W.H.: Congress’s Actions on AUMF Will Have ‘No Practical Impact’ on ISIS Campaign

NN REPORTER: “Josh, I want to just follow up on this and ask two related questions about AUMF. Is the president saying that if Congress does not step up and exercise its responsibility, the end result of not passing a new AUMF will have no practical impact on his exercise of his authority as commander-in-chief?”
EARNEST: “The president does believe that he has the authority that he needs to authorize, or to order the military actions that have already taken place. So, the — I mean, the answer to your question is 'yes', because the president believes that the Congress has already given him this authority. However, the president has made the case, I think pretty  persuasively to all of you at least, that the authorization to use military force should be updated and right sized to reflect the threats that America faces right now.”
NN REPORTER: “Then the follow up is, as Congress engages in this debate which could be prolonged, is the president expecting to be influenced by the debate in terms of his strategy, or pursuit of the policy to defeat ISIL?”
EARNEST: “I think the president’s been pretty clear about what our strategy is and it is the responsibility of the commander-in-chief to lay out that strategy. But it doesn’t mean the president — well, the president is, of course, open to the advice and counsel and opinions and insights of members of Congress as he assumes his responsibility for implementing the strategy. As I mentioned before, there is plenty of reason for us to feel good about the progress of the strategy so far. As I’ve done on the couple of occasions, I’m gonna just give you an update. The coalition has conducted more than 2,350 air strikes against ISIL targets; 1,300 of those air strikes have been conducted in Iraq and more than a 1,050 of them in Syria. Those airstrikes have been successful in taking out ISIL fighters, their commanders, more than a thousand vehicles and tanks that have been operated by ISIL, more than 200 oil and gas facilities — this is part of infrastructure that funds their reign of terror. These airstrikes have also succeeded in taking out at least 20 training camps in more than 2,000 different fighting positions, checks points, buildings, and barracks in Iraq and in Syria. And this has been — the evidence for this can be viewed in many ways. In the middle of last summer we saw that ISIL was rapidly making an advance across the desert in Iraq and they were closing in on Erbil. But because of steps that this president ordered to support fighters on the ground to carry out military airstrikes, that advance was rebuffed and it’s been rolled back. There was a lot of discussion last fall about the situation in Kobani and the advances that ISIL has made in Kobani posed a significant threat, but because of fighters on the ground that were backed by coalition airstrikes, those fighters succeed in driving ISIL out of Kobani. Now, I don’t want to leave eye with the impression that that is going to 1``somehow be a turning point in the broader conflict, but I do think it is clear evidence that the strategy that the strategy that the president has pursued has succeeded in rolling back ISIL and limiting their capacity to establish an Islamic state which is, as we know, what their goal is. So, the president certainly welcomes advice and insight and opinions from members of Congress but the strategy that we pursued so far has shown important progress already.”