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Obama angered lawmakers by ordering air attacks on March 19 and then failed to seek congressional approval for the action within 60 days, as established by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, or end the operation. In a report to Congress earlier this month, the administration said Libya does not amount to full-blown hostilities and congressional consent is unnecessary, further incensing members of Congress. Koh said four factors led Obama to conclude that the Libya operation did not fall within the War Powers law. The lawyer said the military's role is limited
-- in mission, exposure of U.S. troops to hostilities, risk of escalation and military attacks. Koh said the War Powers Resolution does not define hostilities, and neither the courts nor Congress have spelled it out. Kerry pointed out that the resolution was passed in response to Vietnam, then the nation's longest conflict in which more than 58,000 Americans died yet Congress never declared war. Nearly 40 years later, the U.S. operation in Libya involves unmanned Predator drones, a weapon the military could only imagine in the 1970s. Since NATO took command of the Libya operation in early April, the U.S. role has largely been limited to support efforts such as intelligence, surveillance and electronic warfare. The U.S. has launched airstrikes and drone attacks, flying more than 3,400 sorties. The effort has included some 42 drone attacks and 80 strikes with jet fighters. "In Libya today, no American troop is begin shot at," Kerry said in backing the administration argument. Koh, who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the Clinton administration and then became dean of Yale Law School before returning to government service under Obama, has been criticized and praised by conservatives. He was highly critical of the Bush administration's use of enhanced interrogation techniques of terror suspects and their imprisonment at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, he earned plaudits from some conservative opponents when he argued forcefully for the legality of the Obama administration's targeted airstrikes, using both drones and piloted aircraft, against terrorists.
[Associated
Press;
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