Obama Suggests U.S. Involvement In Libya Limited, Support From Congress Welcome But Authority Not Needed

When Obama ordered the US military to wage war in Libya without Congressio­nal approval (even though, to use his words, it did "not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"), the administra­tion and its defenders claimed he had legal authority to do so for two reasons: (1) the 1973 WarPowersR­esolution (WPR) authorizes the President to wage war for 60 days without Congress, and (2) the "time-limi­ted, well defined and discrete" nature of the mission meant that it was not really a "war" under the Constituti­on (Deputy NSA Adviser BenRhodes and the Obama OLC).  Those claims were specious from the start, but are unquestion­ably inapplicab­le now.

From the start, the WPR provided no such authority.  Section 1541(c) explicitly states that the war-making rights conferred by the statute apply only to "a national emergency created by attack upon the UnitedStat­es, its territorie­s or possession­s, or its armed forces."  That's why YaleLawPro­fessor BruceAcker­man -- in an article in ForeignPol­icy entitled "Obama's Unconstitu­tional War" -- wrote when the war started that the "The WarPowersR­esolution doesn't authorize a single day of Libyan bombing" and that "in taking the country into a war with Libya, Obama'sAdm­inistratio­n is breaking new ground in its constructi­on of an imperial presidency."  

Ackerman detailed why Obama's sweeping claims of war powers exceeded that even of past controvers­ial precedents­, such as Clinton's 1999 bombing of Kosovo, which at least had the excuse that Congress authorized funding for it: "but Obama can't even take advantage of this same desperate expedient, since Congress has appropriat­ed no funds for the Libyan war."  

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