WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s national security brain trust faces Congress on the need for a new war authorization as the deadly ambush in Niger is igniting a push among many lawmakers to update the legal parameters for combat operations overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are scheduled to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday. They told the panel behind closed doors three months ago that a 2001 law gave the military ample authority to fight terrorist groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s a position that won\u2019t wash with a growing number of congressional Republicans and Democrats, many of whom were startled by the depth of the U.S. commitment in Niger and other parts of Africa. They\u2019ve argued that the dynamics of the battlefield have shifted over the past 16 years and it\u2019s past time to replace the post-Sept. 11 authorization to fight al-Qaida with a law that reflects current threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Monday on CNN that most members of Congress weren\u2019t even in office when the authorization for the use of military force was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Coons said it would have been difficult to imagine at the time that U.S. soldiers would be killed in Africa by Islamic State militants based on an attack launched in 2001 from thousands of miles away in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said last week he believed most Americans would be surprised by the extent of the operations in Africa that U.S. forces are involved. Kaine and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., are sponsoring legislation to install a new war authority for operations against the Islamic State group, al-Qaida and the Taliban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think Congress has necessarily been completely kept up to date and the American public, I think, certainly has not,\u201d Kaine said after leaving a classified briefing conducted by senior Pentagon officials on the assault in Niger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A State Department official says Tillerson will emphasize during his testimony that any new war authorization, like the existing one, should not have any geographic or time restrictions placed on the use of force. The official wasn\u2019t authorized to discuss the arguments ahead of the hearing and requested anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roughly 800 U.S. service members are in Niger as part of a French-led mission to defeat the extremists in West Africa. There are hundreds more American forces in other African countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. troops also are battling an enemy \u2014 Islamic State militants \u2014 that didn\u2019t exist 16 years ago in a country \u2014 Syria \u2014 that the U.S. didn\u2019t expect to be fighting in. Nor did the 2001 authorization anticipate military confrontations with the Syrian government. Trump in April ordered the firing of dozens of Tomahawk missiles at an air base in central Syria and American forces in June shot down a Syrian Air Force fighter jet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond that, Trump approved a troop increase in Afghanistan, the site of America\u2019s longest war, and the U.S. backs a Saudi Arabia-led coalition carrying out airstrikes in Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs we face a wide array of threats abroad, it is perhaps more important than ever that we have a sober national conversation about Congress\u2019 constitutional role in authorizing the use of military force,\u201d Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the committee chairman, said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But previous attempts to ditch the old authorization and force Congress to craft a new one have failed. Democrats in the House complained that Speaker Paul Ryan used underhanded tactics after an amendment was stripped from a military spending bill that would have repealed the 2001 war authorization 240 days after the bill was enacted. Proponents of the measure said eight months was enough time to approve new war authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GOP leaders said voting to rescind existing war authority without a replacement in hand risks leaving U.S. troops and commanders in combat zones without the necessary legal authority they need to carry out military operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A similar effort in the Senate led by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also came up well short. Paul, a member of the committee and a leader of the GOP\u2019s noninterventionist wing, has accused his colleagues of surrendering their war-making power to the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Donald Trump\u2019s national security brain trust faces Congress on the need for a new war authorization as the deadly ambush in Niger is igniting a push among many lawmakers to update the legal parameters for combat operations overseas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":53380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":70,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[100,8,12,25,68,70],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1074],"class_list":["post-58298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress","category-your-army"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PCHNS4RS5VFZBHZTMLKZHB3Z5M","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2017\/10\/30\/senators-to-press-tillerson-and-mattis-on-new-war-authority\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n