Hawaii Dem suggests Congress may never vote on Obama war request

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) on Thursday expressed doubt that Congress would ever vote on President Obama’s request for congressional authorization of military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its allies.

“I honestly don’t know. … I can’t tell you there will or there won’t,” Gabbard, who sits on both the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services panels, said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show.”

{mosads}The president sent his war powers measure to Capitol Hill several weeks ago, and it was almost immediately pronounced dead on arrival by Republicans and Democrats.

Aside from a handful of House and Senate hearings — which raised more questions about Obama’s request than answers — little work appears to have been done.

Gabbard said “a lot of concerns” have been raised about the proposed war powers resolution, which she claims lacks a strategy for defeating ISIS and likened to the 2003 authorization for use of military force on Iraq.

“I look how 12 years later, after spending over a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives to speak of Iraqi lives, we’re still there. And this authorization is what allowed that to occur, and we’re seeing what happens when there is not a clear strategy in place,” said Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran.

She said there has been a “continuation now by this administration of the failed Bush policy of propping up this central Iraqi government in Baghdad, which really is oppressing the Sunni people, which has created the oxygen for ISIS to exist in Iraq in a way that continues to grow in strength.”

“It’s most important for us to learn from these lessons in the past, to make sure that there’s an overall strategy of which the military is obviously a huge component,” said Gabbard. She added that a political strategy also had to be put in place that addresses the “sectarian divide” inside Iraq.

Her comments came the same day Gabbard and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) launched a new caucus for congressional members who have served in the military after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We come out on different sides of these issues of when and where our troops should be serving in combat, about what our strategy must be to defeat our enemy,” Gabbard said. “But I can tell you that the veterans who are part of this caucus are asking these questions not with partisan blinds on, but actually trying to see what’s in the best interest of our country.”