Martin Dempseyâs big win
Congress may not vote for months on President Barack Obamaâs request to authorize the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but the political battle already has one clear winner: Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. While both Democrats and Republicans expressed strong reservations about the proposal Obama sent to the Hill on Wednesday, raising questions about whether it will pass, the nationâs top uniformed leader appeared to get nearly everything he wanted. Story Continued Below Dempsey said he wanted âflexibilityâ in operating against ISIL â Obama made clear heâd provide âflexibility.â By contrast, there were many tense moments between Obama and Dempsey last fall, when the general caused discomfort in the White House by making clear in congressional testimony that a strict no-boots-on-the-ground pledge might not hold. Local commanders might need to send out Joint Terminal Attack Controllersâ troops who specialize in directing friendly airstrikes onto targets close at handâ special operators or other forces in order to best help the Iraqis, he said. Dempseyâs comments at the time forced White House spokesman Josh Earnest to restate the presidentâs firm position: Obama âdoes not believe that it would be in the best interest of our national security to deploy American ground troops in a combat role in Iraq and Syria.â The language the White House is asking for now would leave the military a lot of room to maneuver on the ground. The draft AUMF says only that it âdoes not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces in enduring offensive ground combat operations.â That could allow the Pentagon to use U.S. forces freely in what it might define as limited operations â or in operations not strictly defined as âcombat.â That dispute â what constitutes âcombat?â â and others are among the knife fights that members of Congress expect to have as they decide when or whether to vote on an AUMF. Dempsey conducted a months-long campaign to secure the language he wanted. He staked out a position months ago that heâd reserve the right to recommend sending JTACs into combat along with Iraqi troops when they eventually take the offense against ISIL. On Wednesday, in his letter to Congress, Obama appeared to echo Dempseyâs views: â[The AUMF would] authorize the use of U.S. forces in situations where ground combat operations are not expected or intended, such as intelligence collection and sharing, missions to enable kinetic strikes, or the provision of operational planning and other forms of advice and assistance to partner forces.â About the only point on which Dempsey and Obama publicly disagreed was a âsunsetâ for the authorization. Dempsey said none was necessary. But Obamaâs AUMF as proposed would close in three years â although he downplayed that deadline in announcing it at the White House. âIt is not a timetable,â Obama said. âIt is not announcing that the mission is completed at any given period. What it is saying is that Congress should revisit the issue at the beginning of the next presidentâs term. Itâs conceivable that the mission is completed earlier. Itâs conceivable that after deliberation, debate and evaluation, that there are additional tasks to be carried out in this area. And the peopleâs representatives, with a new president, should be able to have that discussion.â A spokesman for Dempsey on Thursday declined to detail his discussions with Obama or Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, except to say he âhad the opportunity to provide his best military advice.â Heâll have more opportunities to speak out as the congressional committees convene their hearings about the AUMF. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) both want to bring Dempsey up to the Hill to talk about what Congress should authorize. So far, Republicans are not pleased. They want even more latitude for the military than Dempsey managed to get â fewer restrictions on what commanders, or a future president, could do in prosecuting the war. âI donât think any real individual who understands the military situation on the ground in Iraq and Syria could possibly support such nonsense,â McCain said Thursday. U.S.-trained proxy forces canât do the job alone against ISIL, McCain warns. Specifically, itâs only a matter of time before American-backed âmoderateâ troops in Syria get into direct contact with the military loyal to President Bashar Assad. Without robust U.S. support, McCain argues, Assad would crush them. Another outspoken hawk, McCainâs ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), suggested that whoever authored Obamaâs proposal would be in for a rude reception. âIf somebody in the Pentagon thought of this, they should be fired,â he said. Although Hagel accompanied Obama on Wednesday for his statement about the AUMF at the White House, ISIL is no longer his problem â the Senate confirmed Ash Carter to replace him on Thursday. Even before that, defense officials have mostly tried to stay out of the crossfire. Hagel issued a statement echoing Dempseyâs call for Congress to impose no restrictions, but for a military that has already been fighting ISIL since last summer, the debate in Congress is mostly academic. Some members of Congress indicated they were aware of that. The request for a new AUMF âis a political move, and I think the Pentagon sees it as such,â Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), a senior member of House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview. âNo one at the Pentagon likes military action to be politicized.â Thousands of American troops are deploying to Iraq, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to train what Obama called âpartner forcesâ â Iraqi and Kurdish regulars and âmoderateâ Syrian opposition fighters. Meanwhile, U.S. and allied warplanes continue to fly dozens of airstrikes per day. Defense officials say the campaign is going well, but that progress is difficult to quantify and ISILâs successful propaganda means it continues to recruit scores of fighters within the Middle East and from the West. With no end in sight and no yardstick for progress, many Democrats have proven just as resistant as Republicans to Obamaâs proposal, but for the exact opposite reason. âMembers of Congress canât vote on good intentions,â Maryland Democrat Rep. Chris Van Hollen told CNN. âWeâre voting on whatâs on the page.â For Van Hollen and other Democrats, thereâs too much on the page. They do not want to keep the 2001 AUMF â which Obamaâs proposal would not affect â nor do they want to risk a repeat of the Iraq invasion. âI have no doubt that President Obama is going to maintain his commitment to keep ground troops out of the Middle East, but my worry is that this version of the AUMF will allow for the next president to repeat the mistakes of the past,â Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told reporters this week. Liberal groups call Obamaâs proposal dangerous. âCongress must not abdicate its responsibility to oversee U.S. war-making by giving the president a blank check to pursue multiple years of war, in Iraq, Syria, or any nation, against an open-ended array of possible targets,â said Jo Comerford of MoveOn.org. âAnd it certainly must not allow the president to leave open the real possibility of deploying U.S. ground troops, as the proposed AUMF does.â