Boehner Backs Obama On Syria Attack
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Excerpted from NBC News: House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Tuesday endorsed President Barack Obama’s call for military action in Syria.
The top elected Republican in Washington, Boehner said following a meeting at the White House that he intended to support Obama’s plan for limited strikes against the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria.
“I am going to support the president’s call for action,” he told reporters. “I believe my colleagues should support this call for action.”
As some Republicans signal their reluctance to approve Obama’s request for authority to intervene in Syria, Boehner’s endorsement could be influential. The GOP speaker is often hesitant to get out in front of his unruly Republican conference on major issues, giving Boehner’s pronouncement on Tuesday all the more weight. Keep reading
Excerpted from Fox News: House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday said he supports President Obama’s call for a military strike on Syria, as other congressional leaders joined in making the case for an attack — giving the plan a big boost ahead of a key hearing on Capitol Hill.
Boehner, emerging from a White House meeting with several other top-ranking lawmakers, said the chemical weapons attack last month “has to be responded to.”
“The use of chemical weapons is a barbarous act. It’s pretty clear to me that the United Nations is unable to take action, NATO not likely to take action. The United States for our entire history has stood up for democracy and freedom for people around the world,” Boehner said. “I’m going to support the president’s call for action.”
Minutes later, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters that she too feels Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has “crossed a line.”
“President Obama did not draw the red line. Humanity drew it,” Pelosi said. She said lawmakers will have to decide, but she thinks “we must respond.” She said she does not think Congress will reject the president’s request for authorization.
House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said definitively that he plans to vote in favor of giving Obama authorization to use military force.
“While the authorizing language will likely change, the underlying reality will not. America has a compelling national security interest to prevent and respond to the use of weapons of mass destruction, especially by a terrorist state such as Syria, and to prevent further instability in a region of vital interest to the United States,” he said in a written statement.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid did not attend the Tuesday morning meeting at the White House, but a Reid aide told Fox News that he, too, is strongly in favor of taking action against the Syrian government. Keep reading
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