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Obama Will Seek Syria Vote in Congress Obama Will Seek Syria Vote in Congress
(35 minutes later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama stunned the capital and paused his march to war on Saturday by asking Congress to give him authorization before he launches a limited military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack. WASHINGTON — President Obama stunned the world and paused his march to war on Saturday by asking Congress to give him authorization before he launches a limited military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack.
In a hastily organized appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he had decided that the United States should use force but would wait for a vote from lawmakers, who are not due to return to town for more than a week. Mr. Obama said he believed he has authority to act on his own but did not say whether he would if Congress rejects his plan. In an afternoon appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he had decided that the United States should use force but would wait for a vote from lawmakers, who are not due to return to town until Sept. 9. Mr. Obama said he believed he had the authority to act on his own, but he did not say whether he would if Congress rejects his plan.
Mr. Obama’s announcement followed several days of faltering support for military action in Congress as well as in foreign capitals. “I’m prepared to give that order,” Mr. Obama said. “But having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interest, I’m also mindful that I’m president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”
On Thursday, Britain broke with its longtime American ally as its Parliament voted against a military attack on Syria. On Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Syria’s patron, argued that it was “simply utter nonsense” to believe Syria’s government would launch such an attack and challenged the United States to present any evidence to the United Nations. Going to war with the support of the people’s representatives, he added, “I know the country will be stronger.”
The president’s announcement effectively dared Congress to either stand by him or, as he put it, allow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to get away with murdering children. By asking lawmakers to weigh in, he is trying to break out of his box of isolation of the last week, in the face of deep skepticism at home and around the world about the strike. His decision indicates he does not want to go forward without Congress and the American public.
But it represents a major political gamble for a president with marginal command of Congress. Officials said he is likely to win support in the Senate, where leading Republicans quickly issued statements welcoming his decision, but the House is more of an open question given its strong current of antiwar sentiment in both parties.
The decision also means that the period of vacillation before a strike will extend until after Mr. Obama travels to St. Petersburg, Russia, for a summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations, a session that now seems certain to be dominated by the question of what to do about Syria.
President Vladimir V. Putin, the host of the meeting, has not only effectively blocked United Nations action, but on Saturday he suggested the American intelligence blaming Mr. Assad’s government for the chemical attack was based on a ruse.
Opponents of military action hoped the extra time would give them a chance to stop another American intervention in a region that has entangled the country at great cost for a dozen years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Supporters of a military strike worried that stretching out the decision process would make Mr. Obama look like he blinked and undercut American credibility.
“In the same presentation, he made a persuasive case for military action and then in a dramatic pivot put it at risk, too,” said Aaron David Miller, a longtime Middle East adviser to multiple presidents and now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. It “shows just how concerned he is about being alone and his understanding of the realities that even a limited strike can be risky, and he wants to share the responsibility.”
Mr. Obama spoke with the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses before his announcement and said they agreed to schedule a debate and votes. The House leadership said it would stick to its schedule of resuming work the week of Sept. 9, but Senate leaders did not say whether they would move up their return.
Either way, Congressional leaders hailed the move without committing to supporting his request for authorization.
“We are glad the president is seeking authorization for any military action in Syria in response to serious, substantive questions being raised,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, likewise welcomed the decision. “The president’s role as commander in chief is always strengthened when he enjoys the expressed support of the Congress,” he said.
As a candidate, Mr. Obama said a president “does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” But he did not ask Congress for permission when he backed a NATO military operation in Libya in 2011, unlike President George W. Bush who received legislative approval for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States has carried out punitive raids without such Congressional authorization, including President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 raid on Libya and President Bill Clinton’s attacks in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the bombings of two American embassies in Africa in 1998.
But those were surprise attacks, and the current operation is one of the most heavily telegraphed punitive attacks in recent history.
Even as he made the request to Congress, Mr. Obama argued more forcefully than he ever had for military action, echoing some of the moral outrage expressed by Secretary of State John Kerry a day earlier. “What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?” Mr. Obama said.
To shore up support, the White House assigned Mr. Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other top officials to brief both parties in the Senate by telephone on Saturday and scheduled a classified briefing in person on Capitol Hill on Sunday for any lawmakers in town.
But the administration had not convinced everyone. Mr. Putin argued that it was “simply utter nonsense” to believe Syria’s government would launch such an attack and challenged the United States to present any evidence to the United Nations.
“I am convinced that it is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to involve other countries in the Syrian conflict, who want to gain the support of powerful members in international affairs, primarily, of course the United States,” Mr. Putin said in his first public remarks since reports of the chemical attack emerged. “I have no doubts about it.”“I am convinced that it is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to involve other countries in the Syrian conflict, who want to gain the support of powerful members in international affairs, primarily, of course the United States,” Mr. Putin said in his first public remarks since reports of the chemical attack emerged. “I have no doubts about it.”
At home, Mr. Obama had come under criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Some lawmakers had maintained that the United States should stay out of a civil war that has already cost more than 100,000 lives, or at least should wait for Congressional or United Nations backing. Others complained that the limited strike envisioned by the president would be ineffectual, especially after days of virtually laying out the plan of attack in public. United Nations inspectors left Syria on Saturday after four days of efforts to investigate the Aug. 21 attack. The inspectors were heading to The Hague with blood and urine samples taken from victims of the attack, as well as soil samples from areas where the attacks took place. The samples will be divided so each can be sent to at least two separate European laboratories for testing.
The debate came as the region braced for an attack that Syrian officials told regional news media they were expecting “at any moment” and were ready to retaliate against. United Nations weapons inspectors left Syria for Lebanon early Saturday after four days of efforts to investigate the Aug. 21 attack. American officials had made clear they would hold off using force until the inspectors departed safely but had no intention of waiting until they had delivered a formal report. Angela Kane, the United Nations disarmament chief, briefed Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday and reported that inspectors were “able to conduct a wide range of fact finding activities,” according to Martin Nesirky, the spokesman for the secretary general. Mr. Nesirky repeated that the inspectors’ mandate was to find out whether chemical weapons were used, not who was responsible.
The inspectors were heading to The Hague with blood and urine samples taken from victims of the attack, as well as soil samples from areas where the attacks took place. They were due to deliver the sample to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Saturday afternoon. Mr. Nesirky said the inspection team would not transmit its report to Mr. Ban until it received laboratory results and he offered no estimate of how long that would take but added that “whatever can be done to speed up the process is being done.” He added that Mr. Ban wants a political response. “A military solution is not an option,” he said.
The samples will be divided so each can be sent to at least two separate European laboratories for testing, according to United Nations officials, but experts said the testing would not be completed for several days at the earliest.
Angela Kane, the United Nations disarmament chief, briefed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday. While the inspectors were assigned to determine whether a chemical strike took place, it was not their mandate to assign culpability. Martin Nesirky, a United Nations spokesman, said that Ms. Kane’s team would give Mr. Ban its conclusions “as soon as it has received the results of the laboratory analysis of its samples.”
Obama administration officials argued that the United Nations findings would be redundant, since American intelligence had already concluded, based on human sources and electronic eavesdropping, that Mr. Assad’s government was responsible for launching nerve agents in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.Obama administration officials argued that the United Nations findings would be redundant, since American intelligence had already concluded, based on human sources and electronic eavesdropping, that Mr. Assad’s government was responsible for launching nerve agents in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
An intelligence summary released by the White House on Friday said 1,429 people were killed, including at least 426 children. The summary concluded with “high confidence” that the Syrian government had carried out the attack.

Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon; Jackie Calmes, Michael R. Gordon and Jonathan Weisman from Washington; Steven Lee Myers from Moscow; and Marc Santora from New York.

In Damascus, residents described an atmosphere of quiet suspense as they waited and prepared for an American attack. They described new troop movements as the government placed more security forces in schools in central Damascus, the prominent al-Akram mosque in the well-off Mezze district, a women’s cultural center in the neighborhood of Abu Roumaneh and in residential buildings near a cluster of security buildings in the Kafr Souseh district.
There were signs elsewhere in Syria, too, that times were not normal. “I noticed a serious change,” said Maya, 29, who drove from the coastal city of Tartus to Damascus, a route that in recent months usually required passing at least 10 government checkpoints. “I saw only one checkpoint on the whole road.”
Col. Qassim Saadeddine, a spokesman for the rebel Supreme Military Council, said opposition groups in various parts of the country had been issued contingency plans for attacks — some to coincide with and others to follow any American strike — to take advantage if government forces were weakened or distracted.
But he said the council, the armed wing of the main exile opposition body, had been given no information from the United States or any other country that might participate in the strike.
In Washington, Mr. Obama struggled to rally the public and its elected representatives. Secretary of State John Kerry, Mr. Hagel and Ms. Rice scheduled back-to-back conference calls for Saturday afternoon with the Democratic and Republican conferences in the Senate. Joining them were General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence.
The participation of Mr. Hagel and Gen. Dempsey suggested that the conversation was moving beyond assessing blame for the chemical attack to the specific military options now at hand. Mr. Obama has described a “limited, narrow act” that would not involve ground troops or entangle the United States in the broader civil war in Syria.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said he asked for Saturday’s briefings to get a better sense of the administration’s plans and to offer suggestions. “Senator McConnell believes it’s important for the whole conference to have the opportunity to communicate directly with the administration on this important issue,” said Don Stewart, the senator’s spokesman.
The White House also agreed to provide a classified briefing on the Syria intelligence in person on Capitol Hill for any lawmakers in town at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
An NBC poll found the public deeply split about a possible strike. Fifty percent of Americans opposed military action, while 42 percent supported it. When respondents were told the action would involve only cruise missiles, support grew somewhat, with 50 percent then supporting it and 44 percent being against it. Unlike most issues in Washington today, there was relatively little disparity between Republicans and Democrats on the question.
That leaves Mr. Obama facing the prospect of taking military action with less public support than almost any president in almost any instance since Vietnam. Jimmy Carter’s decision to try to rescue hostages in Iran, Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada and airstrikes on Libya, George Bush’s invasion of Panama and liberation of Kuwait, Bill Clinton’s strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo and George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan all drew support of 60 percent and usually much more in the days after they began.
The exceptions were Mr. Clinton’s intervention in Bosnia in 1995, which the public opposed, and Mr. Obama’s airstrikes in Libya in 2011, which had slim majority support. Whether support would grow for a Syria strike in a rally-around-the-flag effect after Mr. Obama issued such an order is unclear at the moment.

Peter Baker reported from Washington, and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon. Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington, Steven Lee Myers from Moscow, and Marc Santora from New York.