Obama Seeks Update to Military Force Rules | Defense News | defensenews.com
President Barack Obama has invited the head of the US Central Command to brief
congressional leaders at the White House on Friday afternoon — the first step
toward updating the rules for the authorization to use military force
(AUMF).
Gen. Lloyd Austin will give a presentation “on how our fight against [Islamic
State] is proceeding,” Obama said in a press conference to discuss the
Republican party’s Nov. 4 victories across the US.
Responding to a question about his plans to take a fresh look at the AUMF
that was passed just a week after the 9/11 attacks, Obama said “the idea is to
right-size and update whatever authorization Congress provides to suit the
current fight rather than previous fights.”
The Obama administration has come under fire from some in Congress over its
continued use of the expansive language in that 2001 AUMF to guide military
action in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, often against groups that
had nothing to do with the core al-Qaida group that launched the attacks on the
United States.
“We now have a different type of enemy,” Obama said. “The strategy is
different in how we partner with Iraq and the [Arabian] Gulf countries,” and the
United States needs to rethink the document so that it “reflects what we
perceive [the threats] to be, not just over the next two or three months, but
for our strategy going forward.”
Speaking earlier in the afternoon in Manhattan, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen.
Martin Dempsey said US troops will likely be required to stay in Iraq to train
the local army “over the next several years.”
