President Bush wants to make a deal with Iraq’s puppet government giving our military broad rights to conduct war and other security operations within its territory. The alleged purpose of the agreement would be defend Iraq from its enemies. Oh, and one more thing: he’s not going to submit whatever agreement he reaches with the Iraqis for approval by the Senate and the House of Representatives as required under the US Constitution, because — because he doesn’t want to, that’s why.
WASHINGTON – President Bush’s plan to forge a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could commit the US military to defending Iraq’s security would be the first time such a sweeping mutual defense compact has been enacted without congressional approval, according to legal specialists.
After World War II, for example – when the United States gave security commitments to Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and NATO members – Presidents Truman and Eisenhower designated the agreements as treaties requiring Senate ratification. In 1985, when President Ronald Reagan guaranteed that the US military would defend the Marshall Islands and Micronesia if they were attacked, the compacts were put to a vote by both chambers of Congress.
By contrast, Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki have already agreed that a coming compact will include the United States providing “security assurances and commitments” to Iraq to deter any foreign invasion or internal terrorism by “outlaw groups.” But a top White House official has also said that Bush does not intend to submit the deal to Congress.
“We don’t anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress,” General Douglas Lute, Bush’s deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, said in November when the White House announced the plan. […]
[T]he “long-term relationship of cooperation and friendship” outlined in November goes far beyond an ordinary status-of-forces agreement. It would include promises of debt forgiveness, economic and technical aid, facilitating “especially American investments” in Iraq – and the security commitments, according to Bush and Maliki’s joint declaration last November.
So when is an agreement negotiated by the President with a foreign sovereign nation not a treaty? When that President is the self described Decider in Chief under the novel legal theory of an all powerful “unitary executive” which his administration has consistently employed to evade and excuse its compliance with the provisions of our Constitution and our laws whenever he finds them inconvenient.
(cont.)
Violate international treaties against torture? Unitary executive power. Detain people without trial, or conduct sham, show trials that would have made Stalin blush? Unitary executive power. Spy on American citizens without getting warrants and in specific violation of a US law (FISA) passed by Congress? Unitary executive power. Make agreements with the Iraqi government to conduct military operations in Iraq as part of a security compact without submitting that agreement for Congressional approval? Well, what do you think the legal justification will be?
Even some Republican members of Congress, who normally roll over for Bush like pet dogs looking to get their bellies rubbed, think this is a bridge too far:
At a House hearing on the pact on Wednesday, Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California and a former Reagan administration official, accused the Bush administration of “arrogance” for not consulting with Congress about the pact. If it includes any guarantees to Iraq, he said, Congress must sign off.
“We are here to fulfill the constitutional role established by the founding fathers,” Rohrabacher said, adding, “It is not all in the hands of the president and his appointees. We play a major role.”
That would normally be comical coming from Dana Rohrabacher, Bush enabler supreme, if I didn’t happen to agree with him. Indeed, what Bush is proposing to do, or not to do in this case is unprecedented in American history. As the Yale law professor, Oona Hathaway cited in the Boston Globe article above stated: “The country has never entered into this kind of commitment without Congress being involved, period.”
But then a lot of things this President has done have been unprecedented. The question is whether Congress will continue to let the President and his minions get away with stripping them of their power and authority as a co-equal branch of our government, or if they will finally stand up for their own rights under the Constitution and demand that any agreement with Iraq be submitted to either the Senate for approval by two thirds of the Senators as a treaty under Article II, or to Congress for approval by simple majorities in both houses under its Article I powers.
Knowing this Congress, and the Democratic Leadership in both the Senate and House I won’t be holding my breath waiting for them to assert their authority against what can only be described as a dictatorial and extra-constitutional regime in the White House.
