President Barack Obama’s vision for approving the war against ISIL has come to Capitol Hill — and neither party is happy with the results.

A White House sales pitch for its proposed use-of-force language ran into skepticism Tuesday from Senate Democrats, who want tighter limits on Obama’s ability to send ground troops into combat and a repeal of Congress’ original 2001 approval of the war on terror. But making those changes could provoke trouble with hawkish Republicans, some of whom want no restrictions on the president’s ability to deploy troops against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.


The debate played out amid continuing international outrage over ISIL’s brutal killings of hostages, and on the same day that the U.S. announced it had confirmed the death of 26-year-old American aid worker Kayla Mueller in the terror group’s custody.

“There remain very grave questions that have yet to be resolved,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said after a meeting among the Senate’s 46 Democratic Caucus members, White House chief counsel Neil Eggleston and chief of staff Denis McDonough about the still-unreleased war authorization language. “I have yet to be convinced. We’re all consulting at this point with each other, generally struggling for a consensus.”

Democrats overall were receptive to the administration’s concepts for the Authorization of the Use of Military Force, which would include a three-year limit to the war against ISIL, a ban on “enduring” ground combat operations and a repeal of the 2002 congressional approval of the Iraq War. But several Democrats also asked the White House’s top lawyer to consider prohibiting almost all use of ground troops and repealing the 2001 war authorization.

The closed-door caucus lunch was punctuated by several bursts of applause, and participants did not describe it as heated. But senators leaving the powwow said the White House has work to do as it prepares to send final legislative language to the Hill this week after getting briefed on the administration’s military authorization “concepts.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are divided over how far a congressional war approval should go. That topic dominated a GOP lunch Tuesday where Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) led a long discussion about the authorization.

The White House’s proposal, as described by senators and aides, is “defensive in nature” and likely to prohibit “enduring offensive ground operations” against ISIL, will have no geographic limitations and will repeal the 2002 Iraq war authorization. The language would also expire after three years to allow the next president to directly weigh in on the efficacy of combat operations against the Islamic militants. The language reflects the military-force proposal that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats offered in December, although the new version tilts the troop language toward the views of the Republicans who now control the Senate.

After Tuesday’s White House briefing, several Democrats said the language prohibiting “enduring offensive ground operations” was too loose.

“For many of us, it’s going to be tough to swallow a restriction on ground troops that doesn’t seem to be much of a restriction at all,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. “I 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.”

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said he, too, had “serious concerns” about the ground troops language.

President Barack Obama explains his proposal for Authorized Use of Military Force against ISIL on Wednesday.

“It’s a little too broad,” Heinrich said in an interview. “I don’t think that’s their intention, but I think there’s a potential for abuse there that I’d very much like to see narrowed.”

Several Democrats also complained that the proposal would not repeal the broadly written 2001 war authorization, which both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations have used to justify the fights against al Qaeda affiliates across the globe, and which Obama has used for attacks on ISIL.

The old, Democratically run Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s December war authorization included an end to the 2001 approval. The absence of that language in the current White House proposal is raising plenty of Democratic eyebrows.

“There was a lot of dialogue about that 2001 [AUMF]. ‘Why haven’t we done anything there, why don’t we put a three-year sunset? It shouldn’t be indefinite,’” said Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, describing the “very strong” language several of his colleagues had used.

Senators said Eggleston did not indicate whether the White House will consider including Democrats’ request to sunset the 2001 operation after three years, which would force the next president to find new language to underwrite the broader war on terror. The administration is still using the 2001 authorization to hold some detainees at Guantanamo Bay and justify strikes on terrorists in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Libya — and getting rid of it could cause GOP concerns.

In contrast, Republicans say the ground troop language in the new war authorization doesn’t offer the president enough leeway. The White House will be unable to satisfy both hawkish Republicans and liberal doves, but somehow must thread a needle through the center of both parties to get to 60 votes in the Senate and 218 in the House. It’s not clear if the current proposal does that.

Not even the Two Amigos are on the same page about the White House’s proposed ban on “enduring offensive ground operations.”

“That would be unacceptable to me,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.). “Any curtailment of the president’s ability as commander in chief I would not support. … I don’t care about this president — I care about future presidents.”

But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain’s closest allies on national security, said he does not have a problem with the White House’s language on ground troops.

“The language ‘no enduring offensive capabilities’ is fine with me,” said Graham, who had gotten a briefing from the White House counsel Tuesday morning. “I’m not going in to hold the territory. I’m trying to help the local forces go in and take it back and let them hold.”

Instead, Graham said he opposes the White House draft because the Syrian rebel fighters being trained to battle ISIL would get no protection from the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“I think the authorization is fine for Iraq,” he said. “It makes sense for Iraq. I think it’s fine everywhere except with the ability to protect the ground force from Assad’s air campaign.”

The meeting with Senate Democrats on Tuesday was the first public effort by the White House to court Capitol Hill on the AUMF, though a broad outreach has been quietly underway for months. The congressional deliberations continued on Tuesday evening, as Eggleston huddled with House Democratic leaders.

On Wednesday afternoon Corker will convene a special Senate GOP caucus meeting about the AUMF and a draft could arrive as soon as Wednesday, though administration officials and lawmakers have declined to set a firm deadline.

Corker, a major subject of the White House’s Hill outreach efforts, will lead hearings on the war proposal and eventually put it to a committee vote after next week’s congressional recess. He made it clear that the AUMF will be subject to amendments as it goes through committee, which means whatever emerges could be quite different from what the White House was shopping Tuesday.

“What they’re sending over is the starting point,” Corker said. “This is one of the most important issues any senator will ever deal with.”

Adam Lerner, Manu Raju and Jen Judson contributed to this report.