War authorization measure

Corker weighs war authorization measure for ISIL fight

By Burgess Everett

Lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee want a closed briefing on the Obama administration’s Syria policy before deciding whether to pursue a vote to approve the ongoing U.S. campaign against the Islamic State.

In an interview, Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said that while he remains open to writing an Authorization of Military Force for the conflict with ISIL, he feels no urgency until and unless the administration tells him they need additional authorities. As the committee weighs a vote, panel members are hoping to be briefed late this week by officials from the State Department and Special Forces.

“We’ve scheduled a detailed briefing this week and if additional authorities are needed it’s something we’ll look at it,” Corker said. “It appears to me that the people that have been added into a conflict are still conducting operations against ISIS. And everyone in the administration that's been up here ... feels like they have the authority they need to take on ISIS.”

The recent announcement that 50 U.S. troops are on the ground in Syria, even as an American soldier was killed in Iraq, elicited a new round of calls from committee Democrats for an authorization vote. Ranking member Ben Cardin (D-Md.) bashed the “continued reliance on the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, which was passed in the wake of the 9-11 attacks to specifically counter Al Qaeda.”

But for Corker, the calculation is more complicated. While he believes the current AUMF for the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan last decade cover the ongoing conflict and ISIL, he’s not opposed to having a debate about the matter. But he and others on the panel are still not sure the committee can pass a resolution.

Starting a discussion of war, and then becoming bogged down and failing to pass something would perhaps be the worst outcome for the amiable chairman who continues to win plaudits from Democrats.

“I get that he has an institutional concern about the committee getting into something and being hopelessly divided,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a major proponent of starting up a debate. “My feeling is this thing keeps growing and expanding: Numbers of countries, numbers of troops, combat deaths, dollars spent, refugee crisis, Russia getting into the theater … what the debate will do is it will force the administration in a formal way to put a plan on the table.”

Corker said one caveat is the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: If the administration begins targeting him as well as ISIL, "that is a very different conversation" for the committee to have.

Corker hosted Secretary of State John Kerry last week; his counterpart in the House Ed Royce of California will have a pair of top-ranking State officials in on Wednesday to discuss Russia's role in Syria.