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 The House voted 273-to-156 to authorize the plan, a test of
support for Obama's stepped-up campaign to "degrade and destroy"
Islamic State fighters who have seized a third of both Iraq and
Syria, declared war on the West and seek to establish a caliphate in
the heart of the Middle East.
Written as an amendment to a stopgap spending bill, the measure does
not include any money to pay for the arms and training. It passed
with support from Democrats and Republicans, but also significant
opposition from members of both parties.
Voting for the amendment were 159 Republicans and 114 Democrats,
while 71 Republicans and 85 Democrats voted against.
The spending bill - including the training plan - will only go to
Obama to be signed into law after it passes the Senate, expected to
come as early as Thursday.
Facing resistance from war-weary lawmakers in Obama's own Democratic
party, the administration reached across the aisle to Republicans
for support, a rare bipartisan moment in an otherwise polarized
Congress.
At an annual picnic for congressional members he hosted on Wednesday
night, Obama thanked House members from both parties "who came
together today to pass an important component of our strategy for
dealing with this terrible terrorist organization."
A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that while Americans support Obama's
campaign of air strikes against Islamic State militants, they
largely oppose a long military campaign against the group.
The authorization backed by the House lasts only until Dec. 11, the
day the spending bill expires. The bill allows the Pentagon to later
submit requests to shift funds within the budget if it decides it
needs funds to pay for the program.
The amendment does not provide details about the training plan,
prompting lawmakers to fear that a "yes" vote could mean authorizing
shipments of military equipment that might end up in the wrong hands
and possibly even kill Americans.
'UNANSWERED QUESTIONS'
"There are too many unanswered questions for me to support this
amendment," said Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat.
"How will we ensure that the United States weapons we are providing
to Syrian rebels will not get into the wrong hands, as they did with
the rebels we supported in Libya?"
The amendment does not include $500 million the White House says it
needs to arm and train the rebels, who have been waging a three-year
battle against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was written to
quickly provide the authority Obama wanted while avoiding a debate
on the money.
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Oubai Shahbandar, a senior adviser to the Syrian National Coalition,
a Western-backed political opposition body, called the House vote
"an important step forward" in establishing a partnership between
Washington and the Syrian opposition.
"We worked hard to make the case that the Free Syrian Army is the
sole solution to degrading and defeating ISIS. We have a long road
ahead, but the overwhelming support in Congress for our cause is
encouraging," he told Reuters in Istanbul.
Obama said in a nationally televised speech last week that he wanted
to train and equip Free Syrian Army rebels to "strengthen the
opposition as the best counterweight to the extremists" and to
prevent U.S. troops from "being dragged into another ground war."
Fears of a deeper U.S. troop involvement were fanned on Tuesday by
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs
of Staff, who raised the possibility that American troops might need
to take on a larger role in Iraq's ground war.
Defense officials have said they expect to recruit and train about
5,000 of the moderate rebel fighters.
U.S. military officials say there is support within the Pentagon for
supplying the rebels with weapons beyond small arms and ammunition,
including battlefield artillery, anti-tank rockets and mortars.
Republican Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a member of the
House Defense appropriations subcommittee, said the program could
start with small arms and then possibly graduate to heavier weapons,
such as "armored personnel carriers, artillery, real air defense
capability" but declined to say whether such plans had been
discussed in classified briefings.
(Additional reporting by David Lawder and Krista Hughes in
Washington and Dasha Afanasieva in Istanbul; Editing by Jason Szep
and Howard Goller)
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