One possibility that some here refuse to allow, is that Bush apparently never cared about making sense as a rational and sane man when he pushed committing the USA military into a massive ground invasion of 300,000 troops into a Muslim nation of 20,000,000 + friendly Kurds.
When Bush actually started asking for authorization to NOT use force if the threat could be removed peacefully, would that have been a sign that the man was climbing down from his 9/11 induced insanity and starting to act like a normal president?
What should a US Senator do if one suspects the president and leader if the opposition party seems to go in and out of periods if insanity and sanity.
I don’t think the Constitution deals with what Senators should do under such pressure.
Does the whacky President mean what he says or is he nuts?
That you cite all that Bush and his cohorts did without mentioning once that UN inspections intervened between the vote for war if necessary and Bush’s lone decision to force the abandonment of inspections shows that my visit here not only makes sense, but it is necessary.
Bush is solely responsible for making the decision to kick inspectors out, and when you comprehend that, what I’ve written makes a lot of sense.
And with an emphasis on inspections and Bush’s forcing them to end, my question makes a lot of sense.
Why do so many on the left diminish the importance of inspections as do the righties who continue to stand up for Bush’s decision to start a war.
All I was trying to do was search for answers to that question.
The war resolution as passed has no real restraints at all. Requiring the President to send a written notice to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate, which under the circumstances meant certifying in writing that he was either lying or badly mistaken, is not a restraint. A restraint makes one unable to do something; there is nothing in the war resolution that made Bush unable to invade.
Had the Democrats, Sen. Jeffords (I-VT), and Sen. Chafee (R-RI) all voted no, the resolution would have been defeated in the Senate, 52-48. It’s true that the Republicans took a majority in the next session, but unless Bush and the public was content with staying pat until the next session took their seats on January 7th, the matter of Iraqi WMDs still would have been pursued by the UN.
What other way do you mean? Invade on his own? I don’t find that credible, as previously discussed.
Again, though, the resolution did not actually limit or restrain Bush in any way.
There’s a third option, here, though. Authorize the President to use force, but only pursuant to a UNSC resolution. That is, the Levin Amendment, which is a fine compromise between no authorization and a blanket one. The Senate should have been able to pass it, and I’d wager that the House would have passed it as well in order to achieve an authorization.
Bearing in mind that I feel strongly that Bush expected Hussein to defy the UN inspectors (and likely concluded that they did, in fact, though he was mistaken), I don’t think in October 2002 he thought a UNSC resolution allowing him to invade was far off.
Now, if this approach has a downside, it’s that it requires publicly opposing the President’s request for authorization during an emotionally-charged time. Except, it really doesn’t: the Levin Amendment is indeed a war resolution, and Americans at the time supported the inspection process and working through the UN, even up to the eve of the invasion.
His actions are rational and sane if you accept that:
He thought removing Hussein from power was a noble, worthy goal.
He thought a war to do so would be a short one, after which the Iraqis would welcome their American liberators and establish a Western-style government.
He was willing to lie to achieve this, OR exercised profoundly bad judgement.
Bush is many things, but he’s no madman.
Since you asked, this is spelled out in the 25th Amendment:
So, if the Senate believed the President was actually insane, they could:
Ask the Vice-president to marshall support in the Executive branch for assuming the role of Acting President.
Failing that;
Ask the House of Representatives to impeach the president.
Just to clarify this, I don’t think repealing the WPR would make a difference. When the Presidents commit troops without permission from Congress, the Presidents are not relying on the WPR to do so, but on Constitutional authority.
Well, so be it, then. As a Senator, or a political party, you aren’t accountable for what other Senators or parties do. Under your scenario, the war is a purely Republican creation. This gives the Democrats a moral high ground they can use later to end the war sooner, or attack the ideology that led to the war. In actual fact, they sold out that moral high ground by voting for the war resolution.
Also, the Republicans won a (slim) majority in the Senate in spite of the Democrats voting in the war resolution, and the resolution had no restraints on the President’s power to invade, so nothing was gained.
It’s not a settled issue, how Congress’ war powers from Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 interact with the President’s status as Commander-in-Chief from Article Two, Section Two. The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on the matter beyond Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.
HRC and Kerry are two who voted for the October 2002 Resolution because they (a) wanted to force Iraq to be disarmed because they saw it as threat that needed to be settled sooner rather than later, and (b) They saw it as credible that Bush had backed off the automatic war grive by expressing the need to go through the UN, but Bush wanted the authority to wage war to ENFORCE UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION settled right there and then to make the peaceful way be more forceful. They voted for what they saw as the best way to get Iraq disarmed peacefully with what they knew about Bush and Iraq and the UN Secruity Council at the time. I never said they voted against their own personal best judgment.
That is not true. I never said it was a purely Republican Creation. That is why the inspection aspect is so critical. I would assume that there were many Republicans also who were swayed, by Bush’s PEACEMAKER talk but would be willing to give Bush authority to invade or whatever, IF the UN Inspections did not come about like they did.
Knowing what would happen as Senators cast there vote in Octover is speculative at best. I brought it up because you were limiting a real possibility that could have influenced the vote.
Reject Bush the Peacemaker in October.. Turn Bush the war monger loose in November…
And you are wrong that the language did not contain sufficent language to reign Bush in some… “enforce through the UN Security Council” is enforce through the UN Security Council…
(a) and (b) would both have been better served by the Levin Amendment. If enforcing UNSC resolutions is the goal, pass an authorization to enforce UNSC resolutions on the Iraqi matter, full stop, no determination by the President. Problem solved. I know you hold passing the Levin Amendment to be an impossibility, but with a Democratic majority in the Senate, it simply was not out of reach. It just required more judgement and courage than certain Senators proved to possess.
They knew at the time that Bush was keen to remove the Hussein regime from Iraq, and thus they should have known that he might use his authorization to achieve that instead of to enforce UNSC resolutions.
Yes and no, you have discussed the political pressure on the Congress at the time from Bush, the media, and public opinion.
By “your scenario”, I meant a scenario in which the sitting 107th Congress doesn’t pass the war resolution, but the Republican-majority 108th does, the following January of 2003.
I addressed this in the last post (it’d have been January 7, 2003, by the way, before the new Senate was seated.) The fact that Bush might have been able to get the authorization he wanted from the 108th Congress has no bearing on the responsibilities of the 107th Congress.
Read it again:
“Supports” means nothing, here, this is just a statement by Congress of its thoughts on the matter. This is not a limit on Section 3, below.
Got all that? The President is empowered to do a1 and/or a2 using military force, if he’s willing to sign a document stating that he thinks it’s necessary. How is that any restraint at all?
The Levin Amendment did not force the UN & Iraq to act immediately because it did not show the threat of force already decided. And the LA was not passable in the House or would be agreed by the White House.
Bush likely would rather wait, take the no vote to the voters, than turn US national security decisions on the threat from Iraq to the UN.
I know you believe separation of powers is supposed to mean, HRC should not have trusted Bush, when he switched to talking peace if given the AUMF to make Iraq comply with UNSC resolutions, but that is an opinion not an established fact.
HRC has the prerogative to take the president at his word and expect an ethical obligation for him to keep it.
And and… AND! (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
UN Res 1441 was a UNSC Resolution that covered all preceding resolutions that gave Iraq a final opportunity to comply.
Now who can tell me that Bush ENFORCED 1441 or did he defy it?
That is strong in the UAMF.
I understand, and that’s kind of the point. I just got the impression that a repeal of the WPR would somehow not allow the President to commit troops without a Congressional authorization. As in the WPR allows a 60 day free pass - it doesn’t.
“The President is empowered to do a1 and/or a2 using military force”
Why did you add the “or” to “a1 and a2”? The AUMF (Oct 2002) does not have an “or” there. Do you agree there is no “or” there?
Ravenman was wrong. Congress did not approve a war. The AUMF (Oct 2002) says, and, and, ** "AND (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.** And the AUMF (Oct 2002) also said it supports the efforts by the President’s diplomatic efforts which produced, UN Res 1441, which was a UNSC Resolution that covered all preceding resolutions that gave Iraq a final opportunity to comply.
So Congress authorized war to enforce “all” UNSC resolutions regarding Iraq. Res 1441 was part of ‘all’ and Bush DID NOT ENFORCE it. Bush defied and ignored it.
NotfooledbyW: it would be helpful if you would include the username in the quotes you’re arguing against. You’re making me scroll up to see WHO omitted the word “or”