The House on Friday will vote on a pair of resolutions that underscore the bipartisan discontent with President Obama’s decision to dispatch the U.S. military to Libya more than two months ago. Republicans will offer a resolution that would give Obama two weeks to provide Congress with “his reasoning” for joining a NATO military action on behalf of anti-government rebels seeking to overthrow Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said. The GOP drafted the measure a day after Republican leaders scrubbed a vote on a resolution offered by anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, that would have required U.S. military forces to exit Libya in 15 days. Kucinich’s resolution stems from his belief that the president violated the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires congressional approval to send U.S. forces into a conflict for more than 60 days.
The GOP’s goal is to send a message to Obama on the use of military power, however, not to derail the Libyan operation. So Republicans pulled the Kucinich measure when it became clear that it could pass with the support of fiscally conservative Republicans opposed to the costly Libya operation and liberal anti-war Democrats.
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“We’ve come this far, we are this close to maybe finishing it up, and if we do that we pull the rug from under it,” McKeon said of the Kucinich resolution.
The House will now vote on both the Kucinich and GOP resolutions and Republican leadership aides are cautiously optimistic their bill will garner more support than the Kucinich version.
Republicans have been simmering for weeks over the president’s move on Libya, which he made without first consulting Congress. Indignant members on Thursday recalled dining with Obama on St. Patrick’s Day in the ornate Rayburn Room, steps from the House Chamber, and hearing nothing from the president about a planned intervention. Two days later, the United States joined a multinational military coalition that launched air strikes to suppress Gadhafi’s forces and create a no-fly zone over the country.
Republican lawmakers Thursday met for more than an hour behind closed doors while GOP leaders worked to convince their angry rank and file that it would be better to register their discontent with Obama by requesting “information on the mission that should have been provided from the start” rather than calling for immediate withdrawal.
According to lawmakers who participated in the meeting, Republican leaders made the case that just because they are angry with the president, “we should not be trying to make political points on foreign policy.”
But some Republicans left the meeting determined to vote for the Kucinich bill, among them members of the conservative freshman class.
“We are in there illegally, we need to be out,” freshman Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., told The Washington Examiner. “We need to force this president’s hand.”
Others fiscal conservatives remained undecided.
“I’m genuinely torn,” Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., told The Examiner after the meeting, noting that the U.S. military has been in Libya now for 72 days.
The White House pushed back Thursday, with spokesman Jay Carney telling reporters the president has consulted Congress “every step of the way,” and believes he is doing the right thing by participating in the military coalition.
