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President Obama seeking lawmakers' approval for Syria strike

by Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Delaying what had loomed as an imminent strike, President Barack Obama abruptly announced Saturday he will seek congressional approval before launching any military action meant to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons in an attack that killed hundreds.

With Navy ships on standby in the Mediterranean Sea ready to launch their cruise missiles, Obama said he had decided the United States should take military action and that he believes that as commander in chief, he has “the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization.”

At the same time, he said, “I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be even more effective.” His remarks were televised live in the United States as well as on Syrian state television with translation.

Congress is scheduled to return from a summer vacation on Sept. 9, and in anticipation of the coming debate, Obama challenged lawmakers to consider “What message will we sent if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price.”

The president didn't say so, but his strategy carries enormous risks to his and the nation's credibility, which the administration has argued forcefully is on the line in Syria. Obama long ago said the use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that Syrian President Bashar Assad would not be allowed to cross with impunity.

Nor was it clear what options would be open to the president if he fails to win the backing of the House and Senate for the military measures he has threatened.

Only this week, British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a humiliating defeat when the House of Commons refused to support his call for military action against Syria.

Either way, the developments marked a stunning turn in an episode in which Obama has struggled to gain international support for a strike, while dozens of lawmakers at home urged him to seek their backing.

Halfway around the world, Syrians awoke Saturday to state television broadcasts of tanks, planes and other weapons of war, and troops training, all to a soundtrack of martial music. Assad's government blames rebels in the Aug. 21 attack, and has threatened retaliation if it is attacked.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was appealing to a Nobel Peace laureate rather than to a president, urged Obama to reconsider. A group that monitors casualties in the long Syrian civil war challenged the United States to substantiate its claim that 1,429 died in a chemical weapons attack, including more than 400 children.

By accident or design, the new timetable gives time for U.N. inspectors to receive lab results from the samples they took during four days in Damascus, and to compile a final report. After leaving Syria overnight, the inspection team arrived in Rotterdam a few hours before Obama spoke.

The group's leader was expected to brief Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday.

Republicans generally expressed satisfaction at Obama's decision, and challenged him to make his case to the public and lawmakers alike that American power should be used to punish Assad.

“We are glad the president is seeking authorization for any military action in Syria in response to serious, substantive questions being raised,” House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other House Republican leaders said in a joint statement.

“In consultation with the president, we expect the House to consider a measure the week of September 9th. This provides the president time to make his case to Congress and the American people.”

There was one dissenting view, from Rep. Peter King., R-N.Y. “President Obama is abdicating his responsibility as commander in chief and undermining the authority of future presidents,” he said. “The president doesn't need 535 Members of Congress to enforce his own red line.”

Senior administration officials said Obama told aides on Friday night that he had changed his mind about ordering a strike against Syria without seeking congressional approval first, making a final decision after a long discussion with his chief of staff Denis McDonough.

It was unclear what pressure Republican or Democratic lawmakers had brought on Obama.

For now, it appeared that the administration's effort at persuasion was already well underway.

The administration plunged into a series of weekend briefings for lawmakers, both classified and unclassified, and Obama challenged lawmakers to consider “what message will we send to a dictator” if he is allowed to kill hundreds of children with chemical weapons without suffering any retaliation.

At the same time, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Syrian Opposition Coalition President Ahmed Assi al-Jarba to underscore Obama's commitment to holding the Assad government accountable for the Aug. 21 attack.

While lawmakers are scheduled to return to work Sept. 9, officials said it was possible the Senate might come back to session before then.

Obama said Friday he was considering “limited and narrow” steps to punish Assad, adding that U.S. national security interests were at stake. He pledged no U.S. combat troops on the ground in Syria, where a civil war has claimed more than 100,000 civilian lives.

In Syria, some rebels expressed unhappiness with the president, one rebel commander said he did not consider Obama's decision to be a retreat. “On the contrary, he will get the approval for congress and then the military action will have additional credibility,” said Qassem Saadeddine.

“Just because the strike was delayed by few days doesn't mean it's not going to happen,” he said.

With Obama struggling to gain international backing for a strike, Putin urged him to reconsider his plans. “We have to remember what has happened in the last decades, how many times the United States has been the initiator of armed conflict in different regions of the world, said Putin, a strong Assad ally. “Did this resolve even one problem?”

Even the administration's casualty estimate was grist for controversy.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization that monitors casualties in the country, said it has confirmed 502 deaths, nearly 1,000 fewer than the American intelligence assessment claimed.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the organization, said he was not contacted by U.S. officials about his efforts to collect information about the death toll in the Aug. 21 attacks.

“America works only with one part of the opposition that is deep in propaganda,” he said, and urged the Obama administration to release the information its estimate is based on.

Obama was buffeted, as well, by some lawmakers challenging his authority to strike Syria without congressional approval, and also by others who urged him to intervene more forcefully than he has signaled he will.

In the hours before Obama's Rose garden announcement, he was joined at the White House by top advisers.

Vice President Joseph Biden, who had planned a holiday weekend at home in Delaware, was among them. So, too, were Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry and other top administration officials.

In the famously flammable Middle East, Israel readied for the possible outbreak of hostilities. The Israeli military disclosed it has deployed an “Iron Dome” missile defense battery in the Tel Aviv area to protect civilians from any possible missile attack from next-door Syria or any of its allies.

Missile defenses were deployed in the northern part of the country several days ago, and large crowds have been gathering at gas mask-distribution centers to pick up protection kits.

http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20130831/president-obama-seeking-lawmakers-approval-for-syria-strike

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Kansas

The Public Safety Tipping Point: When Saving Money Loses Lives

by Mark Funkhouser

Recently my wife and I were strolling along the shore in Long Beach, N.Y., when a young woman ran up to us, thrust her sunglasses into my wife's hands and dashed into the ocean. It took me a minute to realize that she was a lifeguard. She dove into each breaker as it came, swimming strongly straight toward a young man and a teenage girl quite a ways from shore. I wasn't sure at first if they were just playing or in trouble, but the lifeguard knew. They were in trouble, especially the girl. We stood and waited as the three of them came to shore. Everyone was OK.

I was impressed. I had just seen a government employee do her job superbly. Aside from the strength and determination displayed by her swimming, it takes skill to watch hundreds of people in the water and identify, at a distance of many yards, someone who is in trouble. The job is important not just to the individuals assisted and their families, but to the economy of the city of Long Beach itself.

Like many cities, Long Beach has financial problems and has been cutting spending and reducing the number of public employees—including, in this case, lifeguards. The money budgeted for lifeguards in Long Beach has been cut by more than 18 percent in the past year.

Not every city has a beach, but lifeguards are essentially public safety employees, just like cops and firefighters, which every city has. How many you need and how much to pay them is a tough call. If things are going well, you could be spending way more than needed and not really notice. In tough financial times, you can cut a little and maybe nothing bad happens. So you cut a little more.

Kansas City, Mo., is far from the ocean, but it has the Power and Light District, a downtown entertainment area on which the city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, hoping to boost the city's economy just as the beach does in Long Beach. As mayor, I was often asked what else the city would do to support this huge investment. The suggested response was additional tax incentives, but it was clear to me that the most important thing the city could do was keep it safe. The city needed thousands of suburbanites to visit the district regularly, and any sign that it wasn't safe would keep them away no matter how bright, glitzy and attractive we made it. To the extent that public safety expenditures were crowded out by money diverted to support tax incentives and debt service, the project's fortunes would actually be harmed, not helped.

So how low can you go in public safety? How many cops—or lifeguards—is too few? Essentially the only way to tell when you're not spending enough on public safety is when it's too late—bad things are happening. The Bannister Mall area in Kansas City was a flourishing retail and residential area in the 1990s, but an uptick in crime drove away shoppers. The first anchor store closed in 2000, and the rest left soon afterward. The mall was eventually demolished, and today the area is desolate.

And so the cycle goes. The number of cops—or lifeguards or firefighters or other first responders—is reduced and their pay and support is cut until a tipping point is reached. That rescued girl in Long Beach didn't make the news, but she would have if she had drowned. When a family is deciding where to take their beach vacation or where to shop, the news that the place they're thinking about is unsafe will send them elsewhere.

The first priority in taking care of the money is to spend it on what matters, and nothing matters more than public safety.

Mark Funkhouser

Dr. Mark Funkhouser, a former Kansas City mayor and auditor, is the director of the Governing Institute.

http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/funkhouser/gov-public-safety-tipping-point.html

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