McConnell: Obama Tells Congressional Leaders He Won’t Seek Authority for Next Steps on Iraq

Pres­id­ent Obama told top mem­bers of Con­gress on Wed­nes­day that he won’t need to ask for con­gres­sion­al per­mis­sion for the next steps he will take on the crisis in Ir­aq, ac­cord­ing to the Sen­ate’s top Re­pub­lic­an.

“The pres­id­ent just ba­sic­ally briefed us on the situ­ation in Ir­aq, in­dic­ated he didn’t feel he had any need for au­thor­ity from us for steps he might take, and in­dic­ated he would keep us pos­ted,” Sen­ate Minor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell told re­port­ers after a White House meet­ing about Ir­aq.

While top Re­pub­lic­ans had been highly crit­ic­al of Obama earli­er in the week for not provid­ing a plan on Ir­aq, the ten­or of their cri­ti­cism has died down. Mc­Con­nell char­ac­ter­ized the meet­ing by say­ing they “had a good dis­cus­sion.”

Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Harry Re­id had said Tues­day that the ad­min­is­tra­tion doesn’t “need any more au­thor­ity than they already have to do whatever they need to do there.”

In a state­ment later, Re­id said, “the Pres­id­ent said he is not cur­rently con­sid­er­ing ac­tions that would re­quire Con­gres­sion­al ap­prov­al but was very clear that he would con­sult with Con­gress if that changed.”

A seni­or Demo­crat­ic aide briefed on the meet­ing said Mc­Con­nell’s com­ments about con­gres­sion­al ap­prov­al mis­char­ac­ter­ized the sub­stance of the meet­ing.

House Speak­er John Boehner didn’t is­sue a state­ment on the meet­ing, but a House Re­pub­lic­an lead­er­ship aide said there was no dis­agree­ment with how Mc­Con­nell de­scribed wheth­er Obama would seek con­gres­sion­al ap­prov­al.

Des­pite no signs from the White House that it will form­ally ask Con­gress for au­thor­ity to take any kind of mil­it­ary ac­tion, there are pledges to keep lead­ers in­formed. The White House said the pres­id­ent “asked each of the lead­ers for their view of the cur­rent situ­ation and pledged to con­tin­ue con­sult­ing closely with Con­gress go­ing for­ward.”

“It was a good meet­ing. Every­body seems sat­is­fied. The pres­id­ent is go­ing to keep us as in­formed as he can as this pro­cess moves for­ward,” Re­id said back at the Cap­it­ol on Wed­nes­day.

While top Demo­crat­ic lead­ers have as­ser­ted that Obama re­tains such an au­thor­ity, some Demo­crats ques­tion it and want Con­gress to be able to weigh in. The ad­min­is­tra­tion could use the 2001 Au­thor­ized Use of Mil­it­ary Force res­ol­u­tion, for in­stance, but the leg­al­ity of such a move is still un­clear.

The lead­ers wouldn’t di­vulge what op­tions the ad­min­is­tra­tion is weigh­ing to re­spond to the vi­ol­ence in the re­gion. Obama has already ruled out send­ing on-the-ground com­bat troops, which is something that con­gres­sion­al Demo­crats have stood against. The U.S. will be send­ing up to 275 armed forces to provide em­bassy se­cur­ity.

Earli­er in the day, the As­so­ci­ated Press re­por­ted that Obama is mov­ing away from mil­it­ary air­strikes as a re­sponse.

Obama up­dated con­gres­sion­al lead­ers on the U.S. re­sponse to di­min­ish the crisis by “ur­ging Ir­aq’s lead­ers to set aside sec­tari­an agen­das and to come to­geth­er with a sense of na­tion­al unity,” ac­cord­ing to the White House readout of the meet­ing, and also briefed the law­makers on Amer­ic­an ef­forts to strengthen Ir­aqi se­cur­ity forces in their fight against the mil­it­ants.

This story has been up­dated to re­flect new com­ments about the meet­ing.