Congress Brings In Experts To Tell Them That They Can, In Fact, Stop The War If The Want To
What a bunch of dunces…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress has the power to end the war in Iraq, a former Bush administration attorney and other high-powered legal experts told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
With many lawmakers poised to confront President George W. Bush by voting disapproval of his war policy in the coming days, four of five experts called before the Senate Judiciary Committee said Congress could go further and restrict or stop U.S. involvement if it chose.
“I think the constitutional scheme does give Congress broad authority to terminate a war,” said Bradford Berenson, a Washington lawyer who was a White House associate counsel under Bush from 2001 to 2003.
Congress needed a panel of experts to tell them this? That the Constitution charges Congress with deciding when we go to war and the President with prosecuting that war is something most of us learn in grade school. What’s at doubt is whether or not Congress can micromanage the war. Certain members of Congress, those introducing legislative troop deployment caps and non-binding resolutions opposing the President’s policies in Iraq, seem to think that Congress can dictate war policy to the President. It’s my feeling that they’re wrong.
The wisdom of not allowing the President to go to war without the approval of Congress is clear. That is an appropriate check on the commander-in-chief’s power. But what isn’t wise, I think, is exposing the prosecution of war that puts the lives of our troops in the balance to the politics and endless partisan deliberation of the legislative process.
There is a reason our military has a chain of command, with a single commander in the President sitting atop it. You don’t win wars by committee.
Does anyone really think it’s a good idea to allow that Congress has the power not only to decide when we go to war and how much we’ll spend on war but also how many tanks, troops, plains and aircraft carriers we’ll devote to a particular conflict? Do we want Congress to begin issuing war authorizations, resulting from political compromises, that give the President authority to attack a national enemy but with only a finite number of troops and military resources?
That would be the height of stupidity, yet that will be situation we find ourselves in if the meddlers and micromanagers in Congress get their way.
