WASHINGTON – President Obama on Wednesday said he wants this Congress in its final weeks to formally approve US strikes against the Islamic State group.

Speaking from the White House's East Room the day after his Democratic Party was hammered by voters, Obama suggested the 113th Congress' final two months will be busy ones.

Lawmakers will try to pass a massive spending measure to keep the government funded into the next calendar year and finish some form of a must-pass Pentagon policy bill. There is also a slew of Obama nominees that Senate Democrats want to confirm before they relinquish control. Obama added to that list on Wednesday.

The embattled chief executive told reporters he will send Congress a request for more than $6 billion to help personnel and military troops carry out "a comprehensive strategy" that he said would be tailored to "contain and end the Ebola outbreak."

Obama also announced he is sending lawmakers a resolution to authorize military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, something he opted against doing in the weeks before Congress left for a seven-week campaign recess.

Such a formal approval for the strikes is needed, Obama said, to show the country is "unified" in fighting the violent Sunni group.

Obama said he will meet with congressional leaders on Friday, and the fight against the Islamic State would be a top agenda item. Central Command chief Gen. Lloyd Austin will brief the congressional leaders, Obama said.

He told reporters the idea is to "right size and update" the post-9/11 measure "to suit the current fight rather than [past] fights."

Obama called the Islamic State a "different kind of enemy," and America's changed partnerships with countries like Iraq make it appropriate to update the authorization for the use of military force (AUMF).

The commander in chief said work on a new force resolution during the lame duck session will be about "getting it started," although finishing it might "spill over" into the new Congress.

Lawmakers in both parties have talked in recent years about rescinding the AUMF passed after 9/11 or updating it, especially as al-Qaida has been weakened in Pakistan and Afghanistan but gained strength elsewhere.

The White House is using the post-9/11 AUMF, among other laws and constitutional provisions, to legally justify conducting air strikes and other actions against the group.

Experts and some lawmakers — from both parties — have said the measure is outdated and should at least be updated to reflect a changed fight against al-Qaida and similar forces in places beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. They note the Islamic State was founded long after the 2001 resolution was crafted.

Both chambers are back on Nov. 12 but gone the week of Dec. 17, meaning lawmakers would have to move at warp speed to pass the items they delayed to the lame duck session plus the requests from Obama.

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