[Senate Hearing 113-699]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-699
AUTHORIZATION FOR THE USE OF
MILITARY FORCE AGAINST ISIL
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 9, 2014
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire MARCO RUBIO, Florida
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
TOM UDALL, New Mexico JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
TIM KAINE, Virginia RAND PAUL, Kentucky
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
Daniel E. O'Brien, Staff Director
Lester E. Munson III, Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Robert Menendez, U.S. Senator from New Jersey............... 1
Hon. Bob Corker, U.S. Senator from Tennessee..................... 3
Hon. John F. Kerry, Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State,
Washington, DC................................................. 4
Prepared statement......................................... 8
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
ISIS Jihadis Get ``Slavery for Dummies,'' by Jamie Dettmer, from
The Daily Beast, December 9, 2014.............................. 63
(iii)
AUTHORIZATION FOR THE USE OF
MILITARY FORCE AGAINST ISIL
----------
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2014
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m., in
room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Robert Menendez
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Menendez, Boxer, Cardin, Shaheen, Coons,
Durbin, Udall, Murphy, Kaine, Markey, Corker, Risch, Rubio,
Johnson, Flake, McCain, Barrasso, and Paul.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT MENENDEZ,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY
The Chairman. This committee will come to order. Mr.
Secretary, we welcome you back to the committee, and we thank
you for being here today to discuss one of the most important
challenges that Congress must meet.
When you last appeared before this committee in September,
you asked Congress to authorize the use of military force
against ISIL, and we have an AUMF that the committee will
consider later this week. Today we are asking you to provide
the administration's views on this text and on your strategic
planning to counter ISIL along with the range of military
authorities you will need to achieve your goals.
This is the most important vote that any member of Congress
can take. It is a vote that potentially sends America's sons
and daughters into harm's way, and we do not take that
responsibility lightly. That reality demands our full attention
and consideration of three issues. First, whether military
action to counter ISIL is necessary and in the national
security interests of the United States. I believe that it is,
and I doubt anyone on the committee would disagree. I believe
that the risk of ISIL acquiring a safe haven in Iraq or Syria
or beyond from which it can create the operational capacity to
attack American interests and, at some point, America itself
demands action. Second, we need to understand the political and
military goals of this operation, how we expect to achieve
them, and the timeframe of this campaign.
Now, I know some may see this as limiting, but at the end
of the day Americans will not be supportive of an authorization
of an endless war. They do not want us to occupy Iraq for
decades. They do not want an ISIL recruitment AUMF allowing
ISIL to claim a jihad against Western crusaders that enhances
their ability to recruit followers who want to fight Americans.
In my view, deployment of ground troops at this time would be
Groundhog Day in Iraq all over again. Lastly, we need to hear
what authorities the Commander in Chief expects that he will
need from Congress to achieve his political and military goals
of defeating ISIL and closing the region to extremists and
terrorists.
Now, frankly, the process we undertake today is not the one
I sought. I had hoped to begin this conversation weeks ago so
that the entire Senate, not just this committee, would have
time to consider a comprehensive bipartisan AUMF. But that did
not happen, and we are here today to begin the process of
taking action. I think the American people expect their
congressional leaders to engage fully on this issue, to
understand the mission, the parameters, and the risks.
As I have said many times, I am not comfortable with the
administration's reliance on the 9/11 AUMF and the 2002 Iraq
AUMF. The 9/11 AUMF was adopted to counter al-Qaeda in the wake
of the September 11 attacks. No member could have foreseen that
we would still be acting under its authority 13 years later. I
do not believe that it provides the authority to pursue a new
enemy in different countries under completely different
circumstances than existed 13 years ago.
Congress, rather than the Executive, has the responsibility
and the authority to authorize military action and to declare
war for these very reasons. We are the check and balance on
Executive power regardless of who that Executive is, and if we
abandon that role, then we will have done a grave disservice to
the American people.
The text that I have presented is based on consultations
with members of the committee and addresses the authorities we
understand the White House is seeking. In my view, an ISIL-
specific AUMF should in broad terms authorize the President to
use military force against ISIL and associated persons or
forces, meaning individuals or organizations, fighting for, or
on behalf of, ISIL. It should limit the activities of our
forces so that there will be no large-scale ground combat
operations. If the President feels he needs that, then he
should ask for it and Congress can consider it. It should limit
the authorization to 3 years, and it should require the
administration to report to Congress every 60 days.
As drafted, the text would limit the authorization of force
by not allowing ground combat operations except as necessary
for the protection or rescue of U.S. soldiers or citizens, for
intelligence operations, spotters to enable airstrikes,
operational planning, or other forms of advice and assistance.
The authorization would be limited to 3 years.
The President has said that this will be a multiyear
campaign, but I do not believe that the AUMF should be
unlimited. A 3-year timeframe would allow this President and a
new President time to assess the situation and make a
responsible decision together with the Congress about whether
and how to continue military action. So that said, Mr.
Secretary, we would love to hear from the administration what
the framework is, what you see as the U.S.-led strategy to
counter ISIL.
Finally, let me conclude by saying I do not believe that
placing limitations in this AUMF sends a message of weakness to
our enemies. This authorization is intended to provide the
authority required by the Commander in Chief to do our part in
this multinational effort to defeat ISIL. ISIL is not only an
American problem. It is a global problem, and no ISIL strategy
can rely on American military power alone. We need to train
Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga forces; stand up
and train and equip programs for moderate Syrian fighters,
which are being authorized in the defense authorization bill
that the Congress will consider this week, work with coalition
partners to cut off terror financing and foreign fighter flows,
and provide humanitarian aid to address the urgent, desperate
situation of millions in the region whose lives have been
uprooted.
We look forward to working with you, Mr. Secretary, and the
administration on our mutual goal of degrading and defeating
ISIL. And, again, we welcome you back to the committee. Let me
turn to the distinguished ranking member for his remarks,
Senator Corker.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB CORKER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE
Senator Corker. Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing us to
move away from what we considered last week, which was an AUMF
that was an amendment to a water bill. I think that is a step
forward, and I appreciate you doing that. I want to thank the
Secretary for being here. I am not sure that--matter of fact, I
am pretty sure this is not where he would like to be this
afternoon, so I thank you for coming before our committee.
And I want to thank the chairman again for trying to set up
a process this week that was thorough, but that has not
occurred, and I think everyone understands that some of the
things that will be discussed obviously are things like boots
on the ground, and yet we have no defense presentations here.
We have no intelligence presentations here.
And I would also say that back in the Syrian issue, the
original Syrian issue, about a year and a half ago, where we
were authorizing something that--these are my words--was going
to last about 10 hours, we were able to go through a process
that was much more serious than the one we are going to have
this week. I think all of us know that whatever passes out of
the committee this week is not going to become law. I agree
with some comments that the chairman and I had earlier, and
that is, well, at least this will be a part of a process, and I
thank him for saying that, and I agree with that.
At the same time, just for what it is worth, I do not
think--I know we are not going to get to a place where the
House and Senate pass an authorization. And I just want to say
we weaken our Nation when we begin a process like that and we
do not actually enact it in law. We weaken our Nation. I think
we also hurt our Nation when we attempt to pass something out
on a partisan basis. One of the things about the earlier Syrian
AUMF was it had bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.
So, for what it is worth, regardless of what happens in these
meetings this week, my plan of conduct personally is to act in
such a way that hopefully will not harden positions, but will
build for an opportunity for us to act in a more full way down
the road.
I do want to say that I think the testimony today will be
helpful. I listened to the chairman's comments and then refer
to the fact that the 60-word authorization that was passed
September the 18th of 2001 has led to some outcomes that people
did not anticipate. And that is why from my standpoint I would
like to have something much more full, much more understood, a
strategy that is laid out in a way that I understand where we
are going prior to authorizing a complete authorization. If you
look at our Nation since World War II, we have had multiple
conflicts. It is hard to remember one that ended up with a very
satisfactory outcome. What we do is we tend to start these
conflicts without really teasing out from the administration in
most cases how we are going to actually go about being
successful, so we start the process.
In this particular case, it appears that an AUMF has been
offered to start the process that actually limits the Commander
in Chief's ability to carry it out. As a matter of fact, what
would happen under this authorization is right now we can use
all efforts, if you will, to go against al-Qaeda, but if we
were to pass this authorization as written, we would be saying
against ISIS we can only do certain things, that somehow we
must view them as being a lesser evil than the al-Qaeda
effort--the al-Qaeda group that we have gone after and the
Taliban group that we have gone after in Afghanistan.
I hope that, again, we will all conduct ourselves in a
manner this week that will not harden positions. We are not
going to do anything that passes, unfortunately. I do not think
that is good for our Nation. I think it is better to start this
at a time we can finish it with a Congress, by the way, that
will actually deal with this from start to finish. But I do
appreciate, again, the chairman deferring to this week trying
to make the process slightly better. And I certainly
appreciate, in spite of the fact we do not have a full
presentation, I appreciate Secretary Kerry being here today and
making the presentation he is going to make.
The Chairman. Mr. Secretary.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY, SECRETARY,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Secretary Kerry. Well, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member
Corker, and all my former colleagues, it is really is a
pleasure for me to be back before the Foreign Relations
Committee.
You know, during my time here, I think we got some things
right. We certainly wound up wishing we had done some things
differently. But I think most of us would agree, and I saw it
during both parties' chairmanships, including the years that
Senator Lugar and I were here, that this committee works best
and makes the greatest contribution to our foreign policy and
our country when it addresses the most important issues in a
strong, bipartisan fashion, and this is one of those issues.
The chairman and the ranking member have both said that. This
is one of the moments when a bipartisan approach really is
critical.
As you know, the President is committed to engaging with
the committee and all of your colleagues in the House and
Senate regarding a new authorization for the use of military
force--as we call it in short, the AUMF--specifically against
the terrorist group known as ISIL, though in the region it is
called Daesh, and specifically because they believe very deeply
it is not a state, and it does not represent Islam.
So we are looking for this authorization with respect to
efforts against Daesh and affiliated groups. And I want to
thank Chairman Menendez and the entire committee for leading
the effort in Congress and for all of the important work that
you have already done on this complicated and challenging
issue. It is important that this committee lead the Congress
and the country, and I think you know I believe that.
Now, I realize we may not get there overnight. I have heard
the ranking member's comments just now, and we understand the
clock. We certainly will not resolve everything and get there
this afternoon in the next few hours. But I do think this
discussion is important, and I think we all agree that this
discussion has to conclude with a bipartisan vote that makes
clear that this is not one party's fight against Daesh, but
rather that it reflects our united determination to degrade and
ultimately defeat Daesh.
And the world needs to understand that from the U.S.
Congress above all.
Our coalition partners need to know that from all of you,
and the men and women of our armed forces deserve to know it
from all of you, and Daesh's cadre of killers and rapist and
bigots need to absolutely understand it clearly. That is why
this matters. Now, toward that end, we ask you now to work
closely with us on a bipartisan basis to develop language that
provides a clear signal of support for our ongoing military
operations against Daesh.
Our position on the text is really pretty straightforward.
The authorization, or AUMF, should give the President the clear
mandate and the flexibility he needs to successfully prosecute
the armed conflict against Daesh and affiliated forces, but the
authorization should also be limited and specific to the threat
posed by that group and by forces associated with it. Now, I
will come back to the question of the AUMF in a minute. But we
believe that as we embark on this important discussion, context
matters. All of us want to see the United States succeed, and
all of us want to see Daesh defeated, so we are united on that.
And I want to bring the committee up to date on precisely where
our campaign now stands.
Mr. Chairman, less than 3 months ago, perhaps 2\1/2\
months, perhaps a little more, have passed since the
international community came together in a coalition whose
purpose is to degrade and defeat Daesh. Two and a half months
ago it did not exist--not ``it'' Daesh, but the coalition and
the 60 countries that assembled recently in Brussels. We
organized, and I had the privilege of chairing, the first
ministerial level meeting of the coalition last week in
Brussels. We heard Iraqi Prime Minister al-Abadi describe to us
the effort that his leadership team is making to bring Iraqis
together, strengthen their security forces, take the fight to
Daesh, and improve and reform governance. We also heard Gen.
John Allen, our special envoy to the coalition, review the
progress that is being made in the five lines of coalition
effort: to shrink the territory controlled by Daesh, to cut off
its financing, to block its recruitment of foreign fighters, to
expose the hypocrisy of its absurd religious claims, and to
provide humanitarian aid to the victims of its violence.
During the meeting, I have to tell you I was particularly
impressed by the leadership activism, and, quite frankly, the
anger toward Daesh that is being displayed by Arab and Muslim
states. Governments that do not always agree on other issues
are coming together in opposition to this profoundly anti-
Islamic terrorist organization. And now, to be clear, ISIL
continues to commit serious, vicious crimes, and it still
controls more territory than al-Qaeda ever did. It will be
years, not months, before it is defeated. We know that. But our
coalition is measurably already making a difference.
To date, we have launched more than 1,150 today airstrikes
against Daesh. These operations have reduced its leadership,
undermined its propaganda, squeezed its resources, damaged its
logistical and operational capabilities, and compelled it to
disperse its forces and change its tactics. It is becoming
clear that the combination of coalition airstrikes and local
ground partners is a potent one. In fact, virtually every time
a local Iraqi force has worked in coordination with our air
cover, they have not only defeated Daesh, they have routed it.
In Iraq, progress also continues in the political arena,
and this is no less important frankly. Last week after years of
intensive efforts, the Government in Baghdad reached an interim
accord with the Kurdistan regional government on hydrocarbon
exports and revenue-sharing. That has been long sought after,
and it is a big deal that they got it. It is good for the
country's economy, but it is even better for its unity and
stability and for the imprint of the direction that they are
moving in.
In addition, the new Defense Minister is a Sunni, whose
appointment was an important step toward a more inclusive
government. And with his leadership, and that of the new
Interior Minister, the process of reforming the nation's
security forces has a genuine chance for success. Meanwhile,
the Prime Minister is taking bold steps to improve relations
with his country's neighbors, and those neighbors, including
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey, have been responding. Now, I
want to underscore, it is too early to declare a new era in
regional relations. But countries that had been drifting apart
or even in conflict with each other, are now in the process of
coming together and breaking down the barriers that were
created. And that is helpful to our coalition, and it is bad
news for Daesh.
Beating back the threat that Daesh poses to Iraq is job
number one for our Iraqi partners and for our coalition. But
even if the Government in Baghdad fulfills its
responsibilities, it is still going to face a dire challenge
because of the events in Syria. Now, if you recall, the
coalition's decision to carry out airstrikes in Syria came in
response to a request from Iraq for help in defending against
Daesh's brazen attack. To date, we and our Arab partners have
conducted over 500 airstrikes in Syria, targeting areas where
Daesh had concentrated its fighters, targeting on command and
control nodes, finance centers, training camps, and oil
refineries. Our objective is to further degrade Daesh's
capabilities and to deny it the freedom of movement and
resupply that it has previously enjoyed.
At the same time, we will continue to build up the
capabilities of the moderate opposition, and here I want to
thank the members of this committee and many others in Congress
who have supported these efforts and supported them very
strongly. Our goal is to help the moderate forces stabilize
areas under their control, defend civilians, empower them to go
on offense against Daesh, and promote the conditions for a
negotiated political transition, recognizing, as I think almost
every person has said, there no military solution.
Now, Mr. Chairman, we all know that Daesh is a threat to
America's security and interests. It poses an unaccepted danger
to our personnel and facilities in Iraq and elsewhere. It seeks
to destroy both the short- and long-term stability of the
broader Middle East, and it is exacerbating a refugee crisis
that has placed extraordinary economic and political burden on
our friends and allies in the region.
One thing is certain. Daesh will continue to spread until
or unless it is stopped. So there should be no question that
we, with our partners, have a moral duty and a profound
international security interest and national security interest
in stopping them. That is where the fight against Daesh now
stands. A coalition that 2\1/2\ months ago did not even exist
is now taking the fight to the enemy. It was cobbled together
by strong American leadership and by steady, intensive
diplomacy with countries that disagree on many things, but all
share an aversion to extremism.
Now, I think all of you would agree, we need to summon that
same determination to find the common ground here in
Washington. And that is why in the hours, days, and weeks to
come we are determined to work with you, first and foremost to
develop an approach that can generate broad bipartisan support,
while ensuring that the President has the flexibility to
successfully prosecute this effort. That is the balance.
What do we envision specifically regarding an AUMF?
Importantly, and I think I will lay out today a very clear set
of principles that I hope will be instructive, we do not think
an AUMF should include a geographic limitation. We do not
anticipate conducting operations in countries other than Iraq
or Syria, but to the extent that ISIL poses a threat to
American interests and personnel in other countries, we would
not want an AUMF to constrain our ability to use appropriate
force against ISIL in those locations if necessary. In our
view, it would be a mistake to advertise to ISIL that there are
safe havens for them outside of Iraq or Syria.
On the issue of combat operations, I know this is hotly
debated, as it ought to be and as it is, with passionate and
persuasive arguments on both sides. The President has been
crystal clear that his policy is that U.S. military forces will
not be deployed to conduct ground combat operations against
ISIL, and that will be the responsibility of local forces
because that is what our local partners and allies want. That
is what we learned works best in the context of our Iraq
experience. That is what is best for preserving our coalition,
and, most importantly, it is in the best interests of the
United States. However, while we certainly believe that this is
the soundest possible policy, and while the President has been
clear he is open to clarifications on the use of U.S. combat
troops to be outlined in an AUMF, it does not mean that we
should preemptively bind the hands of the Commander in Chief or
our commanders in the field in responding to scenarios and
contingencies that are impossible to foresee.
And finally, with respect to duration, we can be sure that
this confrontation is not going to be over quickly, as the
President and I have said many times. We understand, however,
the desire of many to avoid a completely open-ended
authorization. And I note that Chairman Menendez has suggested
that a 3-year limitation should be put into an AUMF. We support
that proposal, but we support it subject to a provision that we
should work through together that provides for extension in the
event that circumstances require it, and we think it ought to
be advertised as such up front.
To sum up, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I ask
for your help in, above all, approving on a bipartisan basis
with the strongest vote possible because everybody will read
messages into that vote, an authorization for use of military
force in connection with our campaign and that of our many
partners in order to defeat a terrible, vicious, different kind
of enemy. Almost a quarter of a century ago when I was here,
then a 47-year-old Senator with certainly a darker head of
hair, President George H.W. Bush, sent his Secretary of State,
James Baker, to ask this committee for the authority to respond
militarily to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The country was
divided. Congress was divided. But this committee drafted an
authorization, and it passed the Congress with a majority that
the New York Times described as decisive and bipartisan. And
armed with that mandate, Secretary Baker built the coalition
that won the first gulf war.
Now, that was a different time, and it was a different
conflict, and it called for a different response. But it was
also this body, this committee and then the Senate, at its
bipartisan best. And what we need from you today to strengthen
and unify our own coalition is exactly that kind of cooperative
effort. The world will be watching what we together are willing
and able to do, and this, obviously, is not a partisan issue.
It is a leadership issue. It is a test of our government's
ability and our Nation's ability to stand together. It is a
test of our generation's resolve to build a safer and more
secure world. And I know every single one of you wants to
defeat ISIL.
A bold bipartisan mandate would strengthen our hand, and I
hope that today you can move close to that goal. So thank you,
and I am pleased to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Kerry follows:]
Prepared Statement of Secretary of State John F. Kerry
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Corker--Senators--good afternoon,
thank you for having me back to the Foreign Relations Committee.
During my time here, we got many things right, and some things we
wish we had done differently. But I think that most of us would agree--
and I saw it during both parties' chairmanships, including the years
Senator Lugar and I were here--that this committee works best, and
makes the greatest contribution to our foreign policy, when it
addresses the most important issues on a strong, bipartisan basis.
This is one of those issues, and one of those moments, when that
approach is critical.
As you know, the President is committed to engaging with this
committee and your colleagues in the Senate and House of
Representatives regarding a new Authorization to Use Military Force
against the terrorist group known as ISIL and affiliated groups. I want
to thank Chairman Menendez and the entire committee for leading this
effort in Congress and for all of the important work you have already
done on this complicated and challenging issue.
I realize we may not get there overnight--and we certainly won't
resolve everything and get there this afternoon. But I think we all
agree that this discussion must conclude with a bipartisan vote that
makes clear that this is not one party's fight against ISIL but rather
that it reflects our unified determination to degrade and ultimately
defeat ISIL. Our coalition partners need to know it. The men and women
of our armed forces need to know it. And ISIL's cadres of killers,
rapists, and bigots need to understand it.
Toward that end, we ask you now to work closely with us on a
bipartisan basis to develop language that provides a clear signal of
support for our ongoing military operations against ISIL.
Our position on the text is pretty straightforward--the
Authorization--or AUMF--should give the President the clear mandate and
flexibility he needs to successfully prosecute the armed conflict
against ISIL and affiliated forces; but the Authorization should also
be limited and specific to the threat posed by that group and by forces
associated with it.
I will return to the question of the AUMF in a minute, but as we
embark on this important discussion, context matters. All of us want to
see the United States succeed and ISIL to be defeated, and I want to
bring the committee up to date on where our campaign now stands.
Mr. Chairman, less than 3 months have passed since the
international community came together in a coalition whose purpose is
to degrade and defeat ISIL. This past Wednesday, in Brussels, we
organized and I had the privilege of chairing the first ministerial-
level meeting of that coalition. We heard Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi
describe to us the effort that his leadership team is making to bring
Iraqis together, strengthen their security forces, take the fight to
ISIL, and improve and reform governance. We also heard General John
Allen, our special envoy, review the progress that is being made in the
five lines of coalition effort: to shrink the territory controlled by
ISIL, cut off its financing, block its recruitment of foreign fighters,
expose the hypocrisy of its absurd religious claims, and provide
humanitarian aid to the victims of its violence.
During the meeting, I was especially impressed by the leadership,
activism and quite frankly, the anger toward ISIL that is being
displayed by Arab and Muslim states. Governments that do not always
agree on other issues are coming together in opposition to this
profoundly anti-Islamic terrorist organization.
Now, to be clear: ISIL continues to commit vicious crimes and it
still controls more territory than al-Qaeda ever did. It will be years,
not months, before it is defeated. But our coalition is already making
a big difference.
To date, we have launched more than 1,100 air strikes against ISIL
targets. These operations have reduced ISIL's leadership, undermined
its propaganda, squeezed its resources, damaged its logistical and
operational capabilities, and compelled it to disperse its forces and
change its tactics. It is becoming clear that the combination of
coalition air strikes and local ground partners is a potent one. In
fact, virtually every time a local Iraqi force has worked in
coordination with our air cover, they've not only defeated ISIL;
they've routed ISIL.
In Iraq, progress also continues in the political arena. Last week,
after years of intensive efforts, the government in Baghdad reached an
interim accord with the Kurdistan Regional Government on hydrocarbon
exports and revenue-sharing. That is good for the country's economy but
even more for its unity and stability. In addition, the new Defense
Minister is a Sunni whose appointment was an important step toward a
more inclusive government. With his leadership and that of the new
Interior Minister, the process of reforming the nation's security
forces has a genuine chance for success.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is taking bold steps to improve
relations with his country's neighbors--and those neighbors including
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey--have been responding. It's too early
to declare a new era in regional relations, but countries that had been
drifting apart are in the process of coming together. That's helpful to
our coalition and bad news for ISIL.
Beating back the threat that ISIL poses to Iraq is job No. 1 for
our Iraqi partners and for our coalition. But even if the government in
Baghdad fulfills its responsibilities, it will still face a dire
challenge because of events in Syria.
If you recall, the coalition's decision to carry out air strikes in
Syria came in response to a request from Iraq for help in defending
against ISIL's brazen attack.
To date, we and our Arab partners have conducted over 500
airstrikes in Syria, targeting areas where ISIL has concentrated its
fighters and on command and control nodes, finance centers, training
camps, and oil refineries. Our objective is to further degrade ISIL's
capabilities and to deny it the freedom of movement and resupply it had
previously enjoyed.
At the same time, we will continue to build up the capabilities of
the moderate opposition. And here I want to thank the members of this
committee and many others in Congress who have so strongly supported
these efforts. Our goal is to help the moderate forces stabilize areas
under their control; defend civilians; empower them to go on the
offensive against ISIL; and promote the conditions for a negotiated
political transition.
Mr. Chairman, we all know that ISIL is a threat to America's
security and interests. It poses an unacceptable danger to our
personnel and facilities in Iraq and elsewhere. It seeks to destroy
both the short and long term stability of the broader Middle East. And
it is exacerbating a refugee crisis that has placed a terrible economic
and political burden on our friends and allies in the region.
One thing is certain. ISIL will continue to spread until it is
stopped. So there should be no question that we, with our partners,
have a moral duty and a profound interest in stopping them.
That is where the fight against ISIL now stands. A coalition that
2\1/2\ months ago did not even exist is now taking the fight to the
enemy. It was cobbled together by strong American leadership and by
steady, intensive diplomacy with countries that disagree on many
things, but share an aversion to extremism. I think all of you would
agree: we need to summon that same determination to find common ground
here in Washington.
That is why, in the hours, days, and weeks to come, we are
determined to work with you first and foremost to develop an approach
that can generate broad, bipartisan support, while ensuring the
President has the flexibility he needs to successfully prosecute this
effort.
What do we envision? Importantly--we do not think an AUMF should
include a geographic limitation. We don't anticipate conducting
operations in countries other than Iraq or Syria. But to the extent
that ISIL poses a threat to American interests and personnel in other
countries, we would not want an AUMF to constrain our ability to use
appropriate force against ISIL in those locations if necessary. In our
view, it would be a mistake to advertise to ISIL that there are safe
havens for them outside of Iraq and Syria.
On the issue of combat operations: I know that this is hotly
debated, with passionate and persuasive arguments on both sides. The
President has been clear that his policy is that U.S. military forces
will not be deployed to conduct ground combat operations against ISIL.
That will be the responsibility of local forces because that is what
our local partners and allies want, what is best for preserving our
coalition and, most importantly, what is in the best interest of the
United States.
However, while we certainly believe this is the soundest policy,
and while the President has been clear he's open to clarifications on
the use of U.S. combat troops to be outlined in an AUMF, that does not
mean we should preemptively bind the hands of the Commander in Chief--
or our commanders in the field--in responding to scenarios and
contingencies that are impossible to foresee.
Finally, with respect to duration, we can be sure that this
confrontation will not be over quickly. We understand, however, the
desire of many to avoid a completely open-ended authorization. I note
that Chairman Menendez has suggested a 3-year limitation; we support
that proposal, subject to provisions for extension that we would be
happy to discuss.
To sum up, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I ask for
your help and support in approving--on a bipartisan basis--an
Authorization for Use of Military Force in connection with our campaign
and that of our many partners to defeat a terrible and dangerous enemy.
Almost a quarter-century ago, when I was a 47-year-old Senator with
a darker head of hair, President George H.W. Bush sent his Secretary of
State, James Baker, to ask this committee for the authority to respond
militarily to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The country was divided.
Congress was divided. But this committee drafted an authorization and
it passed the Congress with a majority that the New York Times
described as ``decisive and bipartisan.'' Armed with that mandate,
Secretary Baker built the coalition that won the first gulf war.
That was a different time and a different conflict that called for
a different response. But it was also this body at its bipartisan
best--and what we need from you today, to strengthen and unify our own
coalition. The world will be watching what we together are willing and
able to do. This is obviously not a partisan issue; it is a leadership
issue. It is a test of our government's ability and our Nation's
ability to stand together. It is a test of our generation's resolve to
build a safer and more secure world. I know every one of you wants to
defeat ISIL. A bold, bipartisan mandate would strengthen our hand, and
I hope we can move closer to that today.
Thank you, and now I would be pleased to respond to any questions
you might have.
The Chairman. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. Let me just
say there is, I think, undoubtedly, and I will let members
express themselves, there is a bold, bipartisan view that we
need to defeat ISIL. I think there is no debate about that.
Virtually every political element of the spectrum, from those
who might be considered dovish to those who might be considered
hawkish and everybody in between, I think has a common
collective goal of defeating ISIL.
Now, I must say that the administration has not sent us 5,
6 months into this engagement an AUMF. And had the
administration sent us an AUMF, maybe we would be better versed
as to what the administration seeks or does not seek, and that
would be the subject of congressional debate. But that has not
happened. And with reference to my distinguished ranking
member's comments, you know, if we wait for that and it is not
forthcoming by this or any other administration, then the
absence of getting an AUMF from the executive branch and
Congress not acting because it is waiting for an AUMF from the
Executive would, in essence, create a de facto veto of the
constitutional prerogative and responsibilities that the
Congress has. And so, there are many of us on the committee who
in the absence of receiving an AUMF for the purposes of
understanding the administration's views felt that it is
Congress' responsibility to move forward and define it.
Now, no one has worked harder in the last 2 years as the
chairman of this committee to make this a bipartisan effort,
not just on that AUMF, but across the spectrum, and I am proud
to say that working with the ranking member we have virtually
passed out every major piece of legislation on some of the most
critical issues on our time from the AUMF, on Syria, and the
use of chemical weapons, to OAS reform, to North Korea, to
Iran. On a whole host of issues, they have been bipartisan.
Virtually every nomination, except, I think, for three of
hundreds, have largely been on a bipartisan basis. So there is
no one who has driven harder in this process.
But there are some principled views here that may not be
reconcilable. And it starts with when the administration
itself, and I think you have reiterated what you said earlier
in your previous visit here, that the President has been clear
that his policy is that the United States military forces will
not be deployed to conduct ground combat operations against
ISIL, that it will be the responsibility of local forces
because that is what our local partners and allies want, what
is best for preserving our coalition and, most importantly,
what is in the best interests of the United States.
Now, there are those members of the committee and in the
Congress who have a much different view than that. They would
have a very robust and open-ended use of combat forces in this
regard. And if the administration wants that, then it should
come forth and ask for that. But based upon your testimony and
based upon what the President wants, or has said that he wants,
I reject the characterization of my text as something that is
constraining to the President. My text gives the administration
the ability to do everything it is doing now and then some.
The text makes clear that activities on the ground for the
protection and rescue of members of the U.S. Armed Forces would
be allowed; that activities on the ground in support of
intelligence collection and sharing would be allowed; that
activities on the ground to enable airstrikes by identifying
appropriate targets would be allowed; that activities on the
ground that support operational planning would be allowed; and
that activities on the ground, including advice and assistance
through forces fighting ISIL in Iraq or Syria, would be
allowed. Obviously airstrikes would be allowed.
So everything that the administration is doing and has said
that it seeks to do and has said, using the President's own
words when he said, which we incorporated into the AUMF when he
said--the President articulated five lines of effort in the
campaign to counter ISIL, including supporting regional
military partners, stopping the flow of foreign fighters,
cutting off ISIL's access to financing, addressing urgent
humanitarian needs, and contesting ISIL's messaging.
Nothing in this AUMF constrains the administration or the
President's efforts in any of that regard. Now, indeed
authorizing U.S. ground troops is a subject of debate here, but
my text precludes America from being dragged into another
unlimited and unending war in the Middle East. It does preclude
the deployment of large-scale combat forces, which was done in
Iraq, I think, at great cost and far too great a cost in my
view.
So unless I hear something differently, how would you have
us reconcile the view of some members of this committee who
want combat forces to ultimately enter into Iraq and maybe
Syria as well, versus the President's own stated view that that
is not what either we or our allies want?
Secretary Kerry. Well, Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me
say I am not characterizing your bill negatively whatsoever. I
think it is very close to what the President could support,
with the exception of a few of the things that I mentioned, but
those are a few. I mean, you have done a good job of pulling
together a broad authorization. And there is a sort of
fundamental core that the administration would absolutely
support. What I mentioned are a few things that we think we
ought to be able to reconcile with some work amongst ourselves.
But I think that the President feels, first of all, that
with respect to when and the timing of this, I am here to work
with you on behalf of the administration to get this done. And
the President has said all along he wants an AUMF, and there is
nothing in the law that requires the administration to be the
initiator of that. And as I have pointed out to you, there is
past record of this committee taking the lead in drafting it.
We are delighted to have your draft, and we think it is a good
draft.
But, as I suggested to you, we believe, number one, in
principle and, number two, in practice in certain situations
there are limitations on the choices to the President because
none of us can imagine all of the circumstances that may arise.
You know, would a hostage attempt have been permitted? What
happens if chemical weapons fall into the hands of ISIL, or
about to, and there is an emergency need to prevent that from
happening because there is a cache that was not reported that
we discovered through intelligence?
The Chairman. The response to that would be an open-ended
authorization that would give the President the wherewithal to
do any of those and any other things, and, well, not only this
President who has 2 years on his term, but whoever would be
elected by the American people as the next President of the
United States for another year under the authorization as we
envision it. And the reason we gave 3 years is because the
President himself has said this is a multiyear campaign. We
would get past this administration. We would give a year to the
new President to come forth and talk about how the war should
be prosecuted.
Secretary Kerry. But let me suggest this, Mr. Chairman,
because, again, we want to get a broad-based vote. You said
some of this may be irreconcilable. You know, I am not sure
that it ought to be irreconcilable because the President could
not have been more clear about his policy. No one that I know
of is in some favor of some open-ended effort, and we have just
accepted the idea of the limitation of time with some capacity
for review that we ought to work on together so it is sensible.
But, you know, it seems to me that there is no way to go
through all of the hypotheticals, and you simply wind up tying
the hands----
The Chairman. Well, it sounds to me like you are making a
case for a rather open-ended authorization, which if that is
what the administration wants, it should say it. But, you know,
I would just simply----
Secretary Kerry. No, no, no, absolutely----
The Chairman. I would simply say to the Secretary that, in
fact, the very elements of what the President described as the
strategy has been rejected by members, particularly on the
other side of the aisle, saying they do not believe that that
is a strategy that can succeed. That is a question of debate,
but they believe that is not a strategy that can succeed.
Secretary Kerry. Right.
The Chairman. And they believe, as I am sure you will hear
as this unfolds, that there are those members who believe that
the only way to achieve with this strategy is to have combat
forces and the President having the wherewithal to issue those.
So, yes, we cannot imagine every single circumstance, and we
think the language has made it sufficiently broad for the
President to engage in everything----
Secretary Kerry. Well, here's what----
The Chairman [continuing]. But the use of long-term combat
troops on the ground, which, of course, is totally different
than what the President has said.
Secretary Kerry. What I suggest, Mr. Chairman, because I
think it is a much better way of trying to resolve this because
we are not going to be able to exhaust all hypotheticals and
resolve that sort of philosophic debate, is if we sit down very
specifically and work through what may be the best balance of
this that might be able to bring people from both sides to the
table.
The Chairman. Well, we would--I am always----
Secretary Kerry. The important thing is a broad-based----
The Chairman. We are always open to that, and, in fact, we
have shared several drafts with the White House chief counsel
on this issue as we have with the rest of the administration.
But to be very honest with you, we get relatively little in
response, so if there is a desire to have language that can
accomplish the mutual goal, we are certainly willing and open
to receive it. But in the absence of it--the absence of
language does not--is not going to create a permanent veto of
the committee's actions, of the Members of the Senate's
actions, and the administration needs to know that. But----
Secretary Kerry. Mr. Chairman, I want you to know 100
percent, President Obama has no intention of sending combat
troops in, but he believes, and I believe, and I think all of
us share the sense that there is a way to come together to work
through how do we resolve this difference in a way that is not
open-ended, but I think putting a time limit on it is serious
statement about the administration----
The Chairman. Well, you know, there is a famous movie that
says show me the money. I would say show me the language, and
maybe we could get there.
Senator Corker.
Secretary Kerry. Well, let us work on it. That is the
point.
Senator Corker. I find this conversation interesting. I
would say that I do believe that what the Secretary just said
is true, and that is that if we sat down, understood what
authority the President, the White House, Secretary of State is
seeking, I believe there is a way for us to craft legislation
that would be bipartisan, but, more importantly, craft
legislation that the administration supports. I mean, passing
legislation--passing a bill out of this committee or an
authorization is one thing. Passing something on the House and
Senate floor is quite another. And the only way that is going
to happen is if the administration is firmly behind what we do.
And, again, I would just say to every member here, I think
it is harmful to our Nation to begin the process of an
authorization and not see it through to the end, and I thought
the last effort harmed us greatly. And so, again, I understand
the frustration by the chairman. I realize he has tried to have
witnesses up here. It has not occurred. But I do believe
sitting down with the Secretary and sitting down with the
general counsel at the White House as we did last time, I
believe that we can come up with authorization that passes the
test for the bulk of the members of this committee and actually
enacted into law.
Let me ask this question. Do you believe the administration
today has the authorities that it needs to carry out the
operations that it is carrying out?
Secretary Kerry. Very clearly, yes.
Senator Corker. So I will say there are some members of
this committee that believe otherwise, and believe that the
best way we can be effective in making ourselves relevant is
just to pass legislation that makes what you are doing legal,
and somehow that makes us relevant. That is beyond me. I do not
see how that is the case. It seems to me that part of what is
missing here is an understanding, so I do not think I am in the
place that the chairman characterizes many of the folks on our
side of the aisle.
What I would like to understand is how we are going to go
about ensuring that we have an outcome here that is worthy of
the effort. Again, I go back to what I said in the opening
comments. We have had multiple efforts since World War II that
just candidly did not end well. They did not produce the
outcomes. That is how you made your name in the public world
was talking about that. And I would just say that for all of us
to conduct a situation where we pass an AUMF, I think it would
be good to understand how the administration is going to go
about it.
And so, let me ask you this. Is the strategy evolving, yes
or no? The strategy of how you are going to go about this
evolving.
Secretary Kerry. Well----
Senator Corker. Are you building--are you building on
successes right now to try to more--are we going to go against
Assad? Let me just ask you that question since----
Secretary Kerry [continuing]. Well, let me--look----
Senator Corker. Do we plan to militarily go against Assad?
Secretary Kerry. Not at this moment, no.
Senator Corker. Do we--do you think----
Secretary Kerry. Can I--let me answer the question a little
more fully so you understand. When you say do we plan to go
militarily against Assad, do we, the United States, plan at
this moment to attack Assad as part of this? No. We are
asking----
Senator Corker. Not as part of this.
Secretary Kerry. We are not asking for--we are asking for
an ISIL-oriented authorization.
Senator Corker. Are you going explicitly ask--are you going
to explicitly ask for that?
Secretary Kerry. Let me just finish. But we are heavily
engaged, thanks to you and the passage of the $500 million
authorization and now the training and equip effort that is--
all the ground work is being laid now, in addition to other
things that you are aware of, to support those who are engaged
in the fight against Assad directly. And many of our coalition
partners are particularly focused on the Assad component of the
equation. So when I say are we the United States? No, and
certainly not as part of this authorization, but as part of the
policy. But let me--let me try to help you here a little bit
here on this. We----
Senator Corker. Help me this way. Are you going to ever
explicitly seek an authorization from Congress?
Secretary Kerry. We are seeking authorization now with
respect to----
Senator Corker. You are--and if you do not receive that
authorization, will you continue the operation? That is an
explicit seeking. So are you----
Secretary Kerry. The authorization for what we are doing
now in both Iraq and Syria?
Senator Corker. That is correct.
Secretary Kerry. Absolutely we will continue it because we
believe we have full authority under the 2001 AUMF and parts of
the 2002. But here is where I want to help if I can.
Senator Corker. Good.
Secretary Kerry. If Congress passes a new Daesh-specific
AUMF, we will support the inclusion of language in the new AUMF
that will clarify that the Daesh-specific AUMF rather than the
2001 AUMF is the basis for the use of military force. And I
think that will comfort to a lot of people. Number two, we will
also support the repeal of the 2002 AUMF as part of an effort
to clarify that the ISIL-specific AUMF would be the only source
of legitimacy for the use of military force against Daesh. And,
therefore, we would live under the confines of what we pass
here. And I think that is a pretty, you know, clear and
important addition to this discussion.
Senator Corker. So, do you plan to send us a draft that
does these things from which to work off of?
Secretary Kerry. Well, in all fairness, we think that the
chairman has a draft, which obviously there are some
differences of opinion about parts of it. We have a difference
of opinion about part of it. For instance, there is a component
which is more of a technical fix which refers to the--includes
the forces that are included in--you know, associated forces.
And we believe that the fighting alongside language that has
been interpreted out of the 2001 AUMF is important to a full
explanation of how we can fight this effectively. So there are
technical fixes like that. But the fundamental draft that the
committee has is a fair starting point, and we propose we work
from there.
Senator Corker. So what you are proposing is that the
administration begin to engage more fully with Congress to
develop an AUMF using some language that has been drafted, but
to edit and change that in such a way that you believe more
fully addresses the issue we are talking about. Is that
correct?
Secretary Kerry. I am not proposing, Senator. I am here
doing it.
Senator Corker. Okay.
Secretary Kerry. And we are ready to----
Senator Corker. And so, what do you think would be the
appropriate timeframe to work through all of that? I know that
many of us would like----
Secretary Kerry. Well, I think over the course of the next
days. I mean, let us--I do not think it is going to be finished
by Thursday or Friday, but I think that we could engage in this
effort over the next days, and as we come back in early
January, let us----
Senator Corker. And do you think it would be helpful----
Secretary Kerry. Believe me, we are anxious to operate
with--this helps everybody.
Senator Corker. Yes, I actually----
Secretary Kerry. This is an important effort for the
Congress, an important effort for the country----
Senator Corker. Other than not explicitly asking for an
authorization, to be candid, I very much appreciate what you
are saying, and think it is exactly the way we should go about
it, and I appreciate you coming up here. I know there are
Members on the other side of the aisle that feel very
differently about that and feel that we should act this week,
and I understand that and appreciate it. I plan to conduct
myself in a way, again, that we do not harden ourselves against
each other prior to the first of the year when we are a little
more closer to the line.
Secretary Kerry. Senator, if we could do it in the next
days, we are not trying to not do it.
Senator Corker. Well, I mean, I think most of us would like
to hear from the Pentagon. I mean, you are talking about boots
on the ground, and I think that would be a helpful thing to
hear about. And I think having some intelligence briefings, and
typically, again, we would sit down with the general counsel
from the White House and the State Department to work through
the language. But I appreciate you coming here.
Secretary Kerry. Thank you. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Corker. And I understand where we are, and
hopefully we will move toward a real bipartisan authorization
that most of us can get behind.
The Chairman. Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Thank you. Secretary Kerry, thank you for
the work you do. You know, I believe President Obama has the
authority to go after ISIL because I voted to give any
President the authority to go after the outgrowth of al-Qaeda,
so I feel he has got it. But having said that, this is a threat
to humanity that I do not think humankind has seen before, so I
am assuming you understand why many of us want to go on record
on this.
As a former Senator, can you just understand that, not
getting into the details, which I personally think our
chairman, working specifically with all of us here, and
particularly Senator Kaine, has worked so hard to get something
that I think reflects exactly what the President said he
wanted. But I will not get into the details with you because,
you know what, that is our job to vote. Now, it is your job to
do something else, and you do it well, but we have got to do
our job.
So I just say from the standpoint of a former Senator, you
understand then why so many of us would like to go on record on
this threat. Is that correct?
Secretary Kerry. Absolutely, Senator. I have total respect
for it, and I understand it, and I welcome it.
Senator Boxer. Right.
Secretary Kerry. The President does, too. I mean, again, I
want to----
Senator Boxer. Because let me be clear----
Secretary Kerry. The President wants an AUMF.
Senator Boxer. Well, let me be clear. He may have it from a
majority of this committee today, and I am hoping it can be
bipartisan. The last time he got it was more of a bipartisan
vote, and it had to do with Syria, and this committee acted
with our chairman and ranking member. And we set forward an
AUMF that had limitations on it, and it had a tremendous
impact. We did not wait to talk and talk and talk because we
knew that Assad had these chemical weapons, and as a result of
our vote, even without it going to the floor--I say to my
friend, Senator Corker, even without it going to the floor, it
had a salutary effect on what happened.
So I want to talk to you about an amazing hearing I had
with Senator Paul this morning about ISIL, about their
brutality and their abuses specifically. We had an amazing
panel, including a woman who is the only Yazidi Member of
Parliament, talk to us about what it is like. And I want to
place in the record an article that appeared today in the Daily
Beast, and it is taken from sort of a question and answer--it
is unbelievable--that answers questions of the recruits as they
come into ISIL, or Daesh, or whatever we want to call them. And
I will defer to you eventually on what we settle on. But can I
put this in the record?
The Chairman. Without objection.
Senator Boxer. Okay. I am going to give you a sample. These
questions are disgusting, so I just want people to not to be
upset with me, but I think we cannot, you know, not talk about
this. So here is one question: ``Can all unbelieving women be
taken captive?'' Answer: ``There is no dispute among the
scholars that it is permissible to capture unbelieving women.''
Question: ``Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female
captive?'' Answer: ``It is permissible to have sexual
intercourse with a female captive.'' And then they quote Allah
because if you do you are free from blame. Question five: ``Is
it permissible to have intercourse with a female captive
immediately after taking possession [of her]?'' Answer: ``If
she is a virgin, he [her master]''--her master--``can have
intercourse with her immediately after taking possession of
her. However, if she is not, her uterus must be purified
[first].''
This is disgusting garbage. And I will tell you, I
understand your desire to put this off, to control it. I need
to be on record because of what I am learning. Then they say
their ``knife will continue the strike the necks of
Americans.'' They will ``quench their thirst for American
blood.'' This language is evil. It is vicious. And as Assistant
Secretary Tom Malinowski from your administration, said today,
when it comes to being terrorists, they are in a league of
their own. So, and I know there are--Senator Johnson was there.
He asked really good questions, and basically he was making a
good point. He said, look, there are so many other groups out
there. So he is concerned, and he will speak for himself. But
my point is, and I made the point today, I was a kid growing up
in the inner city, and if you got the biggest bully on the
block, that helped a lot with the rest of the bullies.
So I just want to make a point to you. I have read what our
chairman has written. There is a lot of room here for
flexibility. Please look at it, Mr. Secretary. I think it is
very important.
I did not vote to go to war in Iraq, and I treasure the
fact that I voted no. This cannot be boots on the ground,
another invasion, and the rest. It cannot be. And if it is, I
will not vote for it. But I think what the President is doing,
which is to work with others on the ground, particularly, for
example, the Kurds, and hopefully we can do it with the Syrian
moderates. I know there is a lot of debate about whether there
are any moderates left. Some say there are, some say there are
not. But I think that we are on the right track here.
And I am sad, frankly, that we have not been able to work
with you to craft something together, but I understand you want
to do more work. You want to bring in more parties. I have no
problem with that. But I just want to say to you, I hope you
understand the passion with which everyone that I have talked
to views this question. And I hope the administration will not
take it as some kind of act of--an unconstitutional act if we
go ahead today without you, because if you read the
Constitution, it is clear what our responsibilities are.
And I just hope you will take it if we do pass this, and I
hope we do, to codify exactly what the President said, that
instead of being concerned about it, as I think you are a
little concerned about it. Hopefully you can embrace it, and
that you can work with us to make it better. But I do not think
we should put this off because I am done--I have got to go on
record. My constituents expect me to go on record.
The Chairman. Senator Risch.
Senator Risch. John--Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming
today. We do truly appreciate you coming here to talk to us
about this. We have been anxious to do it for some time. So
that the record is clear here, you are here in front of us
today on behalf of the President of the United States asking
for an AUMF, is that correct?
Secretary Kerry. Correct.
Senator Risch. Okay. Is there a reason this has taken so
long?
Secretary Kerry. Well, we asked for an AUMF last time I was
here in September, and we are prepared to work and have an
AUMF.
Senator Risch. But this is a different situation now than
you were here in September.
Secretary Kerry. I know, but, you know, Senator, I think
you have got to look at what has been going on here. Mosul fell
6 months ago tomorrow. And the first thing the President did,
and, in fact, we started reacting in January, we took our ISR
flights up from 1 a day--from 1 a month to 60 a day way back.
We started pouring in additional supplies, and we realized, you
know, that we had a different kind of threat. No one quite
anticipated the fold that took place in Mosul and so forth and
the march toward Baghdad, but since then that has been stopped
in its tracks, pushed back.
And the point I am making is that the first step was to get
a government in Iraq that you could work with.
Senator Risch. But I guess----
Secretary Kerry. And so there was a period of months there,
and then we got into September, and since then we have said we
want an AUMF, and we are prepared to work to do it.
Senator Risch. Well, you know, this is the first time
anybody has come in front of this committee to ask for an AUMF.
A letter from the President would have been responded to, and
certainly if someone like yourself would have come up here and
said, look, this is what we want to do. But I guess what
aggravates me about this is, you know, our enemies have got to
be looking at this and saying, look at what is going on over
there, because this should not be--this is not a Republican-
Democrat thing. This really is not a first branch versus the
second branch thing, although certainly there are some
undertones of that.
But we need to work together on this thing. I am with the
chairman on, I guess, feeling aggravated that this thing is
playing out like this. We ought to all be pulling the wagon
together on this. This is a serious American problem, not a
Congress versus President problem, not a Republican-Democrat
problem. So you can understand our frustration on this, and
admittedly we do have a difference in what the roles are of
each party.
The Founding Fathers were very wise when they put in the
hands of the first branch of government the power to declare
war, and not give it to the second branch, which is the
military branch--one of their responsibilities is military. So
we take this seriously, and I think the American people take
this seriously. It has certainly served us very well over the
years. But let me ask this. If Senator Menendez's passes, if
his resolution passes, will the President sign that?
Secretary Kerry. Well, I have not asked the President
whether he will sign it or not because the President is hopeful
that since we generally agree with it, we can work through the
differences that do exist. And the President wants to preserve
the flexibility that he believes we need, and that is within
the prerogative of the President. But he is prepared to work
with you to try to see--we are all prepared to work to try to
arrive at an understanding of how we can do that.
Senator Risch. And obviously we have--we have some
disagreements in that regard since he--if he believes that the
2001 resolution gives him the authority to do what he is doing
now, we have a basic disagreement on that, and that, again, is
why I think the Founding Fathers gave us, the first branch of
government, the authority to do this. And I guess the
question--what would be your opinion as to whether or not the
President would sign Senator Menendez's resolution if we pass
this this week?
Secretary Kerry. Well, I am not going to, at this point,
suggest that I will share with you the advice I will give the
President with respect to whether he should veto it or not veto
it or what his choices might be if it came to the President. I
really think that we are missing the point, though, Senator
Risch, if that is sort of the road we go. From the moment I
opened my mouth here today I have said to you, and I meant this
as does the President, we do not want a bare minimum majority
here, and I do not think you want one that way. We need to have
a resounding vote in which we are all agreed that we have got
the right mix here, and we ought to all be committed to working
toward that. I am.
This should not be a, you know, a partisan vote or even an
ideologically divided one. I am convinced we can get there. I
mean, generally speaking, the chairman's proposal, as I say,
has covered a lot of the bases, but we think the President does
need some flexibility that is not reflected in it. I think he
is owed that constitutionally, though we are not here to make
the constitutional argument because we do not want to get
trapped into that.
We want to try to get into a place where we find a
reasonable way to have the level of flexibility necessary that
meets the needs of everybody to know you are not voting for
something open-ended, you are not creating a slip--you know, a
loophole for the President to do something you do not want him
to do. I do not think anybody wants to get into a long-term
ground operation here, but we also do not want to hamstring the
generals and the commanders in the field and the President who
is the Commander in Chief from their ability to be able to make
some decision they need to make. And that does not need to take
you into a long-standing operation.
Senator Risch. Let me ask you this. Are you concerned at
all about the mechanics of this? I mean, it is highly unlikely
we are going to be able to pass an AUMF through both houses
during this week. And so, then we are gone until the first of
the year. What message do that--are you concerned about the
message that that sends?
Secretary Kerry. You know----
Senator Risch. Because I am with you. I mean, everybody
needs to get behind this in one fashion or another and get to
express their opinions on it. But here we are now where the
request is before us, but it is probably not going to get done.
How does that affect things, in your opinion?
Secretary Kerry. To be truthful with you, Senator, I do not
believe that that is going to be read as anything except what
it is, which is a legitimate process and discussion to get the
right end result, and I do not think anybody has any doubt that
we are going to get the end result. The fact is that we are
going to continue this operation because the President and the
administration are absolutely convinced, and I respect your
opinion, we have the authority. There is no question about it
because the 2001 resolution addressed itself to al-Qaeda, the
Taliban, and associated forces. The courts have actually
already decided this in the context of our habeas decisions
that have been made. So all three branches of government are
actually in agreement fundamentally that the 2001 AUMF applies
to al-Qaeda.
ISIL, Daesh, you know, again, I prefer Daesh because I know
that the Arab world has a real meaning with that, and I think
we ought to respect that. But the fact is that they fully
understand that we are on the track we are on, and in my
judgment, everybody knows that this group merely changed its
name. But it was al-Qaeda in Iraq, and it has been al-Qaeda in
Iraq from 2004, 2005, and on, and everything it has done is al-
Qaeda in Iraq. And there is no question that we authorized this
government to go after al-Qaeda wherever they were. And we are
doing that in Yemen. We are doing that in Iraq. We are doing
that now in Syria, the Khorasan group. Those are all part of
the same, and that authorization fits.
But we agree--we have--we have an argument--I mean, there
is a nonargument here. We agree with you that it is better to
have a new AUMF, and I have come to you and said we will
absolutely scuttle the--you know, we would like to refine the
2001 for the period of time we need it, but we will show that
this particular authorization is not based on 2001 any longer.
It is based on what we are doing here. And that is, I think, a
major statement frankly.
Senator Risch. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I would just remind all colleagues that
amendments are in order, so if there are those who believe
there is a better way to perfect the present text, we certainly
can take it up, and consider it, and debate it, and vote on it.
Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. I think
your testimony has been extremely helpful, and I thank you for
that. There is much more in agreement here than in
disagreement. I think there is total agreement that Daesh or
ISIL is a barbaric terrorist organization, that we are right in
our campaign against them, and that Congress and administration
are on the same pages in regards to the legitimate use of force
to stop this evil, and to stop its funding, and to stop its
ability to cause instability in the region. So we are in
agreement on that.
We are also in agreement that Congress and the
administration need to work together. We are always stronger
when we speak with a united voice. We are now in agreement that
we need an authorization for the use of military force that
will allow you to continue to conduct the campaign the
President has stated that he is doing. I think there is
agreement on that. There is agreement on the 2001 and 2002
authorizations--that 2002 needs to be repealed, and 2001 needs
to be modified as it relates to Daesh. We are in agreement on
that. We are also in agreement with the administration that it
should be a time-limited authorization. So I really do think
there is a great deal that we agree on, and I thank you. Your
testimony has helped us.
But understand that there are some fundamental differences,
and I really do think those fundamental differences rest with
the separation of powers and the branches of government. I do
believe in the War Powers Act. I do believe that Congress has
the constitutional responsibility to declare war and to
authorize the use of our military forces. I do believe that,
and I do believe there have been too many months that have gone
by and Congress has a responsibility to weigh in.
So here is, I guess, the point I want to make, and I would
love to have your response. The reason why I am so concerned
about the language that we put in this authorization being too
broad is the explanation you have given that the 2001
authorization clearly authorizes the use of force against
Daesh. Let me just read the authorization. I was part of
Congress at the time, as several members of this panel were.
``The President is authorized to use all necessary and
appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or
persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided
the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or
harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any
further attacks and acts of international terrorism against the
United States by such nations, organizations, or persons.''
I go through reading that because I think back that if we
would have thought after 13 years and after so much of our
military battles that were taking place in Afghanistan and
Iraq, that this authorization could be used today in the way
that it is being used, I think Congress would have drafted
different authorization in 2001. So I think it is our
responsibility to make sure that we draft this authorization
appropriately, recognizing that the President has article 2
powers to deal with the unexpected uncertainties.
If we are going to give you authority to deal with
everything we do not know about, then we might as well just
repeal the War Powers Act and change the Constitution and give
the administration all this power. You can always come back to
Congress and seek additional authorization. So I guess I would
urge you and would like to get your response as a former member
of this committee, former chairman of this committee. Yes, we
want to work together. We agree on what we are trying to
accomplish, but you must recognize the responsibility that we
have in this Congress in the authorizations that we pass, and
help us draft an authorization that allows you to do what you
need to do. But it will not cover every contingency in the
world because that why we meet and we are here, and we can
modify authorizations.
So it would be extremely helpful if you could help us with
that language--particularly in the two areas that seems like we
are in disagreement on geography and contingencies on the use
of forces. And I would hope that you would give us further
clarification on those two points so that we can be together
and speak with a united voice.
Secretary Kerry. Well, Senator, I appreciate and respect
your position and your long history of clarity on these kinds
of issues in the Senate and the work we did together on these
things. But I do disagree with you with respect, and
respectfully, that the 2001 AUMF does not authorize this, and
let me just tell you why.
I think you know that what happened started in 2001; 2002
you kind of get going with the program; 2002 and 2004 it was
continuing. We had, as you know, a Presidential race in 2004
that had a certain debate about this issue. And the fact is
that it was in 2004 specifically that ISIL came into our focus
and was targeted as what it was, and at that time, Osama bin
Laden publicly endorsed the group as the al-Qaeda official
affiliate in Iraq. And so, we--you know, had a formal
affiliation with al-Qaeda, and that is when we began to take it
on. We did take it on. Our troops in Iraq took it on. We were
fighting it all of that time. It is a little late to come back
and say we did not have the authorization to fight it in 2014
when a whole bunch of folks died fighting it and we put our
efforts into it.
Now, they changed their name. Are we going to suggest that
any group out there has the right to veto your authorization of
use of force because they changed their name? That would be
ridiculous. It would give terrorist organizations the right to
get out from under just by changing a name. This is the same
group. These are the same people with the stamp and imprimatur
of support by Osama bin Laden, and we have been fighting them
since 2004.
So I do not think there is a question about 2001, but we
are actually wasting our time to go back and fight about 2001.
Why do I say that? Because, number one, we agree we have to
refine it. Number two, we agree we need an AUMF. Number three,
we want an AUMF that becomes the exclusive vehicle of authority
not relying on----
Senator Cardin. Yes, I said we agree on that, but where we
need help are the two areas where we disagree. I do not want
to----
Secretary Kerry. On geographic location you said.
Senator Cardin. Well, there is no geographic limitation--
only one area. Thanks for correcting me. It is just really one
area then it seems like.
Secretary Kerry. Right.
Senator Cardin. I am a little bit confused then. If that is
the only area we are in disagreement----
Secretary Kerry. Well, there are two areas that I have
singled out. One is in the definition regarding associated
forces. We believe that that requires you to make a definition
of ideological association or other kind of affiliation, and we
believe that gets very complicated, certainly for a commander
in the field or for an instant decision about retaliation or so
forth. So we want something that encompasses the notion of
fighting alongside with, which is the language that has been
used in the interpretation of the 2001 AUMF. And that is what
we have applied today in our application of force. That is not
there. So we wanted the clarity with respect to that, but that
is more of a technical fix.
The biggest sort of challenge here is what is the
appropriate level of restraint on the President of the United
States as Commander in Chief, and Congress' micromanaging of
what the military can do and cannot do in the context of its
fights. That is all. And none of that should challenge the
fundamental prohibition the President has placed on himself
that he does not plan to send combat forces in to be part of
this battle against Daesh. So I think there is a way here to
protect you with some kind of notification perhaps, a
requirement.
Senator Cardin. Just let me point out for the record, a 3-
year authorization goes into the next administration, so----
Secretary Kerry. And we thought that was appropriate.
Senator Cardin. And we agree, but it is important to be
very clear about the authorization.
Secretary Kerry. And we thought it was appropriate that it
gave whoever is the next President a year to be able to get in
place, get all their people in place, make the judgments
necessary, but then have some kind of trigger that requires it
to be, you know, evaluated in some way. I mean, we are yet to
sort of finalize all that. I do not want to do it here now, but
let us work on precisely what that ought to be, how it works
for both of us so you have a sense that you have got what you
need, which is a restraint on the open-endedness, and the
President has what he needs is the flexibility to be able to do
this properly. And that is a great constitutional balance I
think.
The Chairman. Just for the record, and I think Senator
Cardin recognizes this, but since there are others who will be
reporting and many who are listening, we have no geographic
limitation in the AUMF that we have written. So that, of
course, is not an issue.
Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being
here today, Mr. Secretary. At the outset let me say that I have
shared your concern about the release of the CIA report today
that was put out by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I
would hope, and I am sure, that the State Department is taking
all the appropriate measures to safeguard the security of our
personnel in our facilities around the world.
Let me now pivot to the subject of today's hearing. Today
you have outlined a pretty clear objective, which I understand
that it is to degrade and destroy ISIL and all of the groups
that are fighting alongside ISIL. You have also outlined the
kind of authorization you would seek, although your point is
you do not believe that you require authorization, that you
have it existing. You think we act stronger when we have that
authorization, and I agree with that point.
You have outlined what that authorization should have it:
no geographic limits, which two of the proposals here do not,
maybe all three; no intention to use ground troops, but you do
not want it ruled out. You agree that at a minimum you do not
want to telegraph the limits that we have. And third is, you do
not--you do not--well, you are open to a 3-year time
constraint. And last, but not least, that it is important that
the definition of who the target is be broad enough to
encompass affiliated groups or groups fighting alongside ISIL,
which I think is critical because of the emergence, for
example, of an ISIL associated group in Libya now that is
operating in a completely ungoverned space. They do not have
Assad to fight. There is no one to fight there. And there is
the potential for the emergence of other such groups in North
Africa, not to mention the potential for an alliance with the
Pakistani Taliban, or the Afghanistan Taliban, or Haqqani
network, or any other groups that are in the area.
So here is my question. With such an objective as you have
defined today and such a clear idea of what the authorization
should look like, I do not understand why the administration
has not come forward and presented that as other
administrations have done in the past at least as a starting
point for this committee to debate, because what happens in the
absence of that language is what we have here now--three
proposals on behalf of Congress that attempt to micromanage
military tactics. And I oppose all three for that purpose.
That is not Congress' role to micromanage military tactics.
Congress' role is approve or disapprove of the use of force or
to fund or not fund if you do not disagree with it. And the
other problem I have with it is that it clearly telegraphs to
ISIL, to our enemies, what we will not or will do, where we
will do it or where we will not do it, and how long we are
going to do it for, which I think also takes a lot of the
advantage away from our engagement.
But I blame all of this on the lack of Presidential
direction and Presidential leadership. I do not understand why,
with such a clear idea about what an authorization should
contain, that has not been presented to this committee as far
back as September. And here is the other thing that is really
problematic. This is a complicated crisis or a complicated
conflict. As you have talked about repeatedly today, it
involves a coalition, but this coalition includes people that
want us to target Assad. Their participation in the coalition
is partially because they think it will extend to getting rid
of Assad. How does that fit into this equation?
Part of our plan here is to work alongside of moderate
rebel elements, but these rebel elements are being bombed by
Assad and being attacked by Jabhat al-Nusra, and they may not
be around for us to arm and train if they continue to take this
beating. How does that fit into this equation? What about the
Shia militias? We heard testimony today that these Shia militia
are going into non-ISIL communities and attacking Sunnis,
burning down their homes, wiping out their neighborhoods. How
does that figure into all of this and into Iran's influence
there?
And last, but not least, the Kurds and the role they have
played, which, by the way, we heard testimony today in Senator
Boxer's subcommittee about the role the Kurds have played in
providing a safe haven to the Yazidis, and to the Christians,
and to other oppressed groups, and they have also been highly
effective fighters. All of these complex pieces, and the
administration has failed to put together a comprehensive
strategy that we can understand about how it all fits together.
And for the life of me, I do not understand why with such a
clear idea of what the authorization should look like you do
not have anyone over there that could type that up real quick
and send it over here so we can begin a debate and then amend
or work on it.
I think this committee seeks that sort of Presidential
leadership on a matter of this magnitude. Certainly previous
administrations have drafted such language. There is nothing.
And in that vacuum steps in all these proposals because the
members of this committee are frustrated at the lack of
direction. So I just do not understand when would we see
language. Does the White House intend to draft something up and
send it to us as a starting point for the sort of discussion
that you seek?
Secretary Kerry. Well, Senator, I was around here long
enough to know that even if the President sent up some
language, there would be just as many bills and just as much
debate on what he sent up. So let us not kid each other, I
mean, seriously. It is the same debate one way or the other. I
mean, if you want to sit there and say, well, the President did
not show leadership, the President could say, well, the
committee could have begun, drafted it 3 months ago or 2 months
ago. I mean, it could go both ways. Let us not get trapped in
that.
Senator Rubio. But the President is the Commander in Chief.
Secretary Kerry. Yes, he is, and he is doing what he is
supposed to do, which is putting together a coalition and
beginning to win the fight.
Senator Rubio. But if he wants the authority to win the
fight, he has got to tell us what the fight looks like.
Secretary Kerry. Because let me clarify. I made a statement
before about, you know, the sole basis that we would make this.
What we would make it is the authoritarian current state-of-
the-art basis, but as I have also said to you, the President
does not need that to have the authority to do what he is doing
because he believes, and I believe, and I think constitutional
scholars would tell you, he has the authority constitutionally,
and he has the authority with respect to the 2001 AUMF, as I
have shown you.
But that aside, he is going further to try to provide the
precise clarity that you are looking for, and saying that he
will put language in here that makes it clear that the AUMF, as
passed, will be the designated authority with respect to what
we are doing with respect to Daesh.
Senator Rubio. Well, where is the language?
Secretary Kerry. Well, we have said to you very--I think I
have said two or three times today that we think the Senator--
the chairman, the Senator from New Jersey has made a strong
proposal. I have not come up here and attacked provision after
provision after provision. I have said to you we have a couple
of differences in it. They are not incidental. It obviously an
important difference this question of what are the limitations,
and it is fundamental between the two sides of this dais, I
think.
What we are suggesting is we try to work that through in a
way that balances it adequately for both sides so we could get
the kind of vote that I think could be important. This vote
could, in fact, with the proper effort, become the preliminary
down payment on what happens subsequently. That would be a good
outcome if it were possible.
So my respectful suggestion is in answer to your several
comments about the strategy, et cetera, the President has a
strategy. General Allen is leading that effort for our
coalition in terms of the diplomacy. And GEN Lloyd Austin and
CENTCOM are doing an extraordinary job with respect to the
military component. But there are other components: the foreign
fighters, the humanitarian, the de-legitimization of ISIL with
respect to their religious claims, the financing which is being
shut down. There are a whole series of broad-based efforts that
are underway and in place today.
Senator Rubio. I know my time has expired. Just for clarity
purpose, so the administration's position is that the AUMF they
would like to see is the chairman's language with some
amendment.
Secretary Kerry. With some changes, that is correct. With
some efforts we work on hopefully together to try to work this
through.
The Chairman. Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Mr. Secretary, for being here today and for all of your efforts
on behalf of this country.
Much of our discussion this afternoon has been around the
authority of Congress versus the authority of the President.
But I would suggest that this debate is important for another
reason because I think this debate is also about the right of
the American people, the people that we all represent, to know
what is entailed in this country's use of military force
against ISIL, including the scope and duration of that. And one
of the things that has been said here this afternoon is that we
weaken our country rather than strengthen it when we begin a
process, like the discussion we are having today, that we know
cannot be concluded.
I would actually argue the opposite, and that is that this
debate strengthens our resolve in this country, and that our
enemies looking at the debate should not be confused and assume
that this is weakness that we are having these debates, but
rather it is one of the things that makes this country so
strong, our ability to debate issues of war and peace. It is
part of what our democracy is about.
You said, and I think several of us have agreed with this,
that if the committee worked with the White House and
understood what the administration wants, that we could
probably craft language with some back and forth that we could
all agree to, or at least the majority of the committee--a
bipartisan majority could agree to. I certainly agree with
that. And we have talked about a process in the committee that
would have this hearing today, have some time this week to
actually discuss it among ourselves. And we were hoping to work
with some members of the administration in a classified setting
to hear more about what is currently underway with respect to
the war against ISIL.
So I guess I would say to you if we are all committed to
having that kind of discussion about what should go in the
AUMF, should we assume that there are members from the
Department of Defense and from the intelligence communities who
could also be part of working with us on that kind of a back
and forth? And is that something that we could get set, because
my understanding is that one of the challenges has been a
commitment from folks to actually come and answer some of the
questions and the concerns that this committee has had.
Secretary Kerry. I cannot imagine why that cannot be worked
out. I mean, I do not know what the schedules are. I know
Secretary Hagel was not available because he was overseas, I
think in Iraq and elsewhere. So that availability obviously was
challenged. But I am confident--I cannot imagine that--you
know, as I have said, the administration is prepared to work
with you, and we will work out the schedules and see what is
doable.
Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you. I think that would be
very helpful as we are talking about trying to get something
that can be garner bipartisan support.
Secretary Kerry. And I understand the desire obviously to
hear from the intel and hear from the, you know, DOD.
Senator Shaheen. Well, I appreciate that. I think it is
very important for us to have this debate, for the committee to
act and to work with the administration and see if we can find
acceptable language. But to do it in a way that is not open-
ended so that we are not, as the committee has said in the
past, waiting indefinitely for language that may never come
from this administration.
So let me ask some specific questions relative to what is
going on with the current operations of our fight against ISIL,
recognizing that you may or may not be able to answer some of
these questions. But can you talk about the moderate opposition
at this point relative to the Syrian regime and the extremists?
And there have been a number of reports that that opposition
has--is in the process of totally collapsing. Is there any
intention to expedite the training and assistance efforts to
the moderate Syrian opposition groups?
Secretary Kerry. The answer is, ``Yes,'' there is a great
deal of effort to try to expedite at this point in time. The
opposition in the south is actually doing fairly well right
now, and it is a problem for the Assad regime. But a lot of the
fight that is so critical is in the north, and there Aleppo is
a challenge, and it is one that we are very, very well aware
of. We are working with the Turks right now, having long
discussions in order to work through a number of different
thoughts about how best to deal with that. There is ISIL up
there, there is al-Nusra up there, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the
opposition, and then you have the regime.
And so, the President is considering a number of different
options with respect to the north, but we are working through
those details. General Allen was over there recently meeting
with the Turks at some length of discussion about trying to
focus in and narrow down who could do what how and so forth.
But it is all on a fast track because everybody understands the
opposition there is challenged.
Regrettably, a couple of different opposition groups, and
there are a number of different opposition groups, did not fare
well in their battles, and some--one or two of them actually
sort of folded into al-Nusra, which is disturbing and something
that folks are looking at carefully. But by and large they have
survived. They are holding on. They have been the entity that
has been fighting for almost four years now, and we are
increasingly doing a number of things to try to make a
difference, some of which we cannot lay out here in this
committee in open session, some of which are a part of the
training effort that we want to get underway.
And happily, the Turkish base for that training and the
Jordanian base for that training are complete and ready, and we
are starting to get, you know, that moving. We still have to
get more going with respect to--Kuwait is only in the beginning
stages, and the Saudi training component needs additional
infrastructure work, et cetera, in order to be ready.
But believe me it is very, very important to get a number
of things in place as rapidly as possible because while they
are doing well in the south, the north is a challenge.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. My time has expired.
The Chairman. Before I turn to Senator Johnson, I do not
want there to be any impression here by members of the
committee that we have not tried to engage with the
administration and solicit and elicit both opinions and
witnesses. To the Secretary's credit, he is the one person that
has been here on several occasions, and we appreciate that, and
I am convinced that as part of his history here, he recognizes
the importance of that.
And he has made himself available, although I do not feel
that he has the wherewithal to talk about every dimension of
this, no matter how well versed he is or how well he has tried.
There are intelligence questions here, there are military
questions here, but this is what we have.
Now, for timeline purposes, let us understand that the
first War Powers notification came to us in June, in June. And
then we had the Secretary appear here on September 17 to
testify on the anti-ISIL strategy. Then on September 23, we had
War Powers notification, making it very clear that this would
be a multiyear effort, September 23. And then on November 5,
the President actually went before Congress and requested
authorization for military operations against ISIL.
So going back to that period of time, this committee, and
certainly the Chair, has engaged the administration going back
to October when staff had conversations, when we met with the
White House counsel to go over a draft of language. And in
fairness, we just did not get specificity of responses. So when
we talk about ``let us work together,'' there has been an
effort to try to achieve exactly that.
I do not want anybody here to think that there has not been
an effort or for the public to think, wow, it seems that they
are doing Rambo here by themselves. There has been an effort
here. And the fact is that requests were made for this hearing,
as well as for classified hearings, for others beyond the
Secretary to be able to further inform. Those were not--for
whatever reasons, logistics, whatever, travel, were not being
able to be pursued. So based on the Senator's questions, I do
not want anybody to think here that that effort has not been
made.
Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I
just want to pick up a little bit on what the chairman was
talking about, the efforts this committee has made. I remember
our hearing on May 21 where we had the counsel from the
Department of Defense and the counsel from the Department of
State. We talked about an authorization for use of military
force, and at that point the administration was saying they
wanted to engage with the Congress. And then later on, I think
July 23, a number of us did go down to the White House, to the
counsel's office, and we discussed that authorization.
I recall is two things from that meeting: that the White
House counsel was finding a somewhat tenuous connection to
previous authorizations, and so they were looking and
interested in having a new authorization. I think I left that
meeting with the impression that the ball was in the
administration's court to draft something, and that is my
question.
After all that time, why? Just simply why has the
administration not sent us a draft proposal, because it has
really been pretty much the history of previous Presidents. I
would think that would make sense that the Commander in Chief
would like to lay on the table an authorization that he would
want to pursue with the actions that he believes are necessary
to keep this Nation safe. Why has the President not given us
the draft? It would have cleared up so much confusion. So I
just simply ask--answer the question, why?
Secretary Kerry. Well, as I have said, I think we have a
pretty good draft.
Senator Johnson. No. Why has the President not sent a
draft? Why did he not write it up himself, or you, or his
Secretary of Defense?
Secretary Kerry. It is my understanding there have been
about seven meetings, and I do not know. I was not present in
any of those meetings, but the seven meetings have discussed
the draft. The chairman himself said they went and talked about
the draft. There is not requirement for the President to send
it up.
Senator Johnson. But would it not make it a lot--okay.
Secretary Kerry. I do not know if it, but as I said earlier
to Senator Rubio, would it have made life easier? Would it have
changed the debate? It is the same debate. You have language in
front of us which we are now working with, and the President
has said that by and large it is pretty good. This is not the
first time that the committee has exerted leadership to put
language together that the President has asked for and
welcomed.
Senator Johnson. Again, I will not get an answer. That is
fine. The reason I think we need to review past authorizations
is because I think there are legitimate differences to whether
or not, for example, the 2001 authorization really does apply
right now. Let me read why. It is all past tense. It is talking
about nations, organizations, persons he determined, planned,
authorized, committed, or harbored. Those are all past tense.
There is nothing in here talking about associated forces. It is
kind of describing them.
But there is legitimate concern about whether or not that
actually does authorize its current use. And, again, my
understanding in the White House, they seemed also to be
grappling with the tenuous connection between the current use
of military force and that authorization. But I want to go back
a little bit further because I think exploring this language
and exploring the history makes sense.
In World War I and World War II, we actually had a total of
two declarations of war in World War I and six in World War II,
the authorizations were pretty open-ended. They gave the
President the authority he needed to defeat the enemy. In World
War I, it was a declaration of war against Germany, and this is
what the authorization said: ``to bring the conflict to a
successful termination.'' And even in the 2001 authorizations,
the President was authorized to use ``all necessary and
appropriate force.'' That is what past Presidents wanted in
terms of authorization, the authority to be Commander in Chief
and to accomplish the goal.
Here is my question. Has President Obama deviated from the
goal he stated to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS?
Secretary Kerry. Not in the least.
Senator Johnson. What is the goal of this process then? I
mean, is it to have a bipartisan authorization? Is it to have
members be able to put themselves on the record, or is it to
produce an authorization that gives the President the
congressional authority to actually accomplish that goal?
Secretary Kerry. Well, it is obvious. Senator, the purpose
of the AUMF is to authorize in its new and modern context, its
state-of-the-art context, the challenge that we now face with a
very different kind of extended threat, if you will. And I
think the discomfort that has been exhibited on both sides of
the aisle with the reliance on 2001, which we believe
absolutely withstands any judicial scrutiny whatsoever and is
legitimate. But the discomfort that exists should be clarified.
And the American people, the President believes, are owed a
2014 commitment, not a 2001 commitment.
Senator Johnson. I completely agree, and the other thing
the American people are owed is for the President to draft what
that authorization should look like so we have something to
work from. What I would argue as well is that we need an
authorization because this is a different kind of enemy. This
is not a nation-state that is going to be pretty obvious what
it is going to look like when they are defeated. We need to
have a discussion about what defeat looks like. We need to
define that term.
I would also argue what we need is we need an authorization
that is good not only for President Obama, but a future
President, because I agree with President Obama: this is not
going to be a war or a conflict that ends quickly. So that is
why I am looking to the Commander in Chief, I am looking for
what he believes he needs and what his successor or successors
might need to grapple with and take the actions they need to
take to keep this Nation safe with this brand new--over the
last decade or two--this brand new threat, not a nation-state,
but an ideology that wants to kill Americans.
Secretary Kerry. The President would agree we should, and
that is exactly what we are trying to do.
Senator Johnson. Well, again, I will look forward to the
draft because it would make this process just a whole lot
easier.
Secretary Kerry. Well, again, we are pretty close as we are
sitting here. I think we just have to sit down and work through
the differences. The President has said that in general terms
this is a pretty good----
Senator Johnson. Does the President really believe that
ISIS or the new name, Daesh, will be defeated in 3 years? Does
he really believe that is the case?
Secretary Kerry. No, the President has said this is going
to take a long time.
Senator Johnson. Why would we limit ourselves to a 3-year
time period then? Why would you want to hamstring his successor
having to come back before--I am sorry--this dysfunctional
body? Let us face it. We had this hearing in May of this year,
and now we are back here in December. This is not going to be
concluded with authorization for the use of military force. We
will take a show vote, but this will not give President Obama
the authority that he needs and that his successors will need.
Why would he even agree to a 3-year limitation? Is that a
responsible thing for a President to do?
Secretary Kerry. Well, Senator, first of all, look, it is
hard to have the argument both ways the way you are trying. If
it is dysfunctional, maybe then there is a real reason why the
President did not send it up. I think that is not the reason,
and I do not mean to make fun of it. He is not--that is not the
reason, and that is not where it is. The President--for 2\1/2\
months now we have been preoccupied in trying to focus on
putting together the strategy, implementing the strategy,
building the coalition, and doing what we have needed to do.
There have been seven meetings during that time. I do not know
what happened at those meetings, but there have been seven
meetings.
Senator Johnson. Well, let me ask you. Why not?
Secretary Kerry. Well, let me just--let me just----
Senator Johnson. Why are you not aware of what happened in
those seven meetings?
Secretary Kerry. Because I am not in those meetings. Those
are in the White House. That is White House counsel. I work----
Senator Johnson. They are not giving you a briefing or
sending you a memo?
Secretary Kerry. I think, Senator, let me just come to your
other question, which I believe was--you asked about the
timeframe, would we limit it? Why would we limit it? And if you
listened carefully, what I said is I am not in favor of that
limitation without the ability to have the renewal. But I am
trying to balance.
Look, what we are trying to do here, I think all of us--let
us not get dragged down into a sort of, you know, unnecessary
debate here. We want to build the strongest vote possible. We
want to see if we can meld the differences into something that
is acceptable to both sides. That has often happened here
historically, and certainly when I was here in 1991 and other
times when we did this, we did that. We ought to be able to do
it now. There is a balance of interests.
Now, some people have an interest in protecting the
complete open-endedness of the Presidential authority as they
deem it to be given under the Constitution, and there are
others here who, by virtue of experience and, you know, bad
experience, want to have a little restraint, and they are
trying to balance. We think we are offering a way to try to
figure out how you do that, which is to give a sort of fixed
period of time during which you will have the chance, the
Congress, to take stock of it so it is not purely open-ended,
but also so it is a responsible process that I will not end
unnecessarily. There will be a review of some kind, and that is
what we ought to sit down and work out.
How does that work? What is the appropriate way to do that?
What is the trigger, so that there is a respectful assessment
of where we are, what is happening, of how it has been
implemented, and that it is not, in fact, open-ended and
dangerous and dragging us on into an open-ended ``war.'' So I
think that is what we are trying to balance. A lot of that
comes out of the experience of Iraq or even Afghanistan. People
are worried about it. They do not want it to be that again, and
everybody is sensitive to that. So I think we are just trying
to find the appropriate balance between those things, and I
think, as I say, the chairman's mark is a good starting place,
and we should work off of that.
The Chairman. Senator Coons.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Menendez, and thank you,
Ranking Member Corker. And thank you, Secretary Kerry.
Secretary Kerry. I would think you would have an
administration say the chairman's mark is a good starting
place. It does not happen that often.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Secretary Kerry, and thank you
for your hard work and your leadership in assembling and
helping steer the coalition against ISIL. And thank you for
your presence with us today. I am relieved we are having this
debate and that we are having it in the open. I believe the
American people deserve, and our values demand, exactly this
sort of a robust and open debate, and I think that Congress
should not adjourn until we vote on an AUMF.
We have raised important and difficult issues, and as you,
Mr. Secretary, just commented, it is in large part because of
the difficult history of the lessons learned from the cost, and
the reach, and the scope, and the complexity of our conflicts
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 2001 and 2002 authorizations
that were the foundation in some ways of those actions that
there are real concerns here. And I think this is the sort of
debate, the sort of give and take between executive and
legislative branches that our Founders imagined. We have to, in
many way, reexamine and reset that relationship.
Let me also just put on the table, I think, an important
issue that has not been touched on so far, an issue that is
vitally important not just for this committee, but for Congress
to consider. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a
CRS report that just came out, there was a total of about $1.69
trillion requested to pay for the cost of those two wars. And
as other members have commented, the Congress has two ways to
restrain the Executive in the conduct of long wars. First, the
authorization or declaration of war, and second, how we fund
them. And it is my hope, my expectation, that we cannot write
another blank check for war, as was unfortunately the case
under previous Presidents and previous Congresses for previous
conflicts.
Now, paying for war is not fiscally, but also morally
responsible. It is not right to expect that the only people who
sacrifice would be our troops and their families. And so,
expressly having a conversation about how to offset the cost of
this war through a reduction in spending or an increase in
revenue or both will help Americans have a more direct
connection to the conflict and an awareness of its impact, not
just in terms of our spending, but our steadily growing
national debt.
I am aware this responsibility does not fall just on this
committee, but it is the duty of the Congress, as we debate the
scope and the strategy for this conflict, to also look squarely
at its cost and how to pay for it. And so, I will continue to
raise that issue as we move forward with the debate about the
AUMF.
Let me, Secretary Kerry, if I might, first just bear down
on an issue that I do not think I have heard a clear and
concise answer to. So, if we are trying to come up with an AUMF
that recognizes some of the challenges of the 2002 AUMF and
that puts some restraint on the use of ground troops, and that
strikes you as unacceptable in this effort, as you put it, to
balance restraint against an open-ended conflict while allowing
the President, the Commander in Chief, the flexibility to
prosecute this conflict successfully. I think one of the
reasons there remains real hesitation, real resistance to just
an open-ended commitment to conduct of any kind is that we have
not had a full debate or discussion about the strategy. We
cannot go home and clearly defend what the strategy is,
although you laid out the five core areas in which there is
ongoing and effective activity.
Could you accept an AUMF that was limited in time, as you
discussed previously, and that initially had a limitation on
large-scale ground combat, but required and examination of
strategy and then a reconsideration of the AUMF to remove that
limitation on the Commander in Chief's scope to conduct this
and prosecute this war?
Secretary Kerry. Well, I think by implication the way the
administration is looking at it, there is some restraint
because the President has been pretty clear. And there is no
current scenario that he would imagine where--I mean, if you
are putting a restraint in time, you are automatically not
getting into a long-term activity. So the 3 years is, in fact,
the best automatic limitation on this problem of long term.
And if you have the right kind of formula for the trigger
or for the--you know, I can think of several now, but I am not
going to go into them now. I do not think it is appropriate to
do that here, but we could--you know, we could certainly sit
down and bang out the ways that balance the interests that
create a sufficient level of review so you are certain you are
going to get your whack at it, but it is not--you know, it is
not self-limiting so that the wrong message is sent, and you
are not going to prosecute the war. You know, some people still
have--struggle with that terminology. But that is where I think
it is.
So I would suggest there is a balance, and I think we can
work that out. I do not think you have to have the ground troop
limitation by virtue of the 3-year piece.
Senator Coons. Well, Mr. Secretary, I join many of my
colleagues in both expressing a desire for a bipartisan AUMF,
and for a more robust and more broad discussion and debate
about the strategy and what the direction is going to be. But I
do want to make it clear that I support the conduct of this
conflict against ISIL, that I think they are a real and present
threat to the United States and our allies in the region, and I
do think we should be supporting our armed forces. But weeks
have turned into months since the War Powers notifications came
up here, and I think this Congress needs to be more actively
engaged in being accountable for authorizing this conduct.
Let me move to one more question with the time I have. It
was announced today roughly 1,500 soldiers from the
international coalition against ISIL will join roughly 3,100
Americans in the train and equip mission in Iraq to train the
Peshmerga and the ISF. How else will our coalition partners
assist in the campaign? In a previous conflict in the region,
many of our partners contributed significantly to the financial
cost of the operations. Will we be complementing this training
role with financial contributions from our allies and partners,
and can you give us any further update on your expectations
around ground troops? I was encouraged by your comment that
many of our allies and the administration believe that non-U.S.
ground troops are mostly likely to be effective in this
conflict and in this context.
Secretary Kerry. Well, the answer, Senator, is that--the
answer is, ``Yes,'' a number of countries are committed to
providing financial input as well. To some degree, some of
them, it depends what we choose to do. But the answer is, yes,
they are prepared to provide financial assistance, and already
are in some ways. For instance, the training facilities in some
of their territory they are taking of.
In addition to that, there will be a variance between
countries as to who is doing what. As you know, five Arab
nations are flying with us in the missions over Syria--Saudi
Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, and Qatar. And
in addition to those five, we have countries from all over the
world who are contributing one way or the other, whether it is
to training, providing direct assistance, providing
humanitarian assistance, providing equipment, providing arms,
and, in some cases, presence on the ground in the case of a
number of our close allies in the actual training activities.
Australia is a case and example, Great Britain, others are
doing that. So there is a full-fledged, broad-based engagement
by many different countries in many different activities.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Flake.
Senator Flake. Thank you, and thank you for being here, Mr.
Secretary. You are a very good diplomat. You have mentioned
that the President does not need to outline his AUMF because we
have one here, the chairman's mark. But then in your testimony
you very clearly state, pretty clearly at least, diplomatically
that we need to do far better than that.
And Senator Johnson went through some of the AUMFs that we
had or those facsimiles from World War II. If you go beyond
that, I am looking at a few of them here. The one in 1955 with
regard to defense of Taiwan, the President ``authorized to
employ the armed forces as he deems necessary.'' In 1957 in the
Middle East, ``authorized to cooperate with and assist any
nation or group of nations.'' 1964, Southeast Asia, ``take all
necessary measures to repell any armed attack.'' Then we come
to this one where the President is authorized ``subject to the
limitations in subsection (c).''
I would submit that that is not very comforting to our
allies, and it is not a very strong AUMF. In fact, it more
accurately may be an authorization for the use of not too much
military force. When you signal to our enemies and to our
allies that we are not going to use ground troops, and we
certainly do not want to. We may not anticipate that we will.
But to put that aside and say we are not going to just does not
strike me as wise.
The President as Commander in Chief can certainly have that
policy, but he can change his mind as conditions warrant. It is
far more difficult once the Congress has spoken to go back to
the Congress and say now conditions have changed on the ground,
and we need a new AUMF. What do your enemies do in the
meantime? What do our allies do in the meantime?
So I would respectfully say that when my colleagues here
are saying that the President needs to show more leadership and
actually put an AUMF together and present it to the Congress,
one that is in keeping with the history and what we need for
the future. All of us can draft our own. I have drafted mine. I
will be glad to give you a copy. But that does not substitute
for one that will come from the President and for him to make
the strong case to Congress that this is what we need. That is
what we need. As you put it, our allies deserve it. They need
it. Our enemies need to understand it, and we need this country
together.
So, again, I would ask you why in this context can we not
get the President to submit his AUMF. And all due respect to
the chairman and others who have tried to put something
together here that can pass, I would submit that it is not
worth it to get something that so limits our President in his
options, that it is not comforting to our allies, and it is too
comforting to our enemies.
Secretary Kerry. Well, Senator, thank you for your
comments. Listen, I said at the outset that the problem that
the President and the administration has with this is this
question of the limitations and restrictions, so, I mean, I
have been very clear. But I have also said we think there is a
way to try to work with you. We do not want to, you know, sit
here and stop all capacity to be able to get a strong
resolution by simply being stuck in a place where we say that,
you know, we are not going to accept any kind of appropriate
calibration of this. So we think that there is a way to try to
figure that out.
Now, I do not disagree with you. I do not want your second
example--what was the second one you said about the prior use
of force authorizations? You went back to the fifties?
Senator Flake. It was something in 1957, the Middle East.
Secretary Kerry. Yes, 1957, Middle East, yes. Well,
certainly at least from '64, which Senator McCain and I are
pretty familiar with, onto Iraq and others, I think there has
been a strong reaction in the country that unfettered openness
has resulted in some bad judgments that have cost the country
an awful lot of money and other assets. And I think that the
tension here in this debate obviously is between those who are
willing to provide that full constitutional authority that the
President can make those decisions and should not have any
restraint at all, with those who are cautioned by the past and
want to have some adequate congressional restraint, reflecting
the reluctance of the American people to get into another open-
ended deal.
Senator Flake. I would say----
Secretary Kerry. So how do you balance that? And I think
there is a way to balance that. Part of the balance comes in
this 3-year duration notion with Congress' preordained and
defined input. It seems to me that is a pretty measured way to
try to do it. Now, maybe there is some other notification
requirement that we could work through here and so forth.
I do think, and the President feels, and I know that the
members of the military feel very strongly, that in terms of
actually implementing--I mean, we all have decided we have got
to defeat these guys. Everybody is agreed that we have to
degrade and defeat ISIL. And I do not think that Congress is
going to sit here and say that, well, we are going to tell you
exactly step for step how you are going to do that. That is
what we have the professional military for.
Senator Flake. If I may----
Secretary Kerry. And we need to make sure that, you know,
there is a balance here between the President's rights as
Commander in Chief and the military's ability to implement and
achieve our goal. That is the balance we are looking for.
Senator Flake. I would say post-1964, you mentioned there
has been an attempt to balance this because of some situations
we have had. Those have been more on--any conditions that have
been with the AUMF has been on the--we can only authorize the
use of force after all diplomatic measures have been exhausted.
That is typically what is done on the front end, but once we
commit ground troops, or our military forces, I should say,
then in virtually every case that I have seen, unless I am not
aware of others, we have never tied the President's hands or,
as you put in here, that we do not preemptively bind the hands
of the Commander in Chief. And I just do not think it would be
wise to do so here. And so, thank you for your testimony.
Secretary Kerry. Thank you very much, Senator. Appreciate
it.
The Chairman. Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator
Menendez, and thank you, Secretary Kerry. Senator Menendez, you
really pushed to get us here to this point. I mean, and I know
the ranking member did, too, and so that is important. And,
Secretary Kerry, we would not be here without you because we
needed at least one witness to try to address this, and I
really appreciate you helping us work through it.
I have a couple of questions just about how things are
going now. Maybe you cannot answer them. The success of our
United States strategy in Iraq appears predicated on the shift
of Sunnis away from the Islamic State and toward cooperation
with the government. And to what extent is that shift
occurring, if at all, right now, and what factors will
determine the extent of the alteration in allegiances?
Secretary Kerry. Well, that is a very good question and an
appropriate one because essential to the ability to be able to
be successful in Iraq will be inclusivity of the Sunni
population, the commitment of the Sunni tribes, the tribal
leaders to take on this fight, and to ultimately join with the
national army in order to push ISIL out. That, I believe, is a
work in progress. Not ``I believe.'' That is a work in
progress.
There are currently a number of battalions that are in
training. You know, those battalions as they move out of
training will allow those that are experienced and held
together to go out into the field. There is work being done
with the tribal leaders right now. The tribes--a certain number
of people that are coming together to provide a Sunni fighting
force as part of it. There is a plan to be implemented to put
in place a national guard which will be more reflective of
people and where they live so that there is an inherent
investment by them in defending that community, which there did
not exist in previous----
Senator Udall. Is the shift taking place, and to what
extent? That is what I really want to get at the heart of.
Secretary Kerry. That shift is beginning to take place. It
is beginning to take place. It is in its early stage. I do not
want to promise you something that is beyond where it is, but
it is beginning, and it is legitimate, and there have been
successes. The Baiji area has been--the refinery has been--you
know, it is not complete yet, but it has been a success thus
far in pushing ISIL back. The Amirli relief effort that took
place. The Mosul--the Haditha Dam, the Mosul Dam. These are
areas where there have been clear successes. And there are
increasing other efforts that are taking place.
So we believe that there are very promising signs. It is
too early to stand up and down and shout, but it is moving in
the right direction. And we feel confident that it is the right
strategy.
Senator Udall. Now, when we announced that we were going
to--when the President announced degrade and destroy ISIL, a
number of groups around the world in Islamic countries pledged
allegiance to the Islamic State. How should the authorization
of force treat groups who have pledged their allegiance to the
Islamic State, including, as of December 2014, groups in
Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia?
Secretary Kerry. They should be associated forces. They fit
under that category.
Senator Udall. So they--okay. Now, and you have outlined
here the three areas of authorization of force. One of them is
duration. And you mentioned in your testimony, Secretary Kerry,
a provision that provides for an extension under certain
circumstances. So you are willing to go with 3 years, and just
as an aside I am much closer to Senator Paul with 1 year. But
assuming you are willing to go with the 3 years, who is the
extension the choice of? Is it the administration or the
Congress, or do you want a provision that just allows the
administration under specific circumstances to go forward?
Secretary Kerry. Well, that is where it has to be--I mean,
that is the precision of the language that we have to sit down
and work through. And I would want White House counsel and
others obviously to weight in very heavily on that.
Senator Udall. But this is a policy question.
Secretary Kerry. Well, it is always policy question.
Congress always has the ability to cut off money for something.
Senator Udall. Right.
Secretary Kerry. I mean, you have the power of the purse no
matter what is stated, and the President has the power of the
Commander in Chief and Executive authority. And he will make
his decision, and that is the debate. My thought is that if you
sit down and work this through, you will come up with an
equation that works effectively.
Senator Udall. But you will not today say that provision
should be Congress revisiting it at 3 years or the
administration----
Secretary Kerry. Well, I think the administration deserves
first crack. There is no question about that, but it ought to
be done in a way----
Senator Udall. So it is not a real 3 years. You want a
longer duration.
Secretary Kerry. No, I said first crack at it. I mean, I do
not think Congress is going to sit here and say, yes, you ought
to continue it, and the Executive is saying I am not going to
order my troops to do that. Clearly the Chief Executive,
Commander in Chief, is going to make a decision as a matter of
the administration's foreign policy and its war fighting
policy. But there needs to be, obviously I would assume for
you, some manner of weighing in on that. And how that is
effected and what the language is is precisely what we ought to
be working through. That is not for me to casually throw it out
here this afternoon, and I think that would be, you know,
inappropriate. But I know there is a way to balance this.
Senator Udall. And I think the important thing is that
Congress, whatever the period of time, needs to reweigh back
in, be involved, be engaged in terms of where we are at that
particular point. And in the three areas you outlined on the
authorization of force, my opinion is what we are talking about
is an open-ended authorization. There is no geographic
limitation. I think there should be geographic limitation. I do
not think we should allow the administration to go into Libya
or a number of other countries surrounding this area.
Secondly, this language ``no boots on the ground,'' the
President has used that language very specifically over and
over again. That should be in the resolution. It should be
strong. And if you want to have boots on the ground, you should
come back to the Congress in order to continue with a war with
American troops on the ground.
And as far as the duration, I mentioned that earlier. I
think one year would be more appropriate because it has been
very difficult for us to get the information we need in order
to find out whether we should be moving forward or not. And
then just as a final issue here, I want to mention the issue of
paying for this. There is no doubt that we are starting a third
war in this particular region. You do not have to look very far
to know that it is a war to look at Kobani, look at the troops
that are fighting, look at the air strikes.
And one of the biggest questions with all wars is how do
you pay for them, and up until Iraq and Afghanistan, the
generation that fought a war paid for the war. And I believe we
started a policy, which was a very misguided policy. We put
Afghanistan, we put Iraq, we put them on the credit card. So as
the President prepared to present a plan to the Congress to pay
for this war, the President says it is going to be lengthy. It
is going to be 3 years. Is he willing to put forward war bonds,
war surcharge, a terrorism tax like some have called for? Is he
willing to put anything on the table in order to pay for this?
Secretary Kerry. Well, the President has put on the table--
the request for $1.52 billion was additional resources for the
Department of State/USAID to degrade and ultimately defeat
ISIL. We have put additional funding requests in. There is $520
million foreign----
Senator Udall. I am talking about paying for it with a
war--like all the other wars that have been paid for, not
putting----
Secretary Kerry. Well, this is paid for within the context
of the current budget and the process.
Senator Udall. Well, I take it--I take it you are not----
Secretary Kerry. And that is what we are doing. But in
addition to that, let me just say one thing, though, Senator,
if I may. Look, I respect the notion that you have an opinion
about 1 year and strong feelings about--you know, strong
feelings about the geographic area, et cetera. But I will say
to you, if you limit this geographically, you are saying to--
and we did not limit al-Qaeda geographically. And we have been
able to do very real damage to al-Qaeda and keep plots from
hitting us--the Christmas bombing plot, other plots that have
come out of other places than Pakistan or Afghanistan. And I
think one of them came out of Yemen, another out of another
location, Northern Africa.
I mean, we have been able to do those things because we are
not limited by geographic authority. And I will tell you that
we would have a much bigger problem today if we were, and it
would be terrible to send a message to these guys, you have a
safe haven over here and safe haven over here. And if we do not
take this seriously--I mean, this is bigger than just where it
is in Iraq and Syria.
Senator Udall. I know----
Secretary Kerry. And secondly, let me crystal clear. We did
not start this. We are not about to start a third war. Osama
bin Laden started this on 9/11/2001, and he has continued it in
absentia obviously through what al-Qaeda does. ISIL, Daesh, is
an extension of al-Qaeda. It is part of the same thing. It is
clear what they want to do, and it is a risk and danger to all
of the region, which is why we have this extraordinary
coalition.
This is not the United States of America trying to start
something, and there is not a country in the region that is not
looking to us for leadership right now and working with us and
grateful for what we are doing here, because they are at risk--
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the region, Syria, Israel. You run the
list--Jordan. Ask any of them. That is why they have publicly
stepped up and they are part of this effort.
So I think we have to understand this is the fight of the
generation. That is what I believe certainly, and President
Obama believes it. And we need to understand what a big
challenge it is, and it is going to take a lot more than just
trying to deal with it through this military component. There
is no ultimate military solution, though we have to fight back,
against the Daesh. But if a lot of young kids out there are
left to their own devices and do not have options for jobs, and
education, and a decent life, and opportunity, and respect, and
dignity, and so forth, this is going to continue. And the
United States and our allies need to work at that side of the
ledger also.
The Chairman. Senator----
Senator Udall. Well, that is something that we can agree
on, and I know my time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Well, let me say I agree with your comments
about the parameters of an AUMF, but, you know, this is really
kind of a charade we are going through because the Congress of
the United States is not going to act in the next couple of
days, because I have been involved in many AUMFs, and not a
single one was generated from the Congress.
The reason why the Constitution calls the President the
Commander in Chief is because he is supposed to lead, and if he
wants an authorization for the use of military force, then he
should lead and tell us what he wants that authorization to be.
And, frankly, for you to say that, well, we welcome it or
whatever it is, of course, is an abrogation of the
responsibilities of the President of the United States as
Commander in Chief. So as we go through this charade, whether
we have a vote or not in the next day or so before we go out
is--almost makes it all irrelevant.
But I would hope in January working with the new chairman
and the new ranking member and other members of this committee
that the President of the United States would present an AUMF
to the Congress and to this committee, and we could work
together on it. But it has got to be led by the Commander in
Chief, and, frankly, that is how the system works, and that is
how it has worked every time.
Now, I would like to switch gears real quickly. Here is a
Washington Post, ``U.S. Backed Syrian Rebels Thwarted by
Fighters Linked to al-Qaeda.'' ``Time is Running Out For Obama
in Syria.'' ``Western Backed Syrian Rebels Are in Danger of
Collapse Before Help Arrives.'' All of these facts are well-
known to media experts, and the rebels are on the verge of
collapse; they are getting beaten very badly. And one of the
major reasons why they are getting beaten very badly is because
they are subject to barrel bombing and air attacks from Bashar
Assad.
So I guess my question to you again is what I asked you the
time--and by the way, Ambassador James Jeffrey says times is
not on our side--reconsider the no U.S. combat formations on
the ground decision because you may have to either renege on
that or you may have to fall off your very important mission of
destroying ISIS. I think there is a gap between the two.
Ambassador Ford, ISIS is not something which drone strikes
or F-16 strikes is going to contain because the Islamic State,
let us face it, it is a state. So you do not destroy a state
with drone strikes. You are going to require boots on the
ground.
So what we are seeing, I would say to you, Mr. Secretary,
is the incrementalism that I saw in the Vietnam war. We are
seeing decisions made in a tight circle in the White House. We
are seeing them incrementally implemented. We see, what, 200
troops, additional troops, then 500 more, and then 1,000 more.
Meanwhile, our Syrian rebels honestly do not understand why
you will not protect them from Bashar's intense bombing
campaign, and we are not attacking Bashar Assad. And we are
asking these young people to fight and to die, and Bashar
Assad, as you should know, is their major enemy, and we are not
doing anything to stop Bashar Assad from barrel bombing them
and slaughtering them.
Which--and this is the guy that has killed 200,000. This is
the guy that has caused 3.5 million refugees. This is the guy
that still has 150,000 people in his prisons in which he has
treated with great atrocities.
Still one of the great mysteries to me in my life is these
photos that were smuggled out by a guy named Caesar, got no
response from the President of the United States or, frankly,
from you. Should have been a casus belli.
So here we are with the rebels being routed because they
are being attacked not only by Bashar Assad, but also extremist
organizations called ISIS and others. And they are in the verge
of collapse at least in one part of the country.
So now you are telling me we have a strategy to defeat
Bashar Assad, and we have a strategy to defeat ISIS in Iraq and
Syria, even though we are treating them as two separate
battles, at least as far as strategy is concerned. Maybe you
can respond to that and tell me what--how you justify morally
telling young Syrians to go and fight in Syria and yet allow
them to be barrel bombed by Bashar Assad, whose intensity of
air strikes vastly increase those--are greater than those of
U.S. air strikes on ISIS.
Secretary Kerry. Well, Senator, thank you.
Look, I think everybody is--there are certain frustrations
here. We all understand that, and I will come back to Syria in
one quick moment. But in point of fact, if I can correct you,
you are not correct that when we have been here, there have not
been instances where authorizations did not originate right
here in the committee.
The year before I came here, on the Lebanon in 1983, it
did. In 1991, when I was here, it originated here in the
committee. George Herbert Walker Bush sent 350,000 troops to
the Middle East to respond to the invasion of Kuwait.
Senator McCain. Well, I will be glad to argue with you
about it, but it is led--it has been led by the Presidents. I
would appreciate if you would go on and----
Secretary Kerry. No, no.
Senator McCain [continuing]. Justify how we can continue
the massacre of brave young Syrians.
Secretary Kerry. I will come back to it, Senator. But I am
going to answer the question.
Senator McCain. I did not ask a question. I made a
statement.
Secretary Kerry. And it was incorrect.
Senator McCain. Now please move on----
Secretary Kerry. Well, your statement was incorrect,
Senator.
Senator McCain [continuing]. To the slaughter in Syria,
please.
Secretary Kerry. Well, look, I am not going to sit here
like a ping pong ball. I think that your statement was
incorrect, and you know, everybody is accountable for what they
say, and so are you. The fact is you are incorrect.
On January 8, 1991, Bush sent a letter here requesting it
to adopt a resolution, and a few days later, Congress gave him
what he asked for. And Congress originated it.
Senator McCain. Yes, and he--and I was there, and he came
over with a proposal. So go ahead.
Secretary Kerry. Did not come over----
Senator McCain. He did come over with a proposal. You and I
can argue about that if you want to. I was here, too. He came
over with a proposal.
Secretary Kerry. He did not, and the record will show that.
Senator McCain. The record will show that he did, if it
was----
Secretary Kerry. And again, in Somalia in 1993, the
committee likewise did it. And I served on the committee. I
think I know what happened back then.
And Senator Biden, now Vice President, was on the
committee, and we know what happened. So we can let the record
speak to that.
With respect to what is happening, I think I was up front
and stated that in the north they are seriously challenged. We
understand that, and we have said that.
But the fact is that more is being done and more is being
done than I can talk about here in this hearing, but the fact
is that there are greater capacities being provided to the
opposition. And our hope is that when we work things through
with the Turks and over the next days, certain decisions will
be made that, in fact, will provide greater capacity. But, yes,
they are challenged today in the north.
But here is a reality. What we are doing to train them, the
opposition, and what is being done with respect to ISIL,
because the opposition, particularly in the north, has been
fighting ISIL, and they have been fighting al-Nusra, and they
have been fighting the regime.
What we are doing----
Senator McCain. And we are allowing them to be barrel
bombed.
Secretary Kerry. We are not allowing them to be barrel
bombed.
Senator McCain. We are not preventing them from being
barrel bombed.
Secretary Kerry. Well, is the committee ready to vote?
How many votes are there in this committee for American
forces to now go in----
Senator McCain. That is not my answer. My answer is to give
them the weapons they need, which they do not have.
Secretary Kerry. I just said to you that----
Senator McCain. They do not have those weapons. It has been
3 years. It is 200,000 dead. I said----
Secretary Kerry. Senator, I just said to you there are
things we cannot----
Senator McCain. I said the last year when we were at--you
were going to hit the trifecta. You hit it on Syria, you hit it
on the Palestinians-Israelis, and now you are going to hit it
on Iran. And now we are still not giving these people the
support they need and deserve while 200,000 of them have been
butchered.
Secretary Kerry. Senator, we are in the process right now,
and I think you know this, there are certain things that are
happening. And I do not think--I think it is a little
disingenuous to suggest that nothing is being considered and
nothing is happening when it is.
And the fact is that in a classified setting, you can go
through precisely what is taking place, and I think you will
have a better sense of what the options are.
Senator McCain. I am sure there is young people that are
dying in Syria are pleased to know that things are happening
that we cannot even talk about. Disgraceful.
Secretary Kerry. Well, Senator, I mean, the rules of the
Senate----
Senator McCain. My time has expired.
Secretary Kerry. Now the rules of the Senate, you know,
classified information is classified information. I mean, if
you want to fight about that, you can. But----
Senator McCain. I am not talking about classified
information.
The Chairman. Time.
Senator McCain. I want to know why we have not helped them
for the last 3 or 4 years. They are fighting for freedom.
The Chairman. The time of the Senator has expired.
Secretary Kerry. Senator, we are helping them.
Senator McCain. Appreciate it.
Secretary Kerry. We might not be helping them to your
satisfaction, but there is a lot of help being given to them.
Senator McCain. Not to their satisfaction.
The Chairman. Senator Murphy.
Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you and the ranking member and Secretary Kerry for taking this
process so seriously.
I do not think this is a charade. I think whether or not we
pass this through the House and through the Senate in the next
few days, this has been a forcing mechanism. Without a
submission from the administration, for whatever reason they
may have, we needed this process. We needed these deliberations
in order to get to a text that while it may not pass through
both houses in the next few days, will be much more easily
passed in January because of the work that this chairman and
this committee has done and, hopefully, the discussions that
Secretary Kerry is prepared to be a part of.
Two quick points, the second leading into a question. And I
think what we are talking about here is a distinction between
what the administration believes to be preferable, an
authorization, and what many of us believe to be necessary,
which is an authorization.
And just by way of explanation as to why many of us think
that, I do think there is a difference in terms of what we
believe ISIS to be. Many of us, respectfully, do not believe
this is just a matter of a name change. This is an organization
whose name is different, but who had a very specific tactical
and strategical difference with al-Qaeda. There is a change in
hierarchy.
And many of us worry that if a change in name and a change
in tactic and a change in strategy and a change in hierarchy
does not prompt us to pass a new authorization, we are not sure
how we ever get out from underneath the original 2001 AUMF,
which is why we think this is vitally necessary.
My second point is on this question of limitations. Senator
Flake and Senator Johnson rattled off a list of authorizations
that were fairly open-ended in nature, and that certainly has
been the practice often of this Congress. But I can rattle you
off a similar list of authorizations that the Congress has
passed that have limitations.
You can start in the 1790s with our authorizations for
action against the French navy. But fast forward to 1983, the
authorization for military force in Lebanon, 1993 in Somalia,
2013 the authorization passed by this committee, all of them
had different kinds of limitations. Limitations on time,
limitations on tactics.
And so, it really is just a question of whether we think
that the policy that we are talking about is so important that
it should be in statutory language. And I think that is what
you are hearing from many of us on this committee, that we
understand that it is preferable to have a bipartisan bill,
that in most circumstances, it is probably preferable to grant
substantial deference to the administration.
But occasionally, there are questions that are so important
that they are deserving of a statutory limitation, and that is
why I think we are having to struggle over this question of
ground forces because many of us believe that the deployment of
ground forces in the Middle East today would essentially be
fighting a fire with gasoline. That if we have learned anything
from the last 10 years, it is that the massive deployment of
American forces create twice as many foreign fighters and
extremist fighters as they eliminate in the long run, and they
provide a crutch for domestic governments to stand down and let
us do all the work while they continue to stew in their
dysfunction.
And I think part of our worry is that the reason why we do
not have a Department of Defense witness here today is that
there is substantial disagreement within the administration,
that there is an element of the military which would like to
have a serious conversation about the deployment of ground
forces.
And we take--and I take at least--I will speak for myself.
I take the I think you have termed it as a prohibition from the
President incredibly seriously. I do not doubt for a second
that you and the President are committed to keeping ground
forces out of this equation. But many of us worry that that
balance could tip or that the next administration could think
differently.
And so, I guess my question would just be simple. It would
be helpful to hear a little bit more about why you think, why
the policy is such that you think it would be a bad idea, that
it would be counter to our policy of degrading and defeating
ISIL to insert ground forces into the equation? Because we sort
of just take that for granted, but that clearly is a debate
that is happening within foreign policy circles, within this
committee, within the administration.
And I think it would be helpful just to hear how strongly
that view is held within the Department of State and the
Department of Defense and within the White House.
Secretary Kerry. Well, Senator, thank you for a very
articulate statement of what the tensions are here, what is at
stake, and I do not disagree with you. I think it is important
for Congress to have that statutory statement of some kind or
another.
And I assure you, President Obama, who served on this
committee for, you know, 4 years and Senator Biden, then-
Senator Biden, now Vice President, who served on this committee
for about, what is it, you know, 30 years or near, both are
huge supporters of the War Powers Act, as I am. He has lived by
it, even in situations where he did not feel like he had to
necessarily strictly send up, he sent it up. He always moved on
the side of caution and of compliance.
And they believe it is important to have an appropriate
authorization of military force. But as President of the United
States, he also believes that his constitutional authority is
vital and his ability as Commander in Chief to fully empower
his military to be able to effect what he needs should not be
micromanaged and restrained in a way that might eliminate,
might eliminate some option they may need at some point in
time.
It would be hard to imagine, given the experience of Iraq
and all that we learned about our forces on the ground and
these reactions of people indigenously that you talk about,
that, you know, that someone is going to voluntarily say we
ought to have major ground force for a long period of time.
I mean, what we are really talking about is protecting
against exigencies, emergencies, certain circumstances that may
or may not arise. For instance, like the rescue effort,
tragically that did not work, of Luke Somers the other day.
Would that have been envisioned within it? I do not know. I do
not think so. But there are other circumstances that may arise,
and we cannot predict them all. Nobody can.
So all we are trying to do is preserve, and I think, as
again I say the duration, the timeframe here is such. And I
think you, yourselves, you have to trust your own power in the
Congress and the ability of Congress, if there were suddenly
movements to do this, I cannot imagine it being funded. I
cannot imagine that, you know, there is not going to be a hue
and cry that would be overwhelming in reaction to that, absent
some, again, extraordinary circumstances that merited that kind
of response.
But do you want to pre-guess that? Do you want to
predetermine what you--then you are tangled up in a statutory
knot and trying to get out of it. I think the better part of
wisdom here is to try to maintain an adequate level of
flexibility, but at the same time preserve your prerogative
through the duration of time, et cetera.
Now the administration has said the President is prepared
to have his people sit carefully, work through this language,
try to see how to balance these equities. You know, what he
wants is the broadest vote possible. Get everybody in a place
where they are comfortable, if that is achievable, and I think
it ought to be.
Senator Murphy. I appreciate that. I think the more that
you review the chairman's draft, you will see that that
specific hypothetical that you posed is covered by one of these
exceptions. And I would imagine almost every other hypothetical
that could be presented is going to be covered by the
exceptions in the draft.
But I look forward to that process. I do not think there is
reason to be as scared of these limitations as you may be,
given what has already been drafted.
Secretary Kerry. Well, if they are all covered, maybe it is
better to say something about no enduring activity or no
enduring ground--I mean, there is a way to cover it maybe with
one sentence. Let us think about other ways of doing.
All I am saying is, folks, let us agree to try to find a
way to talk this through without posturing.
The Chairman. As I turn to--as I turn to Senator Barrasso,
let me just say on that particular issue, page 5 of the draft
AUMF says that troops are permitted for the protection or
rescue of members of the U.S. Armed Forces or United States
citizens from imminent danger posed by ISIS. So it envisioned
that----
Secretary Kerry. But I have other examples----
The Chairman. I am sure we could throw out 100 and I am not
sure that there would be language that could cover all 100 of
them. But we were certainly--as I say, I am happy to see the
language, if that can be envisioned.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Today's hearing on the authorization of the use of military
force against ISIL, I believe, is critically important.
Declaring war or authorizing the use of military force is one
of the most serious responsibilities of Congress. There can
hardly be a task more weighty and solemn than sending our
Nation's sons or daughters into harm's way to protect our
interests.
So I believe President Obama has an obligation to Congress
and to the American people to spell out the direct threat posed
by ISIL, to outline his strategy for comprehensively destroying
ISIL, and request the authorities he needs to successfully
complete the mission. I believe ISIL is a threat to our
homeland, and I support efforts to eliminate this terrorist
threat.
Our committee is debating the authorization for the use of
military force while the President has already been taking
offensive military actions against ISIL for months. President
Obama has not submitted a request outlining that authorization
that he is seeking from Congress.
Normally, when the executive branch wants an authorization
for the use of military force, it formally requests that
legislative authorization and then is actively involved in
negotiating over the language and advocating its passage. That
is how the 2001 AUMF was developed. But we see no similar
effort on behalf of the Obama administration.
So in the absence of the administration's specific request
or submission of a proposal for authorization, some Members of
Congress are more interested in placing limitations in the AUMF
and tying the hands of the President and our Nation's generals.
Whether it is geographical or operational limitations, I think
these limitations are misguided and dangerous.
Congress should either be authorizing the use of force or
not authorizing force. Congress should not try to micromanage a
war through an authorization.
So if the administration had provided military and
intelligence witnesses, and the chairman has already made a
comment about your willingness to come forward, but not having
all of the abilities to answer all of the questions. You know,
I would have asked how the limitation of the use of ground
troops would impact the military's planning and the ability to
respond to conditions on the ground.
So since they are not here, I ask you how do we ensure that
any AUMF continues to allow the United States to strike and
destroy ISIS should it expand outside of any limitations which
may be included in an AUMF that is being offered?
Secretary Kerry. Well, that is precisely why we are trying
to work out this question of the limitations. Because I cannot
answer it otherwise.
Senator Barrasso. So you believe that there should not be
limitations?
Secretary Kerry. I said we are prepared to embrace a
clarification, a process by which there is an understanding of
how we can balance these equities. It may require some kind of
restraint that we feel would not abrogate the Commander in
Chief responsibilities. I think there is a way to work at it,
and that is what we are offering to try to do.
But you know, or example, what about non-U.S. hostage or
prisoner? I mean, that might be a situation. You can run
through all kinds of things here. The point is we are just
trying to preclude sending restraint messages to folks that we
are trying to defeat and degrade and at the same time balance
the equities of the concerns people have about the open-
endedness that we have lived with in the past. And it is a
legitimate concern.
I think everybody ought to try to help find the way to work
that through, and in the doing so, we can ensure that we have
the kind of broad-based bipartisan resolution that we deserve.
Senator Barrasso. Do you think there are additional
specific authorities that the administration needs that they
currently do not have to degrade and destroy ISIL?
Secretary Kerry. At this point in time? You mean the
authorization we are giving at this point?
Senator Barrasso. Yes.
Secretary Kerry. No. I think the President feels that he
has the full authority, both constitutionally and through the
current AUMF. But we acknowledge that it needs refining. We
acknowledge that there is a gap in time and a sufficient
differential in what we are fighting that the American people
are owed a more precise articulation that meets the current
moment, and that is what the President is saying we should
have.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. Secretary, your predecessor, Hillary
Clinton, recently stated in a speech at Georgetown University
that America needs to show respect for our enemies and
empathize with their perspective and point of view.
ISIS terrorists are not going to simply go away. We cannot
ignore them and hope that they will embrace our values. And we
certainly cannot empathize and show respect to people who have
brutally murdered brave Americans.
So do you believe, as Secretary of State, that a key
solution to our enemies such as ISIS and al-Qaeda is ``showing
respect'' and ``empathizing with their perspective and point of
view''?
Secretary Kerry. Well, you know, I missed the first part of
the quote. I apologize. What was it? Empathize?
Senator Barrasso. Hillary at Georgetown recently said that
America needs to show respect for our enemies and empathize
with their perspective and point of view.
Secretary Kerry. Yes, well, I do not think she was
referring--I am confident. I know she was not referring to a
group like Daesh. I think she is--you know, I think in terms of
what she meant, there is no question in my mind, she is
referring to those out there with whom we are not actively
fighting or engaged in war but who are behaving in ways that
are clearly opposed to our interests.
And there are plenty of people in that status, regrettably,
whether it is in the Middle East in certain countries or in
other parts of the world. I mean, we have a lot of tensions
right now with Russia, and it is clear that any analysis of
what is happening in Ukraine and how you deal with it or in
other parts of the world requires you to look very carefully at
all their posturing and where it comes from and what may be
involved and how one might be able to defuse it.
So I have no doubt that does not include a group like
Daesh, and I think it would be unfair to insinuate that it
does.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Before I turn to Senator Kaine, you know, a lot has been
made here about placing restrictions on AUMFs and the
suggestion that there is no precedent for Congress doing that.
That is simply not true.
The fact is, is that most AUMFs historically have limited
the type of forces deployed into harm's way, the geographic
scope, and the period of time. It is declarations of war, which
is not what we are doing, nor what the administration has asked
us for, that have typically authorized the President to use all
military means available to the United States for unlimited
duration.
My text is clearly not a declaration of war, nor has the
administration asked us for a declaration of war, and several
of my colleagues have noted this. But you know, some of the
AUMFs that have included restrictions are the 1993 Somalia
AUMF, which authorized United States Armed Forces in a limited
way to protect United States personnel and assist in the short-
term security of U.N. units; the 1983 Lebanon AUMF that
prohibited offensive actions.
The 2013 Syria AUMF that passed through this committee, I
think one of its high-water marks, in a bipartisan way
expressly did not authorize the use of the United States Armed
Forces on the ground in Syria for the purpose of combat
operations.
We have a span of nearly 30 years, to take recent history,
in which AUMFs have had limitations. So the suggestion that
having limitations is a historical aberration, that is just
simply not the case.
Senator Kaine, who has been greatly involved in this issue,
and along with Senator Paul, their amendments have driven us to
this--to this moment.
So, Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Secretary Kerry. You have not been before us
to receive the thanks of this committee for some of your
diplomacy, the diplomatic efforts to help reform the Government
in Iraq, the diplomatic efforts to break the electoral impasse
in Afghanistan. I want to thank you for those because those
efforts were important.
I want to thank you for your efforts on behalf of the
administration to build the coalition that is fighting against
ISIL. Senator King and I went to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in
early October and went to the CAOC, Combined Air Operations
Center, and we witnessed the coalition in action. Full-screen
videos, data coming in, United States, Saudi, UAE, Dutch,
Belgian, French, Canadian, United Kingdom, Qataris trading
information, making decisions together in both the Syrian and
Iraqi theaters. Very, very impressive.
You deserve our thanks for that. But we cannot do military
action without Congress, and we are currently in what the
administration has described, beginning in late August, as a
war against ISIL. Those were the phase that both Secretary
Hagel has used, the President has used it. Since we moved from
the immediate protection of U.S. Embassy personnel in Baghdad
and Erbil, an effort to take back a dam in the middle of
August, the President said we have gone on offense against
ISIL.
Yesterday, we passed 4 months. We are in month 5 of an air
strike campaign that has involved 1,100 plus air strikes, as
you testified; 1,500 combat train and assist advisers on the
ground in the theater, another 1,500 authorized to go. The cost
of this to the American taxpayer has now been in excess of $1
billion.
And three American troops have been killed supporting
Operation Inherent Resolve, and I just think we ought to at
least mention their names. October 1, Marine Corporal Jordan
Spears from Memphis, Indiana. October 23, Marine Lance Corporal
Sean Neal from Riverside, California. December 1, Captain
William H. Dubois of New Castle, Colorado, an Air Force
captain.
We are at war, and Congress has not yet really done a
darned thing about it.
I respect the comments that the ranking member, Senator
Corker, who I deeply respect, said earlier about the process of
this is not ideal. It was not ideal when Senator Paul and I
tried to file an AUMF as an amendment to an international water
bill last week, but if we had not done it, we would not even
been doing this at all until January.
Congress has been silent about this. I do not think we
weaken our Nation so much with an unwieldy process as we weaken
our Nation when we do not take seriously the most somber
responsibility that Congress has, which is to engage around the
declaration at the beginning, not 5 months in, at the beginning
about whether we should initiate war.
Constitutionally, it is required. I am driven by a more
important value. I do not think it is fair to ask people, like
these three, to risk their lives, to give their lives in a
mission if Congress has not had a debate and put their
thumbprint on it and said this is in the national interest. If
we are not willing to do that, how can we ask people to risk
their lives?
I think it would be foolish to leave here this week or
next, to adjourn, wait until January when we come back. January
8, the first week we are back, we would now be into the 6th
month of war without Congress taking any action.
This is not about a quest to just seem relevant. For those
of us who do not believe that the 2001 or 2002 authorizations
give this a legal authority, every day we have been on offense
without Congress we believe is an unauthorized war. We believe
it is a congressional abdication of our oath of office and of
our fundamental constitutional responsibilities.
There is a difference of opinion between the executive and
the legislature on this. But remember, this is about an
argument about what power the legislature gave to the Executive
in 2001 and 2002, and you might not be surprised to know that
those of us in the legislative branch have a pretty strong
opinion about what that power was and what it was not.
I do not think we can wait until January or February. So we
should act. The administration has not done your own draft?
Hey, we have got a deadline tomorrow to file amendments to this
one. First degree amendments at 9 a.m. Second degree amendments
at 6 a.m.
You say we are close. Offer your own wordsmith and I am
sure the chairman will make sure that when we talk about it, we
can consider the administration's position. But we cannot
afford to wait and get into the 6th month of a war without
Congress saying a mumbling word about this.
I think I know the answer to this, but I do want to put it
on the record, and I want to ask you a question. I want to ask
you a question about whether the President or the
administration's position have changed from what the President
has said. And I am going to read you five statements.
August 9, 2014. ``Number one, I have been very clear that
we are not going to have United States combat troops in Iraq
again.''
September 10, 2014. ``As I have said before, these American
forces will not have a combat mission. We will not get dragged
into another ground war in Iraq.''
On that same date, ``It will not involve American combat
troops fighting on foreign soil.''
September 17, 2014. ``The American forces that have been
deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission.
They will support Iraqi forces on the ground as they fight for
their country against these terrorists. I will not commit you
and the rest of our armed forces to be fighting another ground
war in Iraq.''
And finally, on September 18, 2014. ``I will not commit our
troops to fighting another ground war in Iraq or in Syria.''
Has the President's position or has the administration's
position, as evidenced by these clear and unequivocal
statements, changed?
Secretary Kerry. No.
Senator Kaine. Let me address the constitutional question
that the chairman brought up a minute ago because I do think it
is important. Is there precedent for restrictions or
limitations in authorization? Senator Murphy dealt with this as
well.
I would recommend to all my colleagues an article,
``Congressional Authorization and the War on Terrorism,''
authored by Jack Goldsmith and Curtis Bradley, May of 2005 in
the Harvard Law Review. It is an extensive review of the
constitutional power of Congress with respect to military
authorizations.
And it begins with a case that went to the Supreme Court
dealing with the quasi wars that Senator Murphy mentioned
against the French naval authorities in the 1790s. Congress
granted limited authorizations.
The authorizations ``did not authorize the President to use
all of the armed forces of the United States or to conduct
military incursions beyond specified military targets, and they
limited the geographical scope of the authorized conflict to
the high seas.'' Navy only. No ground troops.
Most authorizations to use force in U.S. history have been
of this limited or partial nature. The constitutional argument
on this is clear. The President's intent, as stated repeatedly
to the American public and the military, is clear. There has
been no change in that position, according to your testimony
today.
The language in the chairman's mark is not a restriction at
all. It is attempting to carry out exactly how the President
has described the mission. And as far as exigencies and
contingencies go, I give a lot of praise to the chairman for
trying to listen to all of us, listen to the administration
through those seven conversations, and put a mark together
that--that covers the contingencies or exigencies that we can
think of.
And finally, the President always has the power under
Article II to use any forces, including ground forces, to repel
an imminent threat to the United States by ISIL or by any other
group or nation. That power is absolute. No one on this
committee questions it. But in terms of putting restrictions
into this, it has been done since the 1790s without any
constitutional suggestion.
I would hope you might offer some thoughts tomorrow as we
are contemplating amendments so that Thursday we can do this.
But I do not think we can wait until the 6th month of this war
without Congress to finally begin to express the will of the
Article I branch.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman. Senator Paul.
Secretary Kerry. Can I just make a comment quickly?
The Chairman. Quickly.
Secretary Kerry. I will not take long, Senator Paul.
Just very quickly, first of all, that is a very articulate
summary and argument with respect to your particular position
on it. I think historically in most AUMFs and most debates
about whether we should be using force or not, depending on who
is President and depending on the balance in the Senate and the
House and so forth, there tends to be an argument de novo, so
to speak. And people come in and say, hey, Presidential power
and the Article II and know there have been restraints. And
that is going to apply to every situation, as it does here, as
we are now debating.
The question is, is there an effective way to achieve this
goal that, given the balance of interests, et cetera, in this
situation at this moment, given this particular fight, could
achieve the goal? Differently perhaps from the way it has been
laid out, but without losing the impact or the effect.
I think there may be some ways, and I suggested a couple.
One is through the duration. Another may be through some kind
of language that talks about no enduring combat operation or
whatever, but that is different and that avoids having to get
into this specific discussion of all the kind of instances,
which you are trying to cover, Mr. Chairman, respectfully, in
this.
So I would just say to you, with all genuine effort to try
to achieve this goal of getting a maximum vote, I would just
suggest that maybe a better way than kind of just doing it by
amendment is to pre-work the amendment or to find out if you
could come together and get an agreement so that you are doing
it either by consensus or agreement on that amendment rather
than just fighting out the amendments, and you have a vote, and
it is up or down. And you still do not resolve the fundamental
problem.
So all the administration is saying to you is we want an
AUMF. Yet whatever has happened to date--I am not going to go
backward--we would like to work it through in a way with you
that comes out with the strongest possible result. Because the
goal here is to get a result that has an impact for our allies,
for our troops on the field who are deployed, and particularly
for the coalition and for ISIL itself to understand our intent.
And I do not want to see that diminished by whatever
amendment process may flow without the adequate input.
The Chairman. Senator Paul.
Senator Paul. Thank you, and thank you for your testimony.
I think there is no greater responsibility for any
legislator than the debate over when we send our brave young
men and women to war. The Constitution is quite clear that this
responsibility lies with Congress.
Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers when describing the
congressional authority requirement, he wrote that the
executive branch is the branch most prone to war, and
therefore, we have with studied care vested that power in the
legislature.
I think for 5 months, we have been derelict in our duty. I
think we have had great leaders in our past. When FDR came the
day after Pearl Harbor, he came before a joint session of
Congress to ask for war. George W. Bush came within 2 weeks
after 9/11 to a joint session of Congress with the same
request.
I think this President has been derelict. But I think at
the same time, there is enough blame to go around for Congress,
who has also been derelict in their duty. There has been some
gnashing of teeth that some Senators had the temerity to offer
this as an amendment to the water bill. Had we not offered this
as an amendment to the water bill, there would be no debate
over war at this point.
So I accept that blame as a badge of honor and pledge to
continue in the new Congress and to amend any bill that comes
before the Foreign Relations Committee with the use of
authorization of force until we do finally have a debate and a
vote before the full Congress, as we should.
There was some discussion, and you have said the
administration is opposed to a geographic limit. Some on our
side are basically for no limits at all. But after watching
what has happened in the last 15 years and watching the
gymnastics, the mental gymnastics that tries to use an
authorization of force that was intended to be used against
those who attacked us on 9/11, to say ISIS has anything to do
with them I think is an absurd notion and an argument for why
we need to be very careful what authorization we give and very
strict in what authority we give to the President.
For example, the administration, through your testimony,
says they believe no geographic limit. Senator Udall brought
forward a great example. He said you know what? There are
groups in Libya, Algeria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia who have
pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and I am going to give
you a chance to revise your answer because you very quickly
said, of course, that is why we need no geographic limit.
Okay. Tomorrow, Medina. Medina, Saudi Arabia, pledges their
allegiance to ISIS. This resolution will authorize you to bomb
Medina, Saudi Arabia. Is that the message you want to send to
the world that you want the authority, the unlimited authority
to attack geographically anywhere in the world if someone
pledges their allegiance to the Islamic State?
That is absolutely why I cannot vote for any resolution
that does not have a geographic restraint, and realize the
message we send, if that is the message we are sending, that if
Medina or Mecca pledges allegiance to the Islamic State, they
are open to being bombed by the United States. That is a very,
very scary and I think a wrong-headed message to be sending to
the Middle East.
Your comments, please?
Secretary Kerry. Well, my comment is, Senator, I think
there is a responsibility to pick logical and legitimate kinds
of options, number one. And number two, to make a presumption
in the sanity of the President of the United States, nobody is
talking about bombing everywhere.
Senator Paul. Let us be very explicit and limit it then.
Secretary Kerry. No. Senator, that is precisely what the
Constitution--you are a student of the Constitution, and you
pride yourself in upholding it and being a strict
constructionist. And being a strict constructionist, I do not
think you should put those limitations on the power of the
Executive.
If you want to get into it as a declaration of war, you
certainly have the right to try to do that. But I would counsel
you also that no declaration of war has taken place since World
War II. Since World War II.
And no President has come here, including George Bush, who
you cited erroneously as having done so. He did not come and
ask for a declaration of war. He asked for an authorization for
the use of force.
Senator Paul. I did not say he came for a declaration of
war, but he did come as a leader before the joint session of
Congress.
Secretary Kerry. But let me just finish. Let me be crystal
clear here. You know, if you are going to be strictly
constructionist and adhere to the Constitution in terms of what
you are arguing about the right, declaration of war, it would
be a mistake to ask for a declaration of war. You want a, you
know, use of military force because a declaration of war has
only been used against states.
Senator Paul. I am really not making that argument. I am
making the argument currently for a limit of geographic nature
to whether it is a use of force or a declaration of war, that
it should be limited because here is the problem. You are
sending a message to the Middle East that no city is off
limits, that if any city in the Middle East declares an
allegiance to the Islamic State that you would be justified and
you would have the authority to bomb them.
Secretary Kerry. Senator, that statement is being made
without any input or, frankly, consideration for the limits and
strictures within which the United States of America is
currently operating. We have some of the most extraordinary
self-imposed restraints on our checklists for where and when
and how we might use force even where we have been authorized
to use force.
And you need to review that. You need to go find out what
restraints our military is currently operating under.
Senator Paul. There is a very important restraint, and that
is the Constitution that says Congress initiates war. You went
to war in Libya without congressional authority. You have now
been at war for 5 months without constitutional or
congressional authority.
Secretary Kerry. We did not go to war in Libya. It depends
how you look at these. I mean, this term of ``war'' is,
frankly, I think----
Senator Paul. Oh, I forgot. That was kinetic action?
Secretary Kerry. I think that we are not going to war in
the way that we went to war in Iraq. We are not going to war in
the way that we went to war in Afghanistan.
We are engaged in what people want to call a war and can
call a war certainly, and we have. But it is very restrained
and different in scope.
Senator Paul. But that is why we should be very explicit.
Secretary Kerry. Which is why--which is--let me just
finish. Which is why we are in favor of an authorization for
use of military force which defines what it is.
Senator Paul. Right.
Secretary Kerry. But this is different. I mean, you need to
look at the checklist our people go through with respect to
whether or not they might take a shot at somebody. You need to
look at the restraints the President of the United States has
put on our military--let me finish.
Senator Paul. This is not about whether you are
restraining. It is about the division of power and the balance
of power between the branches of Government.
Secretary Kerry. No, it is bigger than that. It is really
bigger than that. It is not just about the division of power.
It is about what you are trying to achieve and how you can
achieve it. And also about how you use power.
But if you do not look at what you are trying to achieve
and what the methodologies are, the tools that you have at your
disposal, you are not going to get very far.
Senator Paul. Let me ask one quick question to finish, and
that was last year when you came before the committee for the
Syrian AUMF, you said that there is no problem in our having a
language that has zero capacity for American troops on the
ground within the authorization the President is asking for.
This was against a regime that some would argue is more
formidable than ISIS, has greater assets for fighting war, and
would be a much more significant opponent, or at least equally
as significant as ISIS, but many would argue much greater. And
there, you were willing to accept that you would have a
prohibition on ground forces, but today you are unwilling to
accept a prohibition on ground forces.
How would you compare the relative strength of the two
opponents, and why would you accept no ground forces against
the Syrian regime that has an air force and has many more
weapons at its command and a larger army than ISIS?
Secretary Kerry. Are you going to let me answer this in
full?
Senator Paul. Absolutely.
Secretary Kerry. Because I want to answer it. Very
specifically, because it is an entirely different situation,
what we were asking for in the case of the limited authority to
have a limited strike against Assad at that time was entirely
focused on degrading his capacity to deliver chemical weapons
and sending a limited message. And we came here with great
specificity about the serious limitations on what we were
seeking.
So asking for--allowing that restraint at that time had no
imposition on the capacity to carry out the mission. The
mission was going to be without troops, without ground forces.
It was designed that way. It would have been executed that way,
and we were losing absolutely nothing whatsoever in the
potential because we had no intention of putting forces in to
do what we were going to do and achieve what we were going to
achieve.
Now we achieved----
Senator Paul. But that sounds similar to your statements
that you have made about this war.
Secretary Kerry. No. Because the President acknowledges, as
any President would, as all of our military would, ask any of
the people who are being asked to implement this strategy
whether they feel comfortable knowing that they have been
limited and what option might or might not be available to them
if they have to do it.
Now the President has made it clear it is not his policy.
And I have never seen anybody more adamant about that and more
clear in every statement he has made. They were all quoted by
Senator Kaine. Five times or four times in the month of
September, he has reiterated it.
But that does not mean that you want to take away what
might be conceivably necessary at some point in time in certain
circumstances. The President is absolutely clear about his
policy.
But I have to say to you that by virtue of the President's
decision to use force, and thank you to this committee for
voting and having made clear Congress was moving in that
direction, guess what? Instead of 1 or 2 days of bombing in
order to send a message that you should not use these, we have
got to deal with Russia to get 100 percent of the weapons out.
And that is because you did not limit it. You left it open,
and there was a question that we might, in fact, do what we
said we were going to do.
That was--actually, that is another moment where for the
first time in history during a conflict, we have removed all
the known declared chemical weapons from a country. And believe
me, thank God we did. Because today ISIL is in there
controlling half the country, and imagine what would happen if
they would gain control of those chemical weapons.
So it is a completely different situation, Senator, where
you have, you know, a very limited goal, limited stated, and
you are willing to live under it. And the Executive says I will
live under it.
Here, you have an Executive who does not have as limited a
goal, but who has said already he is going to limit his means
of achieving the goal but does not want to be hamstrung in
every other way with respect to the constitutional authorities
that I know----
Senator Paul. But for those of us who believe----
The Chairman. The Senator's time----
Senator Paul [continuing]. Another Iraq war, that is why we
are concerned about limiting this.
Secretary Kerry. I well understand that.
The Chairman. I know both of you would like to engage in a
debate, but I have to get to another member.
Just for the record, the Syria AUMF did, obviously had a
limitation on ground forces, did not have a limitation as to
the other wherewithal that the administration wanted to prevent
chemical weapons.
Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your excellent work on
behalf of our country. We thank you for your incredible service
over these last 2 years.
I am one of the few members of Congress who voted for the
authorization of military force in 2001 and who voted for the
authorization of military force in 2002. When I look back at
that, I never contemplated that it would authorize 2.5 million
American military personnel to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. I
never would have envisioned that 670,000 of them would now be
declared officially disabled, that 270,000 of them would be
treated for post traumatic stress syndrome, that the health
care bills would now have risen to over $1 trillion, separate
from the $1 trillion spent on those conflicts.
So it is a very timely debate that we are having for all of
us, huh? We need to just turn the page and move on to this next
stage because the use of those old authorizations do a
disservice to this institution and to this country.
So from my perspective, obviously, we are trying our best
as a Congress to ensure that we do not invoke the law of
unintended consequences, as we did with those first two
authorizations of military force. I never imagined that George
Bush would interpret the 2002 authorization the way he did, but
he did. And even as we debate this authorization, it will go
into the next Presidency.
And so, we have to be careful necessarily. And so, I think
that is why we are all being very cautious here because we have
lived through this recent American history, and we do not want
to repeat it.
So from my perspective, Mr. Secretary, I am looking at Iraq
right now, looking for some hope. You have had some
breakthroughs. They have named a Sunni Defense Minister, and
there seems to be some progress that would obviate the need for
American combat troops on the ground in Iraq.
Could you talk a little bit about that and the hopes that
you have that the Iraqi Sunnis would start fighting ISIS and
stop fighting the Iraqi Security Forces? Could you just talk a
little bit about that and how hopeful you are that we are on
the correct path in that country to reseal the Syrian-Iraqi
border?
Secretary Kerry. Well, thank you. Thank you, Senator, and
thank you for your generous comments. And I appreciate your
comment very much about your vote and what you did or did not
contemplate, and I certainly would agree with you, having been
here then and voting in that period of time.
Which is why President Obama and Vice President Biden
really are both so committed to an AUMF that appropriately
reflects where we are today. And I know he believes very deeply
that we will be stronger as a country if we have this broad
vote that I have talked about.
So I would say to all of you, notwithstanding the passion
with which you approach this sense of the mistakes that may
have been made and the open-endedness of war, et cetera, I do
believe there are ways to craft this so that it is not open-
ended and so that there are the sufficient levels of
clarifications about administration, et cetera, without getting
into something that is going to be impossible to get that broad
vote from. And I ask you to keep that in mind.
What we get for a vote here is a very important part of
what we are trying to achieve. The unanimity, the breadth and
scope of support is a message to everybody involved in this--
the coalition, our troops, you know, our closest allies, and
even to the people we are fighting.
So I appreciate your focusing on Iraq because, in fact, we
were deeply involved from the moment the President made the
comment that we have to know we had a government we could work
with in order to be able to commit to doing something. Because
anything we tried to do in Iraq if we had not had a
governmental transformation would never have worked, and we
would be in a really difficult situation here.
Who knows whether ISIL would have been in Baghdad or
whether Iran might have decided to go even further in to be
involved, et cetera. There are whole bunch of major strategic
permutations that could have unfolded, but we became deeply
engaged diplomatically, and a superb team worked hard, working
with our allies in the region to help the Iraqis be able to
make the choices they made. And they made them.
It was difficult. They got a new speaker. The current
speaker gave up his position and moved out. That took a lot of
effort, and that opened up the door to the selection of a Kurd
President. And that opened up the door to the selection of a
new Prime Minister.
And when Ayatollah Sistani and others weighed in, there
were a whole series of events that took place that brought
about this change in government. And just last week, we were in
Brussels with the new Prime Minister, Prime Minister Abadi,
speaking to some 60 entities and countries about his efforts to
bring people together, to recognize there was no room for the
kind of sectarian divide that had torn the place apart
previously.
Now Iran plays a hand here. It has got to be stated. There
is an impact in Iraq with Iran because Iraq is 80 percent Shia,
and there are interests. And historically--and other interests,
I might add, religious sites, other kinds of things.
So, hopefully, the Shia militia, with whom the current
administration is currently working to try to restrain them
from violence against Sunni, and the Sunni tribal chiefs can
come together with confidence that the military is evolving in
a way that together with their concept of a national guard and
with new respect within the government itself for an
inclusivity and participation, that can unite people around the
goal of focusing only on getting rid of Daesh.
Our feeling is that the training is coming along, that with
the oil deal and other measures being taken, there is a
constant effort being made to try to unite the government.
There are still tensions.
Importantly, regional efforts are taking place. When we had
the meeting in Jeddah, which was the beginning of the
organization of the coalition within the region, the Foreign
Minister of Saudi Arabia, Saud al-Faisal, promptly stated, ``We
will recognize the new government. We will open up diplomatic
relations, and we will exchange visits.'' That is happening.
Prime Minister Davutoglu of Turkey visited Iraq. The
Emirati Foreign Minister, Abdullah bin Zayed, visited Iraq. So
there is a regional shift taking place.
Now we obviously hope it holds. We will work diligently
with them. But this combination of training with the military,
desectarianizing--I mean undoing the sectarian divide that has
taken place, building confidence among the Sunni is going to be
a long process, but it has started. And it is having some
impact, and it has the potential of having a profound impact on
Iraq itself.
Senator Markey. And may I just say, John, that that is what
the American people want. They want a diplomatic resolution of
this issue amongst the people who live in both Iraq and in
Syria and the surrounding countries. That is what they want
more than anything, and they do not want another open-ended
opportunity for a commitment of another 2.5 million Americans
into that region.
Because the potential is there for that, and there are some
members on this committee, in fact, who believe that it should
be open-ended. And I just think that that debate is the debate
that we have to have this time before we go more deeply.
Secretary Kerry. I appreciate it, Senator.
The Chairman. Senator----
Senator Markey. And I thank you for your great service.
Secretary Kerry. Can I just say that President Obama
deserves credit, Mr. Chairman----
The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, we are going to have to
synthesize this because we have been here 31/2 hours, and I
still want to get to Senator Durbin.
Secretary Kerry. Fifteen seconds.
The Chairman. Yes, go ahead.
Secretary Kerry. President Obama deserves credit for having
made the decision, which I think was key, that he was not going
to move until they began to make the moves to put a government
change in place. And that is really what leveraged this entire
effort, and I think he deserves credit for having done that.
The Chairman. Senator Durbin will have the last word here
in questions.
Senator Durbin. My apologies, Mr. Secretary. We have a
hearing on the state of civil rights in America that was
scheduled that coincided with this, and I presided and could
not attend this. But I have had a pretty good summary of what
happened from my staff.
Secretary and Senator, you can recall the debates in 2001
and 2002, and some of us who voted against the invasion of Iraq
but felt that we did the right thing in voting to go after al-
Qaeda, I do not think anybody envisioned we were voting for the
longest war in the history of the United States of America and
that our pursuit of al-Qaeda would take us into this situation
today.
And apparently, some within the administration believe that
my vote then was an approval for what we are doing today.
Whether I agree or disagree with the President's actions today,
I think that is a stretch to call this an al-Qaeda operation,
even after al-Qaeda has disavowed Daesh or ISIS, whatever the
current nomenclature is.
Mr. Secretary, what it gets down to is this. The President
has said there will be no ground troops. When General Dempsey
came and testified before Congress and said there may be ground
troops, the administration was quick to correct him and say we
have no plans for ground troops.
Many of us believe that we ought to stand by the
President's public statement about no ground troops when it
comes to the authorization of use for military force. Our fear
is that if we do not, either this President or some future
President will drag us into another deep, long-lasting, bloody,
almost pointless conflict.
I am troubled that that is the new position of the
administration to want authority for ground troops. I thought
that issue was clear.
Secretary Kerry. It is. It is absolutely clear. There is
nothing that has changed. The President does not intend to, not
planning to. There is no thought in his head of using ground
troops.
Senator Durbin. Why then object to our saying that clearly
in the authorization for use of military force?
Secretary Kerry. Because what is contemplated by that, I
think, Senator, is clearly this notion that we are not going to
do some big deployment and get involved in an enormous war. But
if there is some one-time operation that requires X, Y, or Z.
Now you have tried to cover some of them. You have tried to
make that clear.
You are already accepting that. But the issue is can you
provide an adequate guarantee of an exception for everything
that may or may not arise in that context only? There is no
effort here to slide or try to change this. There is not going
to be a big--there is no effort to do that.
But all we are suggesting is we think there is a capacity
to clarify, to try to work this through in a way that could
bring both sides of this dais together in an effort to have a
more powerful message in this vote and a clearer AUMF. And I
think we can achieve that.
Senator Durbin. I will just say the chairman and ranking
member have been so patient, and I am not going to ask any
further questions other than to say, Mr. Secretary, this is
important, critically important. It is not just important in
terms of those whose lives will be at risk and what we are
trying to achieve in the Middle East. But it has an importance
that relates to our constitutional responsibilities, each of
us.
Secretary Kerry. Absolutely.
Senator Durbin. And I think that if we do not assert
ourselves and our constitutional responsibility when it comes
to this conflict, we are remiss. I do not want to be condemned
by future generations for walking away from this
responsibility. If we can work out an agreement, fine. If we
cannot, we still have a responsibility to pass this
authorization. I hope we do it before we leave.
Secretary Kerry. We have three former members of this
committee who are asking for the authorization who agree with
you but would like to see us do it in a way that gets the vote
we talked about.
Senator Durbin. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Corker, final remarks?
Senator Corker. I want to thank you for having the hearing.
I think this is much better than what was contemplated last
week.
I want to thank the Secretary for coming in today and
providing some principles that I really believe we can all
build on.
And I do applaud the President and you for making sure that
in Iraq we had a different government situation there before we
committed. I think that was a good thing.
I do want to say again I think that we can get to a place
where there is that broader support. I really believe that. I
am going to say something that my friends on this side of the
aisle will disagree with. The reason we are here is a total
failure of the President to lead on this issue and to send
something up here.
And so, we find ourselves divided when, in essence, we all
want the same thing. We want to authorize the President to be
able to do the things that are necessary to deal with ISIS. I
mean, I think we are united there. And the reason we are in
this cluster, which is where we are, is because the President
has not really sought that authorization.
Now today you came closer, not quite all the way there. But
you came closer to asking for an explicit authorization. Came
closer. A better approach to me would be for you to send up the
language that I think people have asked for, and there might be
some common ground here, more than we think.
But the one piece that I think is missing by not asking
explicitly is we do not have the opportunity to really delve
into the strategy of this, and that, you know, we are talking
about limitations in writing. But one of the things that we
have not had the opportunity to do, and I think anyone who
attended the classified briefing we had a month ago with
military leadership and others, I do not think anybody left
there believing that we understood how we were going to deal
with ISIS. I mean, I think there were a lot of gaps that we did
not understand.
So what is missing is not just the document, but it is also
what is missing is when you seek something explicitly, we have
the opportunity to probe how you are going to go about doing
that. Now we just heard from leaders in the region, several of
us with a meeting. I know there is tremendous division over the
Assad issue. Assad is the magnet for ISIS in the first place.
So I do hope that we will continue. I hope that you will
send up explicit language. I hope that we will have the
opportunity to understand how we are going to go forward.
One of the reasons we ended up in a 12- or 13-year war is
there was not any of this discussion on the front end. It did
not happen. But it is not just the language. It is actually
understanding how we are going to go about dealing with this,
and that is a massive missing element here.
So I want to thank the Secretary for being here. I think he
has conducted himself fairly well, except for evading the issue
of the explicit request. I thank him for the principles.
I do look forward to working with you to achieve, in spite
of all the things that I just said, to achieve a more broadly
bipartisan support of something that I think we all agree needs
to be undertaken. But I do not think you have yet come to us in
a way that is appropriate in making that happen.
But I thank the chairman for having this.
Secretary Kerry. Mr. Chairman, can I--I am surprised by
that. I want to get a bigger, a better grade from you, Senator.
I quote my own testimony.
The Chairman. He is a tough grader. So, you know?
Secretary Kerry. We ask you now to work closely with us on
a bipartisan basis to develop language that provides a clear
signal of support for our ongoing military operations against
ISIL. The authorization should give the President the clear
mandate and flexibility he needs to successfully prosecute the
armed conflict against ISIL and affiliated forces.
We have requested that we work together for an AUMF. We are
requesting an AUMF.
Senator Corker. Mr. Secretary, well, I look forward to
working with you a little more closely.
Secretary Kerry. Do I get a better grade?
Senator Corker. A little more explicitly. I will grade on
the curve and give you a little bit better ``attaboy.''
Secretary Kerry. The curve? The curve goes up, not down.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. I am not even going to go there. Let me just
say I want to thank you as well on behalf of all of the
members. You know, you have a great deal of respect here, and
you have acquit yourself most admirably today, even though I
think some of these questions are beyond the role of the
Secretary of State. And yet you have done a very admirable job
of trying to explain to the committee where we are at, where we
want to go, and how, hopefully, we can get there.
I certainly continue to welcome, as I have for months in my
efforts to try to develop language that can put the
administration in a place that is in synch with the Congress
toward our collective goal. And I have no--no concern about our
collective goal. Our collective goal is to defeat ISIS, and I
am convinced that we will.
But I also think that there is a very compelling reason for
Congress to act and to express itself, as Senator Kaine has
said, months after we already sent sons and daughters of
America into harm's way.
I think this hearing has helped us crystallize some of the
core issues that are still in difference between the
legislative and executive branch, and I would hope that we
could find a way to broach them. However, it is the chair's
intention to continue a markup on Thursday. If we can work from
here to Thursday to further narrow those, those would be great.
But there is a majority of this committee's desire to
express themselves on a vote on an authorization of the use of
military force. I am going to honor that view and move forward,
and we will see where we end up from there.
I am not so sure that we are going to end this week in the
session in the Senate. And if we do not, then I would actually
argue that there should be a broader debate in the Senate as
well. But in any event, we look forward to working with you,
Mr. Secretary.
And with the thanks of the committee, this hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:29 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Article Submitted by Senator Barbara Boxer
[From The Daily Beast, Dec. 9, 2014]
ISIS Jihadis Get ``Slavery for Dummies''
(By Jamie Dettmer)
They've enslaved thousands of Yazidi women--and now the
militants must follow ``rules'' laid out in an awful new list
of dos and don'ts, from treatment of virgins to reasons for
beating.
Whom can you enslave? What can you do with female slaves? Can you
beat them and have sex with them? The militants of the self-styled
Islamic State, never shy to parade their gruesome, atavistic
interpretation of the Quran and its place as they see it in the modern
world, have now answered those questions.
In a long list of the dos and don'ts governing the enslavement and
treatment of women and girls captured by jihadi warriors, ISIS includes
details of "permissible" sexual practices with female slaves. The new
rules follow widespread reports this summer of the jihadis enslaving
women from the Yazidi religious minority seized during the militants'
lightning offensive in northern Iraq.
Issued Dec. 3 by ISIS's ``Research and Fatwa Department,'' the
rules are laid out in question-and-answer format--a kind of ``Slavery
for Dummies.'' It is permissible to beat slaves, trade them, and offer
them as gifts, to take virgins immediately and to have sex with a pre-
pubescent girl, ``if she is fit for intercourse,'' whatever that means.
According to Nazand Begikhani, an adviser to the Kurdistan regional
government and researcher at the University of Bristol Gender and
Violence Research Center, ISIS has kidnapped more than 2,500 Yazidi
women. Yazidi activists, meanwhile, say they have compiled a list of at
least 4,600 missing Yazidi women, seized after they were separated from
male relatives, who were shot.
The women were bussed, according to firsthand accounts of women who
have managed to flee, to the ISIS-controlled cities of Mosul in Iraq
and Raqqa in Syria, and chosen and traded like cattle. Kurdish
authorities in northern Iraq say they have freed about 100 Yazidi
women. In October, ISIS justified its enslavement of the women-and of
any non-believing females captured in battle--in its English-language
digital magazine Dabiq. Islamic theology, ISIS propagandists argued,
gives the jihadis the right, much in the same way that the Bible's
Ephesians 6:5 tells ``Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and
trembling.''
The difference, of course, is that there is no rampaging Christian
terror army enslaving women and waving the Bible around now to justify
such abuse, although there have been individual Western cultists widely
dismissed as cranks or madmen who have sought biblical justification
for abuse of women.
In September, 120 senior Muslim scholars, including Sheikh Shawqi
Allam, the grand mufti of Egypt, and Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the
mufti of Jerusalem and All Palestine, issued a lengthy letter
condemning ISIS as un-Islamic. ``It is forbidden in Islam to ignore the
reality of contemporary times when deriving legal rulings,'' they
argued. And they condemned the mistreatment of the Yazidi and the
denial of women's rights.
Below--courtesy of the Washington, D.C.-based the Middle East Media
Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that monitors extremism-
are some highlights of the ISIS rules governing the enslavement of
women and how slaves should be treated.
Question 1: What is al-sabi?
Al-Sabi is a woman from among ahl al-harb [the people of war]
who has been captured by Muslims.
Question 3: Can all unbelieving women be taken captive?
There is no dispute among the scholars that it is permissible
to capture unbelieving women [who are characterized by]
original unbelief [kufr asli], such as the kitabiyat [women
from among the People of the Book, i.e. Jews and Christians]
and polytheists. However, [the scholars] are disputed over [the
issue of] capturing apostate women. The consensus leans toward
forbidding it, though some people of knowledge think it
permissible. We [ISIS] lean toward accepting the consensus.
Question 4: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female
captive?
It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with the female
captive. Allah the almighty said: ``[Successful are the
believers] who guard their chastity, except from their wives or
(the captives and slaves) that their right hands possess, for
then they are free from blame [Quran 23:5-6]''.
Question 5: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female
captive immediately after taking possession [of her]?
If she is a virgin, he [her master] can have intercourse with
her immediately after taking possession of her. However, is she
isn't, her uterus must be purified [first].
Question 7: Is it permissible to separate a mother from her
children through [the act of] buying and selling?
It is not permissible to separate a mother from her
prepubescent children through buying, selling, or giving away
[a captive or slave]. [But] it is permissible to separate them
if the children are grown and mature.
Question 9: If the female captive was impregnated by her owner, can
he then sell her?
He can't sell her if she becomes the mother of a child.
Question 13: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female
slave who has not reached puberty?
It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave
who hasn't reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse;
however, if she is not fit for intercourse, then it is enough
to enjoy her without intercourse.
Question 16: Can two sisters be taken together while taking slaves?
It is permissible to have two sisters, a female slave and her
aunt [her father's sister], or a female slave and her aunt
[from her mother's side]. But they cannot be together during
intercourse, [and] whoever has intercourse with one of them
cannot have intercourse with the other, due to the general
[consensus] over the prohibition of this.
Question 19: Is it permissible to beat a female slave?
It is permissible to beat the female slave as a [form of]
darb ta'deeb [disciplinary beating], [but] it is forbidden to
[use] darb al-takseer [literally, breaking beating], [darb] al-
tashaffi [beating for the purpose of achieving gratification],
or [darb] al-ta'dheeb [torture beating]. Further, it is
forbidden to hit the face.
[all]