[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 127 (Monday, September 8, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S5378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. NELSON:
  S.J. Res. 42. A joint resolution to authorize the use of United 
States Armed Forces against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant; 
to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I have introduced today a Senate joint 
resolution. This is a resolution that will express the authorization 
for the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the Islamic State in Iraq 
and the Levant. It is a resolution that has been necessitated by legal 
scholars.
  Since the President has used his existing authorization for the use 
of military force in Iraq, most recently against ISIS--ISIL/ISIS; it is 
the same thing. The Levant is that area broadly from about Baghdad all 
the way to the Mediterranean. That is ISIL. ISIS, I-S-I-S, is the 
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Of course, we know that this 
organization that is calling itself an Islamic caliphate knows no 
jurisdictional boundaries. It has taken large swaths of territory in 
Syria as well as Iraq. When the President successfully employed the use 
of air power, both manned and unmanned, against ISIS targets as they 
were marching toward Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, and then likewise 
as they were marching toward the Mosul dam, the President used his 
authority in Iraq and also his authority as Commander in Chief to 
protect Americans.
  There are Americans in Erbil. There are Americans in Baghdad. There 
are Americans in other places in Iraq. The protection of the dam in 
Mosul was to protect those Americans downriver, because if the dam were 
blown, that would have flooded all downriver and it would have flooded 
Baghdad.
  Legal scholars disagree with me that the President has the authority 
under the Constitution as Commander in Chief to go after ISIS in Syria. 
I describe ISIS as a snake. If the head of the snake is in Syria, which 
it is--a lot of their organization, a lot of their leadership is 
there--then we ought to go after the snake where the head is and 
decapitate the snake. In doing that, we are going to have to go into 
Syria.
  I believe the President has the authority to do this under the 
Constitution anyway, but there are some who disagree. So rather than 
quibble about legalities, I have introduced this legislation. There is 
no pride of authorship. The Senate is obviously going to debate this. I 
believe if you are seeing the polls from today, where 90 percent of the 
people of this country are concerned about ISIS, and some huge number 
want us to go on and attack ISIS in other places than where we are 
attacking now, then I think it is obvious the United States is going to 
have to continue this attack on ISIS.
  I want to compliment the President. Often, as I have talked about 
this issue, people have come--or members of the press--and said: Well, 
the President has dillydallied and so forth. I do not think he has at 
all. I think the President indeed has employed a very successful 
strategy of going after ISIS in Iraq--in fact, stopped their march on 
Erbil, in fact, stopped their march on the Mosul dam, and is going 
after them in other locations in coordination with the Peshmerga of the 
Kurds, as well as the Iraqi Army.
  Indeed, the President started on August 25 the surveillance flights 
over Syria so that we can collect the intelligence that is necessary to 
prepare to go after them in Syria. But the President has done something 
more. He has started to put together a coalition, realizing that the 
American people have no appetite for American boots on the ground in 
Syria--to put together a coalition so that maybe the Free Syrian Army, 
maybe other members of the Arab League, maybe some other members of 
NATO would participate.
  But the way we drew this resolution, it talks about there would not 
be a recurring military presence and the employing of an American army 
on the ground. It leaves the flexibility that clearly there will be 
American boots on the ground, just as there already have been when we 
sent our special operations forces in there to try to rescue the two 
American journalists who subsequently met such a brutal and uncivil end 
in their beheading. So American boots have been there. We might need 
special operations kinds of missions in the future. We might need 
forward air observers actually on the ground to direct air strikes. So 
there is flexibility in this resolution.
  I want to say if there is anybody with any doubt about the intent of 
ISIS, they have made it so clear, not only taking the lives of these 
journalists, the second one of which was from my State of Florida, but 
in their statements of what they intend to do, setting up an Islamic 
caliphate. The leader, al-Baghdadi, even calls himself the caliph or 
religious leader.
  But they have also said they will not stop until the black flag of 
ISIS is hanging and flying over the White House. Their intent is pretty 
clear. We are going to have to deal with them, not only in Iraq as we 
are now, but elsewhere. It is going to be sooner or later. It is not 
going to be a 1-day or 2-day operation. As the President has already 
indicated, this is going to be a long-term kind of operation. The fact 
is, the United States is the one that has to lead the coalition.
  To get this right out front and center of what we need to do, I have 
introduced, and it is printed as a part of the Record, this resolution 
to give the legal authorization from the Congress for the President to 
strike ISIS in Syria and to do as the President has said, to bring to a 
successful conclusion, to stop this horrendous uncivil, extraordinary 
kind of inhumane behavior that is being illustrated by these folks.
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