Defense

Rep. Marcy Kaptur accused President Obama of waiting for Congress to go into recess to deploy U.S. forces in Libya.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday said he expects President Obama to fully explain U.S. military operations in Libya tonight and warned that the use of U.S. air support for Libyan rebels would require congressional consideration.

"If U.S. military forces were to have responsibility for close air support or execute additional strike missions in support of opposition forces, then that of course would exceed the president's definition of a limited, supporting role," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "Such a mission would last indefinitely, and would trigger congressional consideration of our larger role in the war."

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said the White House has kept Congress well-informed about the multinational military mission in Libya.

"The intelligence committee has been briefed," said Rockefeller, a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "The senators were all briefed in a classified setting. And then the leaders of the House and the Senate have been down in the Situation Room in the White House, which is going way down in the deepest, darkest, most secret place available in the country to be briefed on what's going on in Libya."

Rockefeller made his comments on Wednesday to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Freshman Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) on Wednesday charged that President Obama violated the Constitution by deciding to bomb Libya without congressional approval.

"The Constitution clearly authorizes Congress with the power to declare war, and the president has basically ignored the Constitution by firing missiles at another country without seeking congressional approval," Amash said in a radio interview on 1340 AM WJRW in Michigan.

Interest payments on the debt allow China to afford to buy a Joint Strike Fighter every day, conservative lawmaker states.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday he fears the military effort in Libya might not be enough to help beat back Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

"I'm afraid it may well be too little too late, in which we get the worst of all worlds: We intervened, but to no good effect," Kyl said in a television interview with KGUN 9 in Tucson, Ariz. "I hope and pray that it's better. There are ways that we could resurrect the situation, but it would involve more activity on the part of the United States than I think would have been required initially."

Kyl agreed with other Republicans that if the U.S. had intervened two weeks ago, U.S. troops would have been more helpful after rebels had taken control of most of the country.

"Now we are left with a situation where there is some kind of a stand off," Kyl said, adding that Gadhafi is a "very brutal guy" who may seek to punish his opponents. "I think we can count on continued attacks by his forces against civilians across the country," he said.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Tuesday morning that he supports President Obama's decision to commit U.S. troops to military operations in Libya, but any expansion of their mission would require a more thorough explanation to Congress.

"Certainly if there was any thought to expanding the scope and timing of this operation, then I think it would be very important that the president speak more broadly to the American people," Van Hollen said in a C-SPAN interview. "But I want to make it clear, he has said that this is going to be limited in scope and limited in time, that this was a response to a potential humanitarian catastrophe, a potential bloodbath with Gadhafi's forces."

Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) said on Monday that he thinks the continuing spending resolution approved last week is the last temporary spending bill Congress will take up for fiscal 2011, and that a full bill is the next step.

"The general feeling right now in Congress is the last CR we did last week is the last CR of 2011, that the next thing we take up will be a 2011 budget," Larsen said at a missile defense conference in Washington. "One bill done in one fell swoop."

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on Thursday reintroduced legislation that would pull the U.S. out of the United Nations, the same day he criticized U.S. involvement in Iraq and unsuccessfully led the charge to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

Paul's bill, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act, is the same bill he introduced in the last Congress. The bill would repeal the United Nations Participation Act and the United Nations Headquarters Agreement Act, end U.S. funding to the U.N., require the withdrawal of the U.N.'s presence in U.S. facilities, and even repeal U.S. participation in the World Health Organization.

The bill, H.R. 1146, would end U.S. participation two years after its enactment.

Also on Thursday, Paul introduced a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the president must get congressional approval before imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Paul said a no-fly zone would constitute an act of war against Libya, and said Congress must authorize this first.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) signaled agreement with a Rolling Stone editor who likened the general's performance to that of the troubled actor.