Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is not joining the call for President Obama’s impeachment, following the missile and air strikes on Libya in recent days. Some of Grassley’s fellow Republicans in Congress, and at least one Democrat, are questioning the president’s orders, but Grassley says Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi needs to go.
“He’s an international criminal and we should do everything we can to bring him to justice,” Grassley says. “Hopefully, that will be the end result of (the coalition attacks) even though it’s not a stated motive, except by our president, that that ought to be done.”
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, said Monday that President Obama should be impeached for ordering the strikes on Libya, saying the air assaults were done without Congressional approval and were unconstitutional. Grassley disagrees.
“The people that are raising questions about this and talking about impeachment I think are out of step,” Grassley says, “because under the rule of law, which is mostly the U.N. resolution, the president is acting under international law.” Grassley says it wasn’t just the U.S. participating in the attacks, but several other European nations were taking part, with France in the lead.
He notes some Arab nations also requested and condoned the assaults as Grassley says they don’t like the way Gaddafi has been operating. Grassley says the U.S. air assaults have “moral authority” in working to stop the dictator’s attacks on his own people and other humanitarian abuses.
“I had somebody ask me about three weeks ago if I’d support a no-fly zone and I said I would and I haven’t backed off of that,” Grassley says. “If it had been done three weeks ago, we’d have been in a lot better position and I think that there wouldn’t be anything going on in Ethiopia now because the rebels would have taken over.”
With America’s military already stretched thin with major operations underway in Iraq and Afghanistan, some Republicans in Congress are calling for debates and a possible vote over U.S. actions in Libya.