very well and they don't take very far. we have to have knowledge looking in the mirror that that is a challenge we have. this particular congress has a real opportunity as well as an obligation to start fixing some of what ails us, fixing some of what is appropriately precise about our behavior by taking seriously this most somber responsibility. this is ultimately about a precedent for the future. if congress allows the president to begin this campaign against isil and go on offense without congress authorizing it, we will have created a horrible precedent that future presidents i have no doubt will used to suggest i can take unilateral action against groups that made

pose terrorist threats in the united states. we will have created by precedent exactly what congress refused to do when they voted the bush administration down in the initial 2001 aumf. the administration says it may justify war for another 25 or 30 years, why possibly would we want to even further the precedent that would suggest, you know what, congress should have voted for the doctrine in 2001 and handed it all over to the executive to make these decisions. congress was right then and they did it in serious emotion.

congress was smart enough not to do it. if we do not weigh in on this mission and have an up or down vote on it, we will basically be handing back to the executive what the 2001 congress refused to do area the last reason we need to tackle this is the value reason. i am not a constitutional law scholar. it is enough to do this to vindicate the constitution but that is not really why i am doing it. the constitutional allocation of power that was put into the constitution and it has its expression in statute as well was put in in my view for a very important reason. don't ask service members to risk their lives if there's not a political consensus that the mission is worth it. it is the most somber thing we

do. when we initiate military action, we are asking young men and women to risk their lives and some will be killed and some will be injured and some will be captured and some will see those things happen to their comrades and some who none of those happen to because of what they do to others will come back with challenges of mental health that may follow them for the rest of their lives. that is what we are asking these thousands of virginians who are already involved -- that is what we not ask what order them to do when we initiate military action. what right do we have to ask that sacrifice of anyone if we are not willing to have that tough debate, contentious though it may be, and stand before our public and vote yes or no? is that sacrifice having to be accountable in voting yes or no one one millionth of the sacrifice we ask men and women

in uniform to make? no, it isn't and we volunteered to do it here it and it is not a sacrifice. this history of congressional abdication of saying, you know, boy, mr. resident, you go ahead and do this and i'm if it works out well, we'll say we were all with you. and if not, we will write and complain about it and it is the height of public immorality, to command people to risk their lives if we are not willing to do the simple and straightforward and clear thing that is on our shoulders to do. that is what has driven me. i got deeply interested in this issue in the aftermath of the 2002 vote. i thought putting up the iraq mission to a vote where time was manufactured but requiring the vote in october 2002 was almost just a profane politicization of what should be the most somber

decision that we ought to make in american government. i started to get into this challenge about the executive and congressional allocation of responsibility, and started reading about it. maybe it is because i am in virginia and we are so connected to the military. i feel this issue of not asking people to sacrifice on we don't do our jobs, when the president went into libya in 2011, i thought he did the right decision. the president was censured by the house of representatives in 2011 for doing what he did without congress. but it is ultimately about this valley, the constitutional argument, the statutory argument, this president's legacy, congress's reputation. it funnels down to this basic value of we can't ask people to sacrifice their lives if we won't do the basic job that is entrusted to us, to make a decision. if we make a decision this

mission is worth it, that does not mean it will all go well. that doesn't mean that we won't make a mistake. but the chances that it will go well are better if we debate it up front rather than wait and get in the middle of it, imagine how feels to be in service and be in harms way overseas and then suddenly you see the sniping break out between the legislative and executive branch that never received a consensus at the front end. i've had people stopping me in the halls of the capitol, the security guards and the cafeteria workers and the people who work on the grounds crew and other staff to say thank you. we have a huge percentage of ex military workers in the capital or family who do. let's do our job if we are going to ask others to do their job. so what is the job? i think there are three things we ought to do right now.

the first is we ought to craft a narrow authorization with respect to this mission against isil along the lines that the president has proposed. i drafted one last weekend there have been two others that have been introduced. my proposal and those three will go into the committee and chairman menendez said we will take this up and vote on an authorization. my authorization basically supports the president's pillars but with four caveats. first, a years sunset to require review and reauthorization. second, a limitation on ground troops, depending on the interests. i will get into why that is strategically and militarily exactly what we should do. third, a drastic limitation on this notion of who is an associated force so an authorization does not going to anything.

four, a repeal of the 2002 aumf. take this up as soon as we get back. we've got between november 12 and the 11th of december when the syrian piece that was authorized last week expires. we ought to take it up. we ought to vote on it. we need to revise the 2001 aumf. that is a more complicated thing. crafting a specific authorization against a named group, but a broad legal framework for dealing with the perpetrators of 9/11 and their associated groups, as even was evidenced by some of us yesterday, that is probably going to take a little more time to get that right. the white house is engaged in bipartisan discussion with congress now about the way to refine that. that is a second thing we need

to do. the third thing we need to do is for the long-term. we have to have a better process for making the most important decision that we make in congress, whether or not to initiate war. senator mccain and i have introduced a bill that looks at the infirmities that made the war powers resolution in 1973 null after it was enacted to congress had a proved via budget the vietnam war, but he did not approve of nixon going into cambodia which he did secretly. so the war powers resolution was enacted after that. it was vetoed by president nixon and it was overridden. there are some problems with the bill that most scholars would say would make pieces of it unconstitutional.

we put together a repeal and replace of that resolution that basically does three things. it tries to define what is war. in this time of nonstate actors, cyberattacks, what would trigger the executive interaction. trying to find systematize consultation. i am on the armed services and foreign relations committee. i read that the president was consulting on congress with something. i am the chairman of the subcommittee and nobody has called me. so consultation can be as much or as little as the resident calling a few people he thinks will agree with him or talking to the leadership or talking to the meaningful committees. we ought to have a meaningful understanding of what consultation is. in the third piece is the proposal that senator mccain and

i have, to systematize and require an up or down vote by members of congress and not allow the abdication of responsibility that has been too common a theme in congress. that is a lot. you can see i am passion about it. i think we will take a few questions. thanks for being here. i wish it wasn't so topical. [applause] >> that was remarkably cogent and right on point. i will give you an opportunity to have a drink. i am the senior fellow. i have been with the center since 2003. a lot of our work on the national security team was on the iraq war. certainly now that we are still talking about iraq and debating iraq and going back into iraq,

something we have really wrestled with for a long time. one of the things that struck me over this debate is a general war-weariness by the american people combined with a sense that what is going in iraq and syria now is you have to combat the threat. but a low-level sense that what we can do is actually going to work. when we talk about the constitutional piece, when you talk about the value piece, i think there is another role that congress can play, which is helping to bring along the american people and have them understand the mission. do you think that the lack of congressional debate has made it more difficult to do that? >> certainly. you laid it out very well. when the president and congress debate about matters like this, that is how the american public gets into the discussion. you have to bring in the american public into the

discussion, too. we started to have this discussion last week with voting on the syrian piece of the president's proposal. but if we don't have the discussion and vote, we run the risk that the american people do not understand the magnitude of the challenge and may not be as supportive as we would want them to be. what our servicemen and women deserve is not just a vote of congress, but they deserve the maximum degree of support are the american public for the risk they are taking. >> you mention the ground troops. i think there is a lot of confusion about putting boots on the ground and what is it we exactly mean. we know that there are american forces already in iraq, but we hear no ground troops. what does this mean and what is your proposal?

>> my proposal is no ground troops with the exception of, if we need ground troops to rescue american personnel or save american lives. and if we need ground troops for the counterterrorism mission that i mentioned, that would be acceptable as well. those would be the only two instances where we would use actual ground troops. let me just say quiet think the no ground troop rule is important. first, it is important because that is what the president said when he laid out the mission. that was by way of a commitment to the american public. this is what the mission will be an what it is not going to be. it is important to put in that limitation so we are good to his word. but general dempsey gave really good testimony about this last week. people said dempsey will not take out recommendation off the table.

if he had said he would take something off the table as recommendation, he shouldn't be commander in chief. what he really said, if you listen to his entire testimony, he laid out the rationale for why we don't want american ground troops in this battle. we cannot defeat isil if it is the west against isil. we can't. there is no amount of american ground troops and european ground troops that can win this thing in iraq and syria. what we can do is battle isil, if the region is willing to police itself and stand up against extremism and violence and say this is not islam, if the region is willing to do that, we ought to be a partner with the region and there is something healthy about regional self policing. but if we have to put ground

troops in, it is because the region itself is not fighting isil. if the region is not fighting isil, there is no amount of troops we can put into iraq and syria that can win. so it not only matches the president's word, but it means we will provide a put together this multinational coalition to provide air support, to enable the kurds, resistance fighters in syria, maybe ground forces from regional nations. but if you are not willing to stand up against isil and do that, there is no amount of american ground troops that can do that. general dempsey said it. i believe strongly in that. >> talk about the sunset provision. we certainly know the 2001 aumf is 13 years old. the longest continually used use of force.

there is no way to wrap it up unless the president declares it is over and that is fraught with political risk. i certainly applaud the intention of having a sunset provision. how do you respond to pushback from the military or others who would say one year is not enough for this mission and recognizing the challenges that you described with your body, congress, going back to them every year to reauthorize this would be difficult? >> i think that is a good critique of my proposal. this is a balancing. i really believe that the 2001 aumf with no geographic limitation and no temporal limitation was a serious mistake. i can see why it was made. it was in the aftermath of this horrible attack. we should learn some lessons from the last 13 years.

i think geographic and temporal limitations is one of the lessons we should learn. some of the other aumf's that have come in have sunsets. i fully expect when we get into foreign relations and we are comparing and try to put together the best version, that will be a significant debate. i am not wedded to the one year but i am wedded to the notion of a sunset. i think that is the way you avoid this open-ended authorization that ends up being applied to all kinds of things that it was never applied to. you didn't think when you voted that it would be used in syria in 2014. that was beyond the contemplation of the members of congress. that is why a sunset is so important very the president should have to come back and make that case and congress should have to engage in that dialogue in full view of the

american public and decide how long the next chapter will be. >> one more question before we open it to the audience. you mentioned a couple of the other aumf's that have been introduced. some of your other colleagues who have been in this issue, senator corker, have the opposite view you have on the limitations and want to expand the 2001 aumf. how are we going to find a cohesive congressional majority behind a particular proposal that we can get in the lame-duck? >> let me talk about the isil aumf and the broader 2001 aumf issue. if we can just had this up for debate in a vote last week or this week, the hardest piece of it, the piece i think is the most controversial in congress is arming the syrian opposition

because there are questions over do we know who to arm and will it come back to bite us in another direction. some of my colleagues will vote for the u.s. strike campaign. i think we could have produced a margin of support for the president, much like last week. it was divided but it was not partisan. is ok for there to be a divided vote. it is a hard question. but it would have been bad if it were a partisan vote. instead, you saw democrats and republicans vote yes and no. we could have gotten there but for a variety of reasons. elections and maybe some legitimate concerns. senator menendez said, look, as we have seen, drafting an authorization that is well drafted is not as easy as we would think so let's take the time to get it right. some members i think their vote may be dependent upon the

success of the president in really pulling together a multinational coalition. i can see some members, maybe even me, saying eyes of work these four pillars if there is a coalition, not if we are alone. so there may be some nonpolitical virtuous reasons we did not do it last week and we will do it in november. i detected strong support and the vote in both houses on the toughest part of it, the syrian piece demonstrated strong support. will we debate the sunset? sure, we will. on the 2001 aumf, it is more challenging. there are some degrees to which it may need to be broadened. right now, it only applies to al

qaeda, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. possibly, there should be an aumf not just toward the perpetrators but groups who have a target on the u.s. it should probably also should narrow the definition of associated forces. the absence of a sunset, then he limitation on geography or time is way too broad. you can see the drafting of the 2001 aumf needs to be a little bit broader. i think it needs to be narrowed here and he may agree with me. that will take some time but the white house is really engaged in these discussions with the democrats and republicans right now. >> let's turn to audience questions. please wait for the microphone. we will ask that you identify yourself clearly and the organization you're with. we will take three questions at

a time and see if we can get through as many as we possibly can. try to be as respectful to your follow audience members and keep them short and refrain from commentary. we will do when here in the front row and then we will go here to the front row and then back. >> thank you. i am molly hooper with "the hill newspaper." how is president obama going to pay for these airstrikes? he has not asked for any money. quite a few tomahawks were fired yesterday and those things are not too cheap. i am wondering where president obama is getting the money to pay for these airstrikes. >> martin frost, former member of congress. i was in congress in both 1991 and in 2002 when congress authorized president bush 41 and bush 43 to act against iraq. both of them maintained that

they had the inherent authority as commander-in-chief. so far, president obama has not embraced congress specifically passing an authorization. he sought a very limited action with training syrian troops but he did not seek a broader authorization last week. do you think the resident openly will embrace and support a specific authorization by congress? >> i am old enough to remember back when the gulf of tonkin was raised. only two senators were willing to stand up. and stop and asked the question, is it really worth doing this. it doesn't seem that today we have any in our political leadership willing to raise that question. it is all about the tactics of war, not whether we should go to war at all.

>> let me tackle those three. i will take them in reverse order. why the rush? sometimes there is a circumstance where you're under attack or imminent attack. but generally you should avoid rushing if you can and do this the right way. i have been interested in this topic for a long time. what galvanized me recently was when the congressional leadership met with the president over the summer to talk about this issue and they went to the microphone and said the president has all the authority he needs. and i am, like, you've got to be kidding me. you're not speaking for me when you said that. and members saying that you have all of the authority you need to ask your as the same time you are suing the president for taking unilateral action? hold on a second. i started getting angry when that happened and had been trying to avoid the rush by putting congress into the place that they should be. during the debates about

article i and article ii, the way we draw up this power is to make congress the clobber of and not the facilitator of war. and hopefully the facilitator of peace. that is how it was originally designed. so we don't need to rush but we do need to ask the questions and we need to have the debate. congressman martin, i couldn't agree with you more. i think -- your wording is why hasn't the president embraced and will he? the president will very much embrace congressional authorization. the way he said it may have been the most part he said his speech. i need congressional authorization for this arm and equipment mission in syria and i would welcome congressional involvement -- i would welcome it. i think that is very sincere.

listening to general dempsey, secretary hagel, i think they will welcome it. i don't have an intuition. i have a hunch that the white house felt, when they went to congress last year on syria and congress was less than full throated in support a left-hand skittish. the let me offer the counter view on syria. i know some who view of the president not using military force, let me make the argument. the president had a salutory outcome. the president said, use chemical weapons, there needs to be a consequence including military

consequence. bashar al-assad used chemical weapons and it was proven. the president said, ok, i draw a redline. britain would not do it. the u.s. would not do it. this was a policy put in place since 1929. the president came to the senate. we voted 10-8 to use military force. it might have won in the senate. but the fact that the president saying that we need to use military force and i'm coming to congress and the senate or in relations committee made russia changes calculations. syria had not even admitted it had chemical weapons. it said, we will give up their weapons. it has been a huge diplomatic achievement of this administration that only happened because of a credible