DAMASCUS (Middle East Eye) – More than 30 bipartisan U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden questioning the administration’s reasoning for bypassing Congress and launching a military strike in Syria earlier this year.
Led by Democrats Jamaal Bowman, Peter DeFazio and Republican Nancy Mace, the lawmakers said that Biden appeared to be “acting in contravention of the Constitution”. They also said that the administration has offered less of a basis for its strike than the previous Donald Trump administration did when conducting a strike in Syria.
“We are deeply troubled by your administration’s dangerous claim that Article II of the Constitution permits you to bypass Congressional authorization to perform strikes inside Syria,” said the letter, which was sent on Thursday.
“These claims raise serious constitutional questions about unchecked military activities conducted by the Executive Branch in Syria and Iraq without approval from Congress, and they could lead to actions that prolong the U.S.’s involvement in ‘endless wars’ overseas.”
In February, the administration launched airstrikes in Syria, claiming it was responding to attacks by popular forces.
A number of lawmakers at the time, including Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Congressman Ro Khanna and Senator Bernie Sanders, said the strikes raised the specter of presidential overreach.
Biden and previous U.S. presidents have justified the ordering of military strikes without congressional approval by citing Article II of the Constitution, which states the president is the commander in chief of the military.
The lawmakers, however, argue otherwise, noting that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war and only after congressional authorization can the president direct the military.
Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, called for the investigation into a 2019 American airstrike in the town of Baghouz in eastern Syria that killed 70 people, including dozens of women and children.
In a letter to U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed on Friday, Warren called for the panel to “immediately launch” a formal inquiry into the attack.
Her letter came after the New York Times published an exclusive report on Saturday in which the newspaper accused the U.S. military of a cover-up, revealing that an independent probe into the deadly attack – a potential war crime -- was never conducted.
According to the Times, the strike was one of the largest civilian casualty incidents in the U.S. war in Syria but had never been publicly admitted by American military officials.
“The Senate Armed Services Committee must seek answers about this strike and its aftermath and hold anyone found to be in violation of law or established procedures to account,” wrote Warren, who is a member of the panel.
The Times report said the airstrike launched on March 18, 2019 in Baghouz targeted a large gathering of suspected Daesh militant targets despite drone footage showing the presence of civilians there.