The Democrats won back the House and Senate, but what did they really win? Do they have the means to end the Iraq war and start bringing our troops home, or are they helpless in the face of President Bush’s stubborn and ill informed decision to “stay the course” regardless of the reality of the situation in Iraq, regardless of the advice of his father’s national security team, and regardless of the hopes of the vast majority of Americans who want to set a timetable for leaving Iraq?
Some (i.e., Vice President Cheney, for one) would claim that the answer to each of those questions is a resounding yes. This is realm of foreign policy and military conflict, and those are areas where the President’s constitutional authority reigns supreme, they would tell us. So suck it up, America, we have at least 2 more years until anyone other than Bush can do anything to change.
I beg to differ. There is something the Democrats can do in January to change the course in Iraq as soon as the new Congress meets this January: Revoke the Iraq War Resolution.
(cont.)
To be more precise, I’m proposing that Congress revoke the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, otherwise know as the “Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq.” For brevity’s sake, I’ll simply refer to it as the “Iraq War Resolution” hereafter.
What is the Iraq War Resolution?
It was and is the resolution that gives Bush his authority as Commander-in-Chief to deploy US troops to Iraq. The same resolution for which Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry and many of their fellow Democratic brethren in the Senate and House of Representatives voted in October 2002 in the hope that their votes would immunize them from charges by right wing media and their Republican opponents of being “surrender monkeys” or “terrorist sympathizers” or just plain old traitors who should be …
… treated no differently than the Rosenbergs; tried in a court of law, convicted, and suffer the harshest punishment. Death by firing squad, preferably. On TV, if possible.
I think its safe to say that, in hindsight, a strategy of knuckling under to President Bush and his Republican allies hasn’t worked out that well for the country or the fortunes of the Democratic party. Indeed, it wasn’t until this last election, when many Democratic candidates campaigned as change agents with regard to Bush’s “catastrophic success,” that Democrats recaptured not only the House, but also the Senate, and now stand in a position to put an end to his immoral and counterproductive approach to the misnamed “War on Terror.”
They can start by revoking President Bush’s authority to wage war in Iraq.
A First Step: Congressional Investigations
To be sure, I’m not advocating an immediate “up or down” vote on the Iraq War Resolution. I fully understand that the ground must be laid for such action, especially since many Democrats (particularly those running for President in 2008) may be reluctant to actually live up to their promises. So what’s needed first are investigations regarding the stated purposes for which Congress issued Bush his authority to invade Iraq in the first place. Unless you can expose the lies to the widest public audience possible, you will not rally sufficient support for any legislation seeking to limit Bush’s authority.
Even though these lies and distortions regarding pre-war Iraq have been well documented in the print media, there is still sufficient ignorance among many in the American public to require a high level Congressional investigation. Such investigations are needed in order to raise public awareness of the ongoing lies and misrepresentations by the Bush administration, to educate those who have been misinformed as to the truth about Iraq as a result of the administration’s disinformation campaign, and to further build the case for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. For it is only an aroused and informed public which will ultimately force the politicians in Washington to act, especially those who have refused (so far) to repudiate their support for this war. John Conyers and Jack Murtha and Russ Feingold are all great spokesmen for the antiwar movement in Congress, but without the drumbeat of attention that only televised Congressional investigations can bring to this issue, they and their like minded colleagues are unlikely to force a vote on legislation calling for withdrawal from Iraq.
And to bring the public to that point, we need to reopen the debate on the how the Iraq War was sold by the Bush administration to Congress and the American public. That is, we need a Congressional investigation to re-examine the reasons that the expressly given as justification for the Iraq War Resolution in the first place, and why the stated rationale was not only based on false information, but also represented a deliberate and calculated effort to deceive the American people.
The Stated Rationale for War in the Iraq War Resolution
What were the assumptions and premises which formed the basis for the Iraq War Resolution in the first place? Essentially, when you cut through all the verbiage in the text of the resolution itself, there were two principle justifications offered to justify granting Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq.
First, that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction which could be employed against America, directly by Iraq itself, or through the good offices of terrorists to whom Saddam would provide these weapons of mass destruction. Here’s a relevant passage from the resolution:
Whereas Iraq’s demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself …
Of course, we now know that this claim that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction which posed an immediate threat to our national security was all based on phony intelligence ginned up by Douglas Feith at the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and delivered to the White House as proof of Saddam’s perfidy, which had little or no basis in fact, but which served to support a decision Bush had already made — that Saddam had to be removed from power in Iraq through the use of military force.
Second, that Saddam was harboring Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq. Again, here is a representative sample from the text of the resolution itself:
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens …
We now know that these claims were blatant distortions of the truth. Saddam had no connection to the 9/11 plot or to any of the 9/11 terrorists, a fact that, despite Mr. Cheney’s frequent assertions to the contrary, was effectively debunked in the report issued by the 9/11 Commission:
There is “no credible evidence” that Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States, according to a new staff report released this morning by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Although Osama bin Laden briefly explored the idea of forging ties with Iraq in the mid-1990s, the terrorist leader was hostile to Hussein’s secular government, and Iraq never responded to requests for help in providing training camps or weapons, the panel found in the first of two reports issued today.
The findings come in the wake of statements Monday by Vice President Cheney that Iraq had “long-established ties” with al Qaeda, and comments by President Bush yesterday backing up that assertion.
In short, the justifications for the authority granted to Mr. Bush regarding the use of force in Iraq were not valid in 2002, and certainly do not exist now. Yet, we still see President Bush insisting that Al Qaeda is behind all the violence which has entrapped the Iraqi people in a bloody civil war. A war which continues to endanger our troops and for which no benefit to our security interests has ever been demonstrated.
The Constitutional Argument for Revoking the Iraq War Authorization
Only Congress has the power to declare war. That’s a “known known” as Rumsfeld likes to say. While there are no clauses in the Constitution that specifically address the President’s war powers, there are several in Article I that deal expressly with Congress’ role:
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; …
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. …
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
Compare that with the enumerated powers of the President in Article II of the Constitution, which make no mention of war whatsoever.
Nonetheless, like all American military conflicts in the post-WWII era, Congress did not declare war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, nor did anyone, including the President formally propose such a declaration. What it did do was pass a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force against Iraq in the event certain specific conditions were satisfied. This Iraq War Resolution was passed into law in accordance with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution of 1973,and, I might add, the authority it provided to President Bush was expressly sought by his administration.
The War Powers Resolution was passed in 1973 in reaction to the manner in which the United States committed forces to Vietnam despite the absence of any formal declaration of war. It was intended to ensure that future presidents could not simply deploy the US military in foreign military conflicts without first consulting Congress and receiving its authorization. By its terms, the War Powers Resolution excludes the need to seek Congressional authorization to use military force in the event of a national emergency created by an attack on the United States.
While many Presidents, including Bush, have taken the position that the War Powers Resolution is an unconstitutional infringement on their executive power, the Courts have never had to address the issue, in large part because Presidents have sought Congressional authorization for any large deployment of US troops to foreign war zones (i.e., The First Gulf War, and the Iraq War) prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Obviously, no American President, including Bush, has been willing to test the claim that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional with respect to situations in which significant numbers of US forces have been engaged in “major combat operations” on foreign soil.
And our presidents have had good reason to be so circumspect regarding Congress’ assertion of its authority under the War Powers Resolution. Our Constitution expressly provides that only Congress has the power and the right commit our country’s military forces to war. The founding fathers chose the Congress to be the arbiter in matters of war because they feared placing that power in the hands of any single individual, regardless of how esteemed his reputation, lofty his intellect or trustworthy his character. For those who doubt that fact, let me refer you to the following statement from the Federalist Papers the inherent danger of permitting the executive to determine when to fight a war:
It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.
John Jay in Federalist No. 4
