Tierney slams Obama over Libya bombings

U.S. Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem, said President Barack Obama should seek Congressional approval if the United States military stays involved in the bombing operations in Libya for more than the few days the president said they would.But Tierney also said Obama was wrong not to initially seek Congressional approval before getting the military involved in creating a no-fly zone in Libya, which has included firing numerous missiles and conducting bombing raids over the Arab country.Tierney also pointed out that Obama violated a promise he made during his campaign by failing to get Congressional approval before taking military action.”This is not something Congress should tolerate,” Tierney said if the military’s involvement continues for more than a week.Tierney said if Obama had asked for Congressional approval – as he’s required to do under the U.S. Constitution – House members could have asked important questions about the mission, the cost of the war and our exit strategy.”That’s exactly why the matter should come to Congress, because once you’re involved, it’s awful difficult to extract yourself,” Tierney said Thursday during an interview with The Daily Item.Asked if he thinks there should be impeachment hearings against Obama as some representatives from both parties have suggested, Tierney said, “I think that’s a little bit extreme.”The military efforts against Libya began Saturday, but U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday there is no firm date when American military leaders will hand over control of the operation to NATO forces.”I don’t want to be pinned down that closely,” Gates replied, according to the Associated Press, when asked if the U.S. had set a Saturday deadline for turning over command of the military operations. “But what we’ve been saying is that we would expect this transition to the coalition, to a different command and control arrangement, to take place within a few days and I would still stand by that.”Tierney said he was also troubled by the lack of Arab involvement in the military operation – just one of the 22 members of the Arab League, Qatar, have committed to taking a role in creating and enforcing the no-fly zone.”I’m concerned they’ve seemed to have changed horses in mid-stream,” Tierney said. “They were fully committed to this and asking the West to intervene for humanitarian reasons and then that seemed to change.”Tierney believes that many Arab countries changed their stance when civilian casualties started happening.”They’re awful naive if they thought we were going to send in missiles and there wasn’t going to be any civilians hurt,” Tierney said.He also called on the Obama administration to give a full accounting of the cost of the military operations and said it’s time for other countries to take a greater role in paying for these kinds of military operations.”This should be on someone else’s dime,” Tierney said.Saugus Attorney Bill Hudak, a Republican who ran against Tierney in November and says he will challenge the Sixth District congressman again, blasted the Obama administration for getting involved in the war in Libya.”The Middle East is unstable and you’re seeing a lot of internal turmoil, but we have a lot of problems domestically,” Hudak said Wednesday. “Getting involved with another skirmish when it’s unclear what our agenda is is just plain wrong.”William DiMento, a Swampscott attorney and veteran, said Thursday he’s tired of seeing the United States jumping into internal conflicts in the Middle East that we have no business getting involved in.”It’s an easy question, I’ll answer it as an American, although being a veteran gives you a perspective about what the military can do and what we can’t do,” he said. “We’re biting off more than we can chew. We can’t be going around the world looking for hot spots and then being the world-wide fire department.”Referring to news reports that the first week of American involvement in the Libya war is expected to cost up to $1