
In an interview blitz on five Sunday television news shows, Kerry said the fresh forensic evidence strengthened an already compelling case for taking military action against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and he predicted that Congress would vote to give President Obama that authority.
“I can’t contemplate that the Congress would turn its back on all of that responsibility and the fact that we would have, in fact, granted impunity to a ruthless dictator to continue to gas his people,” Kerry said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Those are the stakes.”
But many lawmakers, including some who had previously pushed for a harder line against Assad, said the White House would have a tough time drumming up support for intervention in Syria’s seemingly intractable civil war.
“My constituents are war-
weary. They don’t want to see us get involved in this,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The president has an obligation to make his case to the Congress, but he also has an obligation to make this case to the American people. . . . It’s going to be a very, very tough debate.”
It is a debate that most in Congress did not expect. Administration officials had given every sign that Obama would order an attack on Syria over the Labor Day weekend. The Navy had moved destroyers armed with cruise missiles close to the Syrian coast, and Pentagon officials said they were ready to strike.
On Saturday, however, Obama stunned much of the world by announcing that he had decided to hold off for the moment and that he would first seek formal backing from Congress. On Sunday, he dispatched a stream of national security officials to Capitol Hill for classified briefings to lawmakers who interrupted their summer recess to rush back to Washington.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) told reporters that Obama’s proposed resolution seeking authorization to use military force would not pass Congress as written because it was too broad. “It will be amended, ” Leahy said.
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) said he sensed that colleagues in both parties appreciated the seriousness of the decision but that many were genuinely undecided. “I’m glad I read the documents; it was worth the trip,” he said. “I haven’t really made up my mind. I’m not trying to be a wise guy — I just haven’t.”
Obama warned Assad a year ago not to use chemical weapons against his own people, saying such a move would cross a “red line” that could force the United States to intervene militarily. On Aug. 21, a torrent of grisly videos surfaced on the Internet, depicting mass casualties from a nighttime attack outside Damascus that rebel groups said involved poison gas.In an unclassified intelligence dossier made public Friday, U.S. officials said they believe that the Syrian government used a “nerve agent” in the attack. But the intelligence report did not specify the kind of nerve gas and appeared to lack forensic evidence that would support a definitive conclusion.
On Sunday, Kerry said U.S. officials had received fresh lab results showing traces of sarin in hair and blood samples collected from the scene. He did not give further details or elaborate on the source of the material, other than to say that it had not come from a team of United Nations inspectors that left Syria on Saturday.
The U.N. team of chemical weapons experts had spent four days near the site of the alleged attack and brought an extensive collection of forensic samples and other evidence to The Hague for testing in European laboratories.
The results of those tests, depending on how quickly the tests are conducted, could play an influential role as Congress debates whether to endorse military action against Syria. If the U.N. tests confirm the use of sarin gas, they will lend independent credibility to the Obama administration’s arguments. If the U.N. tests are inconclusive or offer conflicting results, they may badly undercut the White House.
U.N. officials had said previously that it could take as long as two weeks for the experts to present their findings. On Saturday, a U.N. spokesman said, “Whatever can be done to speed up the process is being done, but we are not giving a timeline.”
Syria is thought to have multiple nerve agents and other poison gases in its chemical stockpile. Assad’s government has denied carrying out gas attacks, blaming rebel forces instead.
Long-standing global treaties have banned the use of chemical weapons. The last major chemical weapons attack occurred in 1988, in Halabja, Iraq, a Kurdish city that was gassed on the orders of ruler Saddam Hussein.
Both parties divided
Kerry said the purpose of a limited military strike would be to deter Syria from using chemical munitions again, as well as to send a message to Iran and other countries in the region that Obama would back up his warnings about the development or use of weapons of mass destruction. Removing Assad from power or affecting the tide of Syria’s civil war was not the goal, administration officials said.
Kerry also played down the timing of any military action, saying it would not make any difference if it occurred a week or two later than originally planned.
Syrian opposition groups have reported that Assad’s forces have been moving troops and military equipment into civilian areas, hoping to shield their resources from a U.S. attack.
Current and former U.S. military officials said, however, that any missile strikes would probably be aimed at Syrian army installations, bridges and other fixed targets rather than troops or mobile weapons systems. They said the Pentagon would almost certainly avoid attacks on chemical weapons depots because of the risk that poison gases would leak and disperse into the air.
“Most of the targets associated with this limited strike are fixed. They’re buildings, they’re facilities, they’re areas,” James E. Cartwright, a retired Marine general and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC’s “This Week.” “They’re not going to move.”
Congress is scheduled to return from recess Sept. 9, but Senate leaders said they would revise their agenda and hold a hearing on Syria on Tuesday.
Both parties appeared to be divided, and no one was predicting an easy victory for the president.
“I think at the end of the day, Congress will rise to the occasion,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on CNN. “This is a national security issue. This isn’t about Barack Obama versus the Congress. This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats.” Evidence of a chemical attack “is convincing and getting better,” he added.
Other senior Republicans said they doubted that Congress would sign off on a military strike.
“I don’t think they will,” Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.” He said likely outcomes in Syria are much more complicated than the one the Obama administration has drawn.
“It may sound real easy when people like Secretary Kerry say this is going to be quick and we’re going to go in and we’re going to send a few cruise missiles and wash our hands and go home,” said Inhofe, who opposes military action in Syria. “It doesn’t work that way. This could be a war in the Middle East. It’s serious.”
Loveday Morris in Beirut and Paul Kane and Sean Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.
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