THE CONFRONTATION between President Barack Obama and the US Congress over Libya intensified yesterday when House speaker John Boehner told reporters that a letter and report issued by the White House on Wednesday to justify US involvement in the conflict did not pass the “straight face” test.
A two-week ultimatum voted by the House of Representatives on June 3rd, demanding that Mr Obama comply with the War Powers Resolution, expires today. Congress passed the 1973 resolution in an attempt to limit the president’s power after undeclared wars in Korea and Vietnam. It requires congressional authorisation within 60 days of the US entering hostilities, with a possible extension to 90 days under extraordinary circumstances. The 90-day limit will expire on Sunday.
In a letter to the president on Tuesday, Mr Boehner said Congress was “frustrated by the lack of clarity over the administration’s strategic policies” towards Libya and by the White House’s failure to “respect the role of Congress”.
In a further escalation, Mr Boehner yesterday reminded the White House that Congress wields “the power of the purse” – the ability to cut funding for the unpopular Libyan war.
As a Democratic senator, Mr Obama voted against the Iraq war and criticised the Bush administration for abusing powers of detention and interrogation. He stands accused by Republicans of over-stepping his executive powers.
A Rasmussen poll published this week showed that only one in four Americans support action in Libya. Nearly 60 per cent said the administration should ask for congressional approval.
The White House responded to congressional complaints with a blitz of information on Wednesday that included a 32-page report on the Libyan war and a classified annex accessible only to members of Congress and staff with security clearances. The White House sought to refute allegations Congress was left out of the loop, noting that White House and Pentagon officials had conducted 46 briefings since the Nato operation began on March 19th.
The report argued that since operations shifted from US to Nato command on April 4th, the US has played only a supporting role which includes surveillance and refuelling missions and the use of missile-firing remotely piloted drones.
“We’re not engaged in sustained fighting,” White House counsel Bob Bauer said in a phone conference call with journalists. “There’s been no exchange of fire with hostile forces. We don’t have troops on the ground. We don’t risk casualties to those troops,” White House counsel Bob Bauer said in a telephone conference call with journalists.
Congressional opposition to the Libyan involvement has united left-wing Democrats and Republicans.
On Wednesday, Democratic representative Dennis Kucinich from Ohio and Republican representative Walter Jones from North Carolina filed a district court lawsuit in Washington DC against the president for allegedly violating the War Powers act.
The White House and Pentagon have insisted there will be no US “boots on the ground” in Libya, but retired US officers under contract to private firms are training Libyan rebels.
In addition to the dispute over executive versus legislative powers, the Libyan conflict raises the question of how technology changes the laws of war.
"The administration's theory implies that the president can wage war with drones and all manner of offshore missiles without having to bother with the War Powers Resolution's time limits," Jack Goldsmith, a justice department official during the Bush administration, told the Washington Post.
The White House report contains the most complete explanation to date of US involvement in Libya. Were the US to cease participation in the conflict, it argues, “it would seriously degrade the coalition’s ability to execute and sustain its operation designed to protect Libyan civilians and to enforce the no-fly zone and the arms embargo, as authorised under UN Security Council Resolution 1973”.
Congressional critics of the war say it is dragging on far longer than predicted, and denounce “mission creep” – that a conflict whose stated goal was to protect Libyan civilians quickly shifted into a quest to kill or overthrow Col Muammar Gadafy.
The White House said ending US support would “significantly increase the level of risk for the remaining allied and coalition forces”, probably leading to their withdrawal and damage to Nato’s credibility.
The Pentagon spent $716 million in the first two months of US operations, which will have cost $1.1 billion by September, the report noted.