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Obama Plans to Meet With Key Lawmakers to Push Syria Plan
President Gains McCain’s Backing on Syria Attack
(about 19 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration pushed forward on Monday for Congressional approval of its plan to carry out a punitive strike against the Syrian government.
WASHINGTON — The White House’s aggressive push for Congressional approval of an attack on Syria appeared to have won the tentative support of one of President Obama’s most hawkish critics, Senator John McCain, who said Monday that he would back a limited strike if the president did more to arm the Syrian rebels and the attack was punishing enough to weaken the Syrian military.
The lobbying blitz was to continue in the afternoon, with President Obama set to meet at the White House with two key Republican lawmakers, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who have pressed Mr. Obama to intervene more aggressively in Syria. Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham said over the weekend that they might vote against a resolution authorizing military action in Syria because they view the president’s plan as too limited.
In an hourlong meeting at the White House, said Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, Mr. Obama gave general support to doing more for the Syrian rebels, although no specifics were agreed upon. Officials said that in the same conversation, which included Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, Mr. Obama indicated that a covert effort by the United States to arm and train Syrian rebels was beginning to yield results: the first 50-man cell of fighters, who have been trained by the C.I.A., was beginning to sneak into Syria.
The White House was also moving aggressively to gain support among the president’s own party, with an 11:30 a.m. telephone briefing to the House Democratic Caucus by Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, and James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence. Many Democrats are wary of another foreign engagement, no matter how limited.
There appeared to be broad agreement with the president, Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham said, that any attack on Syria should be to “degrade” the Syrian government’s delivery systems. Such a strike could include aircraft, artillery and the kind of rockets that the Obama administration says the forces of President Bashar al-Assad used to carry out an Aug. 21 sarin attack in the Damascus suburbs that killed more than 1,400 people.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama is to meet with the leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and their counterparts in the House.
The senators said they planned to meet with Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, to discuss the strategy in greater depth.
Administration officials said the influential pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC was already at work pressing for military action against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, fearing that if Syria escapes American retribution for its use of chemical weapons, Iran might be emboldened in the future to attack Israel. In the House, the majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, one of the few Jewish Republicans in Congress, has long worked to challenge Democrats’ traditional base among Jews.
“It is all in the details, but I left the meeting feeling better than I felt before about what happens the day after and that the purpose of the attack is going to be a little more robust than I thought,” Mr. Graham said in an interview.
One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called AIPAC “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, “If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line” against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, “we’re in trouble.”
But Mr. McCain said in an interview that Mr. Obama did not say specifically what weapons might be provided to the opposition or discuss in detail what Syrian targets might be attacked.
Another official, who acknowledged having deep doubts when the president disclosed on Friday night his desire for a Congressional vote — he said he first thought, “Whoa, why are we doing this?” — by Sunday had joined some other doubters in deciding the gambit was a good one, and would succeed.
“There was no concrete agreement, ‘O.K., we got a deal,' ” Mr. McCain said. “Like a lot of things, the devil is in the details.”
“At the end of the day, we’re not going to lose the vote,” said a third official.
In remarks to reporters outside the West Wing, he called the meeting “encouraging,” urged lawmakers to support Mr. Obama in his plan for military action in Syria and said a no vote in Congress would be “catastrophic” for the United States and its credibility in the world. Mr. McCain said he believed after his conversation with the president that any strikes would be “very serious” and not “cosmetic.”
Given the risks, however, Mr. Obama’s White House team is wasting no time seeking lawmakers’ support. Although Congress is still in its summer recess, some administration officials traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with House members who might be available and wanted a briefing on Syria.
Although the words from Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham were a positive development for Mr. Obama and a critical part of the administration’s lobbying blitz on Syria on Monday, the White House still faces a tough fight in Congress. Many lawmakers entirely oppose a strike, and others favor a resolution that would provide for more limited military action than what is in a draft resolution that the White House has sent to Capitol Hill. The conflict of opinion underscores Mr. Obama’s challenge in winning votes in the House and Senate next week and avoiding personal defeat.
Briefers included Tony Blinken, the deputy national security adviser, who is a longtime aide to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; the deputy director of national intelligence, Robert Cardillo; the under secretary of defense for policy, Jim Miller; Wendy Sherman, the under secretary of state for policy, and Vice Adm. Kurt W. Tidd of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A Labor Day conference call with five of Mr. Obama’s highest-ranking security advisers drew 127 House Democrats, nearly two-thirds their total number, after 83 lawmakers of both parties attended a classified briefing on Sunday. Pertinent committees are returning to Washington early from a Congressional recess for hearings this week, starting Tuesday with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will hear from Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, a senator for nearly four decades, will also be personally lobbying lawmakers. The White House plans to rely on supportive Republicans with intelligence backgrounds — like Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia — for an assist.
“The debate is shifting away from ‘Did he use chemical weapons?’ to ‘What should be done about it?' ” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview after the Monday conference call.
Although such tactics reflect an inside lobbying game, the White House will also pursue an outside game of trying to sway a skeptical American public — as appearances by Mr. Kerry on five morning talk shows reflected. In addition, Mr. Obama will use his trip this week to St. Petersburg, Russia, for the G-20 summit meeting of major industrialized and developing countries, to publicly and privately press the case.
The push in Washington came as reaction continued around the world to the president’s abrupt decision over the weekend to change course and postpone a military strike to seek authorization from Congress first.
Despite likely opposition from senators like Rand Paul of Kentucky, the White House is somewhat sanguine about winning the vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate, with support from a majority of Democrats and enough Republicans. The House is the greater worry, in part because even its Republican leaders — Mr. Cantor and Speaker John A. Boehner — have had trouble in the past passing their own priority legislation in the face of independent-minded conservatives.
In France, the only nation to offer vigorous support for an American attack, there were rising calls for a parliamentary vote like the one last week in Britain, where lawmakers jolted the White House with a rejection of a British military attack. But the French government, in an effort to bolster its case, released a declassified summary of French intelligence that it said ties Mr. Assad’s government to the use of chemical weapons on Aug. 21.
The rush of activity continues two days after Mr. Obama’s surprise decision to announce that he would seek the authorization of Congress for a strike on the Syrian government.
In Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov dismissed as unconvincing the evidence presented by Mr. Kerry of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government. “We were shown certain pieces of evidence that did not contain anything concrete, neither geographical locations, nor names, nor evidence that samples had been taken by professionals,” Mr. Lavrov said in a speech at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
Ahead of an Arab League meeting in Cairo, Mr. Kerry sought to mobilize backing for American-led military action at a meeting the group held on Sunday night.
In Israel, President Shimon Peres offered strong support for Mr. Obama’s decision to seek the backing of Congress, saying he had faith in the president’s “moral and operational” position. “I recommend patience,” Mr. Peres said in an interview on Army Radio. “I am confident that the United States will respond appropriately to Syria.”
A statement that was issued by the league asserted that the Syrian government was “fully responsible” for the chemical weapons attack and asked the United Nations and the international community “to take the necessary measures against those who committed this crime.”
In Washington, the White House’s “flood the zone” effort, as one official called it, will continue. Classified briefings will be held for all House members and senators on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
To the satisfaction of American officials, the statement did not explicitly mention the United Nations Security Council or assert that military action could be taken only with its approval. But it stopped short of a direct call for Western military action against Syria.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama has invited the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate defense, foreign affairs and intelligence committees to the White House. But that night, he will depart on a long-planned foreign trip, first to Sweden and then to Russia for the annual Group of 20 summit meeting of major industrialized and developing nations, a forum that is sure to be dominated by talk of Syria, and bring Mr. Obama face to face with Mr. Assad’s chief ally and arms supplier, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Before the meeting got under way, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, urged the international community to stop the Syrian government’s “aggression” against its people.
House Democrats on the conference call with administration officials, which lasted 70 minutes, said Mr. Kerry, who has been the most aggressive and public prosecutor for military action, took the lead. Democrats said he had portrayed not only the horrors of chemical weapons inflicted on Syrian civilians in the Aug. 21 attacks outside Damascus, but also the potential threat, if left unanswered, that such weapons posed to regional allies like Israel, Jordan and Turkey.
Saudi Arabia has been one of the principal supporters of the Syrian opposition, and Mr. Kerry consulted by phone on Sunday with Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief and secretary general of its national security council.
Mr. Kerry argued that inaction could embolden Iran or nonstate terrorists to strike those allies, and further encourage Iran and North Korea to press ahead with their nuclear programs.
The Obama administration’s calculation has been that a call for tough action by the Arab diplomats would enable the White House to argue to members of Congress that it had regional backing for military action and would make up, at least politically, for the British decision on Thursday not to join the American-led attack.
“One of the important propositions that Kerry put to members was, are you willing to live with the consequences of doing nothing?” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, a Virginia Democrat.
But Syria’s government on Sunday defiantly mocked Mr. Obama’s decision to turn to Congress, saying it was a sign of weakness. A state-run newspaper, Al Thawra, called the action “the start of the historic American retreat” and said Mr. Obama had put off an attack because of a “sense of implicit defeat and the disappearance of his allies.”
The secretary of state addressed lawmakers’ concern that the United States should have international support. “The United States will not go it alone,” he said at one point, according to a senior Democrat who declined to be identified. Offers of “military assets” have come from France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, he said, without identifying the assets, and more are expected.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, told reporters in Damascus, “It is clear there was a sense of hesitation and disappointment in what was said by President Barack Obama yesterday. And it is also clear there was a sense of confusion, as well.”
In the week since the Obama administration began moving toward a military strike on the Assad government, Mr. Kerry said, the Syrian military has had about 100 defections, including 80 officers.
In some measure, part of the challenge that the Obama administration faces in trying to rally support at home for a punitive strike in Syria is the result of the deep ambivalence it has expressed about becoming involved in the conflict.
General Dempsey reviewed the range of possible targets and how the Pentagon is planning strikes that would minimize risk to civilians. Despite reports that Syrian commanders were moving troops and equipment into civilian neighborhoods, General Dempsey told lawmakers, as he had assured Mr. Obama, that delaying military action would not weaken the effectiveness of any military attack. He suggested that military officials would adjust their targets to address changes on the ground.
Part of the White House strategy for securing Congressional support now is to emphasize not only what Syria did, but also how a failure to act against Syria might embolden enemies of Israel like Iran and Hezbollah.
The general acknowledged that the United States could not prevent the Assad government from using chemical weapons again, but said the military had “additional options” should a first missile strike not deter a retaliatory strike by Mr. Assad, including in defense of critical allies, presumably Israel, Jordan and Turkey. That possibility, however, describes just the escalating conflict some opponents fear.
Mr. Kerry, in his television appearances, said that if Congress passed a measure authorizing the use of force, it would send a firm message to Iran that the United States would not tolerate the fielding of a nuclear device, and thus safeguard Israel’s security.
“My constituents are skeptical that a limited effort will not mushroom into a full-blown boots on the ground,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat.
“I do not believe the Congress of the United States will turn its back on this moment,” Mr. Kerry said on the NBC News program “Meet The Press.” “The challenge of Iran, the challenges of the region, the challenge of standing up for and standing beside our ally, Israel, helping to shore up Jordan — all of these things are very, very powerful interests and I believe Congress will pass it.”
Mr. McCain, who has been arguing for two years that the United States should support a moderate Syrian opposition, said he strongly urged the president on Monday to provide anti-tank and antiaircraft systems to the opposition and to attack the Syrian Air Force.
Israeli officials have been concerned by Mr. Obama’s decision, but have been mostly restrained in their public comments. Mr. Kerry talked on Sunday with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
Mr. Obama indicated that “he favorably viewed the degrading of Bashar al-Assad’s capabilities as well as upgrading the Free Syrian Army,” Mr. McCain said in an interview.
Both the House and Senate are expected to have votes sometime after they return from recess on Sept. 9, although Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would convene hearings on the Syrian issue Tuesday afternoon.
Administration officials have told Congress that the C.I.A.'s program to arm the rebels would be deliberately limited at first to allow a trial run for American officials to monitor it before ramping up to a larger, more aggressive campaign. American officials have been wary that arms provided to the rebels could end up in the hands of Islamic extremists with ties to Al Qaeda.
While Mr. Kerry said he was confident Congress would vote to approve the use of force, Representative Peter T. King, the New York Republican and a former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that if a vote in the House were held today, Mr. Obama would likely lose as a result of the “isolationist wing.”
David
M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting from Moscow, Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem, and Scott Sayare from Paris.
Much of the debate in Washington concerned the terms of the resolution the White House has proposed for authorizing the use of force.
Representative Chris Van Hollen, a senior Democrat from Maryland, said that while the administration’s resolution limited the purpose of an attack to stopping the use of weapons of mass destruction, the measure left the military too much “running room” and did not set limits on the duration of the military operation.
Congressional advocates of strong action to help the Syrian opposition, in contrast, have complained that the attack that President Obama appears to be planning seemed to be too limited to have enough of an impact.
As the White House consults with Congress, Mr. Kerry is planning a new round of diplomacy. He is planning to meet next weekend with European Union diplomats in Vilnius, Lithuania, and with Arab League diplomats in Rome.
After Mr. Obama’s change in direction, the reaction in Britain and France has largely been one of surprise and confusion. The French government, which had said on Friday that it would support a military strike, said it would wait for the American Congress to vote before taking any military action.
President François Hollande still intends to proceed with a military intervention of some kind in Syria, French officials said Sunday, but France will await the decision of Congress before taking action.
“We cannot leave this crime against humanity unpunished,” said Interior Minister Manuel Valls, speaking on French radio. But given logistical questions of “intervention capacity,” Mr. Valls said, France must “await the decision of the United States.”
“France cannot go forward alone,” he said. “There must be a coalition.”
A major question for military experts is what effect the delay in acting might have if force was eventually used by the United States.
Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the Army and a retired four-star general, said in an interview that time would work to the advantage of President Bashar al-Assad as the Syrian forces would have more opportunities to move artillery, missiles and other equipment into civilian areas that they knew would not be struck.
Even Syrian command centers that could not be moved, he said, would be emptied of sensitive equipment and personnel.
But Mr. Obama said that he had been assured by General Dempsey that a delay would not affect the United States military’s ability to carry out a strike.
Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting from Washington, David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, and Steven Erlanger from London.
