The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has asked the administration for a briefing on its Syria policy to determine if additional authorities are needed as the president sends additional U.S. troops.
The briefing is expected to occur next week, an aide to Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
The request for more information on Capitol Hill follows the president’s announcement last week that he would send as many as 50 special operations troops to Syria to assist in the fight against the Islamic State. The administration has stressed that these troops will act as advisers and are not conducting a combat mission, yet they acknowledge they may face violence.
Congress has so far declined to pass a new authorization for the use of military force specifically tailored to the fight against the Islamic State. The administration has been conducting operations for more than a year under war authorizations from 2001 and 2002 tailored to al Qaeda and in Iraq, though many say that is stretching the authorizations to their legal limit.
The increase in U.S. involvement in Syria, along with the first combat death in the Islamic State fight last month in Iraq, has reinvigorated calls from both parties on Capitol Hill for lawmakers to consider and pass a new authorization for the use of military force.
“We are now one year, two months and 23 days into an unauthorized and executive war,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said on Friday. “It is time for Congress to do its most solemn job — to debate and declare war. It is also time for the administration to detail to the America people a comprehensive strategy to bring both the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, which are metastasizing around the globe, to a peaceful end.”
