[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 45 (Thursday, March 31, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S2010]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 LIBYA

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have a couple of things to say this 
morning. First, and briefly, I want to, and probably will, support the 
military action in Libya. I have been inclined to think that careful, 
surgical use of our forces can make a positive difference to the degree 
it would be worth the risk of that involvement. But I am not really 
sure of that.
  As a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, these are matters 
with which I am not totally unfamiliar. I was very confident from the 
beginning that we could execute a no-fly zone very effectively, and 
that--there is risk but not great risk because of our military 
capabilities. However, I do believe that over a number of years the 
Congress and the American people have expressed grave concerns over the 
executive branch committing the United States to military actions 
without full participation of the legislative branch. We have not used 
the declaration of war mechanism, truthfully, as the defining act for 
most of our military actions in recent years. We have used 
authorization of military force resolutions that authorized the 
President to utilize the military force.
  We spent weeks doing that before the Iraq invasion--not weeks, 
months. In fact, as I recall, the authorization for utilization of 
military force in Iraq was passed in the fall, I believe October, and 
the actual invasion did not occur until the next spring, in March.
  During that time, we had many hearings. We had full debate. There was 
resolution after resolution in the U.N, but Congress was fully on top 
of all of it. They knew what was at stake, and we voted. Some voted no 
and complained and continued to complain. But for the most part, those 
who voted no supported the action because we had been involved in a 
discussion that was real about the risk and so forth.
  Then we had other actions, such as Grenada and Panama, that had less 
debate by Congress. People have not been happy about that. They 
believed there should have been more. In my opinion, the consultative 
process for this military engagement was unacceptable. It did not have 
to occur in this fashion. There was ample opportunity to discuss it.
  Senator Susan Collins, on the Armed Services Committee, a few days 
ago, we had top Defense Department officials there. Admiral Stavridis, 
who is the commander of NATO forces, was testifying. She said: Well, we 
had time, it appears, to consult and get a vote in the U.N. We had time 
to consult and get a vote in NATO. The Arab League apparently found 
time to reach some sort of consensus, but we did not have time to 
involve the Congress.
  Well, that struck me as a very legitimate and serious statement. I 
think Senator Collins was correct. There was ample opportunity to 
consult Congress. This was a war, to use a phrase in recent years, of 
choice. It was not a military action that was demanded because we had 
been attacked on our soil or in our legitimate bases somewhere around 
the world and we had to defend ourselves immediately.
  So I am not happy about it. I think it is a big mess. I think 
Democrats and Republicans have the same unease about it, and I believe 
it is time for Congress to assert itself more effectively.
  We had a briefing last night, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock. It went 50 
minutes. Frankly, I did not get a lot out of it. I heard little that I 
had not picked up from the cable news networks. We turned on the 
television this morning, and we saw news about the CIA involvement 
there, for good or ill. I did not hear that discussed at our briefing. 
It would have been nice to have heard it straight from the 
administration's leaders, rather than seeing it on television the next 
morning. So this is the kind of situation we are in. It is not 
acceptable. Congress must assert itself.
  Based on what President Obama said back during the campaign about our 
reluctance to initiate military force, it is sort of surprising that we 
have not had more consultation.
  Maybe it is an institutional tendency. Once you become President, you 
don't want to fool with Congress. They ask troublesome questions. They 
slow things down, maybe, although in this instance I think we had a lot 
quicker response from Congress than we got from the administration. 
Regardless, I think we are in front of that issue. It is time for 
Congress in a bipartisan way to ask itself, first, what do we expect, 
what is a minimum amount of congressional involvement? Then we need to 
make sure that every President hence forward complies with at least 
that.
  I am also not happy at the way some resolution was passed here that 
seemed to have authorized force in some way that nobody I know of in 
the Senate was aware that it was in the resolution when it passed. I am 
very concerned about that.

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