[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 22, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H4452-H4454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2120
                     AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN LIBYA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized 
for half the time before 10 p.m. as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take all of the 
time that is allocated for my Special Order tonight, but I did want to 
talk about the problem that we are facing in Libya right now.
  The President of the United States has the authority under the 
Constitution to be the Commander in Chief in the event that we have to 
go into a military conflict. What the President does not have the right 
to do is to take us into a military conflict without consulting with 
the Congress of the United States, unless there is an imminent threat 
to the United States or an attack on the United States.
  The Constitution is pretty clear on this subject. Unfortunately, 
during the Nixon administration there was some question about whether 
or not President Nixon exceeded his authority, so the Congress of the 
United States passed what was called the War Powers Act. The War Powers 
Act was designed to clarify very clearly for President Nixon and all 
future presidents the authority granted them under the Constitution in 
the event that there was to be a conflict.
  The President vetoed that bill because he thought it was an 
infringement. I am talking about President Nixon now. He vetoed that 
bill because he thought it was an infringement of the constitutional 
powers of the President. The Congress overwhelmingly overrode the 
President's veto, and so the War Powers Act became law.
  Now, there has been a lot of question from some of my colleagues 
about the constitutionality of the War Powers Act. I have heard some of 
my friends in the other body say it is not constitutional. I have heard 
friends of mine within the House of Representatives say that the War 
Powers Act is not constitutional. The fact of the matter is it has 
never been tested in court. It has never gone to the U.S. Supreme Court 
and, as a result, the War Powers Act is the law of the land. It is the 
law of the United States of America, and it is intended, as I said 
before, to clarify the constitutional powers of the President of the 
United States where war is concerned.
  Now, the President of the United States, Mr. Obama, decided that we 
ought to go into Libya for humanitarian purposes. There is nothing in 
the Constitution or the War Powers Act that gives him the authority to 
do that unless he has the express approval and support of the Congress 
of the United States.
  When President Bush was the President and he went into Iraq, he first 
consulted with the Congress. When he went into Afghanistan, he first 
consulted with Congress. But President Obama said because of the time 
elements and the time concerns about the humanitarian problems in 
Libya, that he had to act expeditiously, and he did not have the time 
to consult with Congress.
  Well, for 2 weeks or thereabouts he had time to consult with the 
French, the English, the United Nations, NATO, and the Arab league, but 
he did not have the time to come and talk to the Congress of the United 
States. So I think that was a red herring. I think the President did 
have the time, but he chose to move of his own volition into Libya and 
to put the United States in effect at war again. They say it is not a 
war, but it is a war. They said it was a NATO operation, but if you 
look at the facts, you find that the United States is carrying the vast 
amount of the burden of this war.

[[Page H4453]]

  Let me give you some figures. These figures are a couple of weeks 
old, so they could be a little outdated.
  First of all, of the number of personnel that has been involved in 
the Libyan conflict, there are about almost 13,000 military personnel 
that have been involved. Of that 13,000, 8,500 of them are American 
military. That is over two-thirds.
  When you talk about the number of aircraft involved, there is a total 
of 309, but 153 of those aircraft are United States aircraft.
  When you talk about the number of sorties being flown, that is, 
military actions taken by aircraft, there have been 5,857 sorties, and 
over 2,000 of those are with American pilots and American planes. That 
is almost 35 percent.
  Then when you talk about the number of cruise missiles that have been 
fired, the total is about 246, and of the 246, over 90 percent are 
America's, 228.
  So the President has taken us into war in Libya for humanitarian 
purposes, he said, without consulting with the Congress of the United 
States, which in my opinion is a direct violation of the Constitution 
of the United States and the War Powers Act, and we have spent well 
over $1 billion conducting this war. They say it is NATO's war. We 
heard the other day that our NATO allies are running short on 
ammunition and other military equipment, and they are asking the United 
States to shoulder more of the burden.

  One of my colleagues from Virginia, who sits in the Chair tonight, 
brought up today that many of the countries in Europe, many of the 
countries in NATO haven't been paying their fair share of the NATO 
burden, and it has been falling upon the United States to carry out 
these NATO operations. That just isn't right.
  So this isn't a NATO war, in my opinion. This is an American war, and 
the President has taken us into this conflict without any consultation 
with the Congress of the United States.
  We have talked about this in our conference, and I won't go into all 
the details of our conference because I think some of that, if not 
classified, is something that shouldn't be talked about in the public 
domain. But what I would say tonight is that we need to send a very 
strong message to the President that we don't want him to do this 
again.
  Many, myself included, believe we ought to give him a timeline within 
which to withdraw forces from Libya. I am talking about the people 
flying the military aircraft, the people on the ships offshore, the 
classified security people that are inside Libya. They say there are no 
boots on the ground. I guarantee you there are intelligence officers on 
the ground directing some of the fire from the air and some of the 
missile targets.
  The cruise missiles that are costing over $1 million per copy, we 
shouldn't be paying for those with taxpayer money to the tune of, I 
don't know how many million, but over $1 billion total for the military 
expenditures, at a time when this country is $1.5 trillion short this 
fiscal year in money to pay for the country's expenses and over $14 
trillion in debt.
  This is not the time during the history of the United States that we 
ought to be looking for a war. There is no question probably that there 
are humanitarian problems in Libya, but there are also humanitarian 
problems in the Ivory Coast and Syria and many other countries, and if 
you are looking for a war of opportunity, I am sure the President can 
find a lot of places to send our troops.
  But the Congress of the United States I do not believe would have 
given him the authority to go into Libya unless it was a direct threat 
to the United States. So what did he do? He did it without consulting 
with Congress; not the Senate, not the House, not with any of us.
  Now that we are in there, many people in the Congress feel like we 
can't summarily withdraw because we will be leaving our allies, the 
French and the English and others in NATO there, to carry the ball. But 
as one of my colleagues said today, when we take the oath of allegiance 
to the Constitution, we don't take the oath of allegiance to NATO. We 
don't take the oath of allegiance to any other country. It is to the 
Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution says the 
President does not have the authority to declare war and go into a 
combat situation without consulting with Congress.
  I am very confident that all of the people in this country, if 
consulted, would overwhelmingly say the President should not have done 
that, and he didn't have the authority to do that. Now, I know tomorrow 
or Friday we are going to have some legislation on the floor that will 
say very clearly to the President that not only he shouldn't have done 
that, that it wasn't constitutional, but that he shouldn't do it again.
  That is the thing that I am concerned about. The legislation that we 
are going to have on the floor will confront the President on his 
ability or his authority to go ahead and do what he did in Libya, but 
it doesn't say anything about any future expeditions that he may want 
to undertake.

                              {time}  2130

  I really hope that during the debate that takes place tomorrow or on 
Friday that we make it very clear to the White House and to the 
President and to anybody at the White House that may be listening to 
this Special Order tonight that we do not want the President--and if I 
were talking to him, I would say, Mr. President, we do not want you to 
take us into a military conflict without consulting with the Congress 
and without consulting with the American people because the American 
people and Congress have a right to be involved in the decisionmaking 
process. Once a war is started, you're the Commander in Chief and you 
must do whatever has to be done to win that conflict. But you do not 
have the authority, Mr. President, if I were talking to him, under the 
Constitution or the War Powers Act. And Friday or tomorrow we need to 
make that very clear to him so that he doesn't do it again.
  There are problems right now in Syria, and a lot of people say 
there's humanitarian tragedies that are taking place. But that is not a 
direct threat to the United States. It's not an attack on the United 
States. And the Congress of the United States should be involved in the 
decisionmaking process if we were to do something like go into Syria.
  And so I hope the President and the White House is getting this 
message tonight. They may say, Well, that's just Dan Burton talking on 
the floor in a Special Order. But I have talked to my colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle, and I think overwhelmingly they do not agree 
with what the President has done; and overwhelmingly in the Senate I 
don't believe they support what the President has done in Libya. And I 
think very clearly they don't want this to happen again.
  I believe that most of the Members of both the House and the Senate 
would like to see us extricate ourselves from Libya as quickly as 
possible.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I have a letter to 
the editor that I wrote that was in The Wall Street Journal that I will 
put in the Record, as well as the statistical data that I just 
mentioned.

             [From the Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2011]

          The GOP Is Right To Challenge Obama on War in Libya

       I am disappointed by your editorial ``The Kucinich 
     Republicans'' (June 6) questioning the House of 
     Representatives's rebuke of President Obama's actions in 
     Libya. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but my opposition to 
     President Obama's actions is motivated by the Constitution.
       President Obama has the authority to manage a war but not 
     the power to start a war. Article 1, Section 8 of the 
     Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, and the 
     War Powers Resolution was enacted to fulfill that intent, 
     unless there is: ``(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific 
     authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack 
     upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or 
     its armed forces.'' None of these conditions existed with 
     Libya.
       Instead, the president argues he couldn't consult with 
     Congress because immediate action was needed to protect 
     civilians from massacre. If true, a surgical engagement in 
     Libya might be justified. But the president's claim is false. 
     He spent one month consulting with NATO, the Arab League and 
     the U.N. Security Council. This fact is inescapable. The 
     president sought permission from foreign leaders but not the 
     U.S. Congress. Yet Congress is expected to pay for his folly 
     even as we strive to cut spending to avoid defaulting on 
     debts.
       On September 11, 2001, our nation was attacked. President 
     George W. Bush still sought authorization from Congress 
     before going into Afghanistan. Similarly, President Bush 
     sought congressional authorization before invading Iraq. 
     President Bush respected

[[Page H4454]]

     the authority of Congress and the limitations of the 
     Constitution. President Obama does not.
       The Constitution is not a list of suggestions; it is the 
     law of the land. If members of Congress do not stand up for 
     Congress's right to declare war, as enumerated in the 
     Constitution, who will?
                                       Rep. Dan Burton (R., Ind.),
     Indianapolis.
                                  ____

       You miss the point of the Kucinich and Boehner resolutions 
     and misstate the Founders' intentions.
       Our Founders did not expect Congress would ``run a war,'' 
     but they did expect Congress (e.g., the people) would 
     determine if we would go to war. Implicit in the 
     constitutional provision that ``Congress shall have power to 
     . . . declare war'' is that the people would become informed 
     on why the war was necessary and in the national interest, 
     and thereby come to support the decision.
       The War Powers Resolution and its reasonable attempt to 
     allow our commander and chief to respond to emergencies is 
     moot in this case because, after almost three patient months, 
     we the people are still waiting for an explanation of why we 
     are in Libya. Is it an emergency? If we are in Libya, why not 
     Yemen or Syria? As our representatives, the people's house is 
     asking for an answer. Not to demand an answer would continue 
     the bad precedents of allowing our commander in chief to 
     assume unilateral non-constitutional powers. If an answer is 
     not appropriately vetted by Congress, then the logical 
     conclusion is to withdraw.
                                                    Conway G. Ivy,
     Beaufort, S.C.
                                  ____

       In case people haven't noticed, the U.S. government is 
     broke, and Libya did not attack us. As long as Republicans 
     remain the party of perpetual war, they will likely continue 
     to lose elections. There appears to be a dawning awareness 
     among some in Congress that the American people are fed up 
     with these unending wars that have nothing to do with 
     defending America. That is the reason some House Republicans 
     supported the Kucinich resolution, and I applaud them. 
     Congress should never have gone along with President Bush's 
     war on Iraq, and Congress should not go along with President 
     Obama's war on Libya. You cannot have limited government and 
     unlimited war. The two are mutually exclusive.
                                                   Susan R. Berge,
     Johnston, R.I.
                                  ____

       Your editorial fails to mention that each president since 
     Richard Nixon could have taken the War Powers Resolution of 
     1973 to the Supreme Court, where the Founders set up a 
     mechanism to decide matters like this.
       We may not like some of the heads of other countries, and 
     there are awful individuals ruling many countries, but that 
     shouldn't cause us to ignore our own laws and Constitution to 
     pound on them just because we can.
                                                    Larry Stewart,
                                                       Vienna, Va.


                                       NATO OPERATIONS IN LIBYA BY COUNTRY
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                              Est No. of        No. of
                                   No. of       No. of      sorties flown,      cruise
            Country              personnel     aircraft    from beg of war     missiles        Main air base
                                                           until 5 May 2011     fired
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Belgium.......................          170            6                 60               Araxos base in south-
                                                                                           western Greece.
Bulgaria......................          160            0                  0
Canada........................          560           11                358               Trapani-Birgi and
                                                                                           Signonella.
Denmark.......................          120            4                161            0  Sigonella, Sicily.
France........................          800           29              1,200               currently operating
                                                                                           from French Air Bases
                                                                                           of Avord, Nancy, St.
                                                                                           Dizier, Dijon and
                                                                                           Istres, as well as
                                                                                           Evreux and Orleans
                                                                                           for planes engaged in
                                                                                           logistics.
Greece........................                         0                  0            0  Aktion and Andravida
                                                                                           military air fields
                                                                                           in Crete.
Italy.........................                        12                600               Gioia del Colle,
                                                                                           Trapani, Signonella,
                                                                                           Decimomannu,
                                                                                           Amendola, Aviano,
                                                                                           Pantelleria.
Jordan........................           30           12                                  Cerenecia, Libya.
Netherlands...................          200            7                                  sardinian base,
                                                                                           decimomannu.
Norway........................          140            6                100               Souda Bay, Crete.
Qatar.........................           60            8                                  Souda Bay, Crete.
Romania.......................          205
Spain.........................          500            7
Sweden........................          122            8                 78            0  Sigonella.
Turkey........................                         6                                  Sigonella Air Base in
                                                                                           Italy.
UAE...........................           35           12                                  Decimomannu, Sardinia.
UK............................         1300           28              1,300           18  Gioia del Colle, Italy
                                                                                           and RAF Akrotiri,
                                                                                           Cyprus.
US............................         8507          153              2,000          228
                               ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    TOTALS....................       12,909          309              5,857          246
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________