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Argument: Obama under $1b limit in Libya; Congress not needed

Issue Report: US and NATO intervention in Libya

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Daniel Stone. “Is the Libya War legal?” The Daily Beast. March 22, 2011: “Despite the television pictures of bombs and cruise missiles finding their targets, the intervention by the United States and European allies is, legally, not yet an actual war. Funding for the U.S. involvement is coming from a flexible Pentagon spending account that allows the administration to spend up to about $1 billion dollars on urgent military matters without approval from Congress.”

Obama Administration letter to Congress justifying Libya engagement, June 15, 2011: “The cost through June 3, 2011, for DoD military operations and humanitarian assistance efforts in Libya is $715.9 million. […] The total projected cost for DoD operations through September 30, 2011, which is the end of the second 90-day authorization by NATO, is about $1.1 billion. This estimate assumes the current tempo of support operations continues through September 30. Close to $300 million of this total will be offset by lower peacetime operating costs in the Air Force, in part as a result of the Libyan operations. Hence the current estimate of incremental costs through September 30 is about $0.8 billion.”