AFP – 11 March 2015 – US Secretary of State John Kerry urged lawmakers Wednesday to give President Barack Obama new war powers to strike against Islamic jihadists at “a pivotal hour” in the battle against the militants.
But senators pressed Kerry, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and top US military officer Martin Dempsey on whether a new resolution would lead to “mission creep” that could see hundreds of US ground troops sent back into the Middle East.
Kerry called for a united vote in favor of a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to give Obama “a clear mandate to prosecute armed conflict against ISIL and associated persons or forces.”
Tantamount to a declaration of war, the authority would provide Obama political cover at home and a firmer legal basis on which to prosecute the fight, particularly among allies abroad who have joined a US-led international coalition.
So far, the Obama administration has used the existing authorization approved in the days after the September 11, 2001 attacks to go after Al-Qaeda militants and the Taliban as justification for the war on IS, also known as ISIL.
“The president already has statutory authority to act against ISIL, but a clear and formal expression of your backing would dispel any doubt anywhere that Americans are united in this effort,” Kerry said.

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter stressed that “the proposed AUMF does not authorize long-term, large-scale offensive ground combat operations like those we conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan, because our strategy does not call for them.”
But Senator Bob Menendez warned that “we all know that it may be the intent of someone not to have any large-scale, long-term offensive combat troops, but that intention can honestly change along the way.”
Carter, however, highlighted that the new war powers resolution would expire in three years and “wisely does not include any geographical restriction because ISIL already shows signs of metastasizing outside of Syria and Iraq.”