WASHINGTON – The House on Friday rebuked President Barack Obama for failing “to provide Congress with a compelling rationale” for the military campaign in Libya, but stopped short of demanding he withdraw U.S. forces from the fight.
By a vote of 257-156, the House approved a resolution that criticized Obama for not seeking congressional authorization for the 76-day-old campaign against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
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The resolution would give Obama 14 more days to convince Congress the attacks against Gadhafi are justified by U.S. interests.
The House rejected, by a vote of 265-148, a more drastic measure from one of the fixtures of antiwar sentiment in the House, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. That resolution would have demanded Obama pull out of the Libyan operation within 15 days.
With those votes, the House stepped back from a confrontation over how America goes to war.
But perhaps only temporarily.
On Friday, legislators from both parties said they might try more stringent measures if Obama does not make his case in the next two weeks. Their options include cutting funding for the operation, or voting formally to “disapprove” of the war.
“This resolution puts the president on notice. He has a chance to get this right,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, the author of the resolution that passed. “If he doesn’t . . . we will make it right.”
Obama ordered U.S. forces to join the international operation against Gadhafi on March 19. The operation is now led by NATO, but it relies heavily on American forces for logistics, intelligence and some air sorties. There are no U.S. troops on the ground in Libya.
So far, the campaign has failed to dislodge Gadhafi. But it has done something rare on Capitol Hill: It has angered legislators so much that they considered sticking their nose in the middle of an ongoing military campaign.
“This is not the king’s army,” Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., said during the House’s debate Friday. “This is an unconstitutional and illegal war. And I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.”
Many legislators said they were concerned that Obama had missed a deadline set by the 1973 War Powers Resolution. That Nixon-era law requires presidents to obtain congressional authorization for a foreign military operation within 60 days or withdraw.
Last month, the 60-day deadline came and went. Obama did neither.
White House officials have said their operation is legal and point out that they are regularly consulting with members of Congress.
“It is the view of this administration that we’ve acted in accordance with the War Powers Act because of this regular consultation,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday, in a press briefing aboard Air Force One.
But, on Capitol Hill, Obama’s handling of the situation appears to have poked at legislators’ sense of pride: many said it makes them feel irrelevant.
“It is part of the trend of an aggrandizing executive, and a derelict Congress,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., during Friday’s debate. He said Congress was not using the powers allotted to it: “We are not legislators, we are not deciders. We inquire, and we advise.”
During Friday’s debate, legislators from both parties said Boehner’s resolution was a good alternative to Kucinich’s, since it would not pull U.S. forces out of an ongoing NATO operation. Those who voted for Boehner’s bill included 25 Democrats and 232 Republicans.
“Do you poke your friend in the eye because you’re mad? No,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., meaning European allies like Britain and France. He said he hoped Obama would use the next two weeks to make a compelling case — citing the dangers, for example, of chemical weapons and antiaircraft missiles disappearing from Libyan stockpiles.
“When he makes his case, I think the American people will be with him,” Rogers said. “But he has to make the case.”
But it was clear that some legislators felt this rebuke was not enough. Many Republicans voted in favor of the bill from Kucinich, a perennial outlier even within the Democratic party. Kucinich’s bill was supported by 87 Republicans and only 61 Democrats.
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