WASHINGTON – United States troops participating in the NATO-led campaign in Libya are receiving “imminent danger pay.” Does that make it harder to argue that the American military component of the mission does not rise to the level of “hostilities,” as the Obama administration contends?

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Defense Department had decided in April that service-members in Libyan airspace and in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya would receive an extra $225 a month because they were in “imminent danger.” The extra pay was retroactive to the start of the intervention in March.

The report raised eyebrows because the White House has separately argued that President Obama could lawfully continue the mission beyond a 60-day deadline imposed by the War Powers Resolution for deployments into hostilities that have not been authorized by Congress because the American role in the NATO-led mission falls short of “hostilities.”

Under Defense Department regulations, to be eligible for imminent danger pay, troops have to be serving in an area where they are “subject to the threat of physical harm or imminent danger because of civil insurrection, civil war, terrorism or wartime conditions.” The Pentagon’s policy directive did not say which justification it was relying on to designate Libya such a zone.

Still, the government did cite its justification for granting a similar “danger pay” allowance to civilian employees serving on the ground in Libya like diplomats or Central Intelligence Agency officials. In a letter sent to Congress informing lawmakers of the decision to grant that allowance, the State Department specifically said the decision was “based on civil insurrection.”

Moreover, the Pentagon grants some troops extra pay under a different justification – “hostile fire pay” – that is more squarely relevant to an assessment of whether the United States is involved in “hostilities” in Libya. The administration’s legal theory has hinged in part on the idea that United States forces are not in danger of taking casualties because there are no ground troops and even though American aircraft and drones are periodically firing missiles at Libyan air defense installations and Libyan forces, they are not able to exchange fire in a serious way.

It may also be worth noting that the Pentagon grants “imminent danger pay” to troops in places that no one could seriously argue are subject to the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day “hostilities” clock, like Chad or the United Arab Emirates.

This list, from September 2010, for example, show that troops in about 40 countries, half a dozen sea areas, and in military detention facilities like Guantanamo were receiving such extra pay.