The AUMF did not require the UN to do anything prior to force being used. It required Bush to enforce whatever UNSC resolutions including the one Bush was seeking and got.
If the UN did not pass a 1441 as Bush wanted then Bush could comply with the AUMF as wriiten be enforcing all UN Resolutions regarding Iraq.
The AUMF did not require the UNSC to pass a 1441 because the US Congress and Admin could not do that. But the AUMF supported Bush’s efforts to get a 1441 to try to disarm Iraq peacefully. So in the event that a new resolution passed that Bush could himself determine acceptable (which he did) then the AUMF required Bush to enforce that.
Enforce means to carry out a law. In the case of 1441, enforcement of that resolution would be to continue peaceful disarmament backed up by the threat of military force as long ad Iraq complied with 1441 in the eyes of the authority that passed it.
Bush did not enforce 1441. Bush pissed all over 1441.
Short version: In the Land of Make-Believe, in which NotFooledByW resides, the US is forbidden from using military force unless it says mother-may-I to the UNSC and the UNSC replies “Simon Says bring democracy to Iraq”.
Back to the questions you keep ignoring, before I go any further: if that was what Congress understood the AUMF to mean, why didn’t they a) say that at the time and b) scream bloody murder and/or debate impeachment when the President broke the law they’d just passed? Why haven’t any legal experts published their opinion that Bush broke the AUMF? Why do they all focus on the international law violation?
The straightforward answer is that Bush got full control of Congress when Bush defied the language. And Republicans and Joe Liebermann and the hawkish Dem Senators were not concerned about the language.
The politicians complacency after the fact that Bush ignored the language in the AUMF does not change the fact of what was written and the intent of those few who negotiated that language in there to vote yes.
Most damn fool Republicans would have voted yes if it authorized war the next day based upon Saddam Howling at moon. The House needed no Dems, and I suspect there were a handful of Dem Senators that would have passed anything.
Just a guess that there were perhaps less than a dozen Senators who cared about the UN language in the AUMF.
But once Bush decided to dissmiss that language it was too late to object.
Cliches about Iraq began to rule the day and Bush did say he had intel that left no doubt that Iraq was hiding WMD from the 1441 inspectors.
Perhaps they thought his no doubt intel was new and actionable.
My point is that the language in the AUMF and Bush ignored it.
So, they negotiate these strict limits that you claim are in the AUMF, but don’t actually care about the limits being violated a few months later?
It’s evidence that you are misinterpreting what was written. As to their intent…I quoted Feingold objecting to the original draft’s language of “the Middle East”, as opposed to Iraq. You’ve prevented no evidence of their intent.
Too late to object? Are you serious? What country were you living in ten years ago that you think they weren’t objecting?
There’s three examples for you: senior Democratic Senators vocally, and fervently, criticizing the war in the months after the invasion. And yet none say that the war was a violation of the AUMF. Which, if it were true, would be a powerful point for their side. And yet, Kennedy doesn’t mention it. Byrd doesn’t mention it. Levin doesn’t mention it.
A reasonable person would start to doubt whether the war actually was a violation of the AUMF.
You point isn’t supported by any evidence whatsoever.
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You are all screwed up XT. There would not have been a stalemate. There would have been nine members voting for continued inspection for as long as Blix needed.
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Well, one of us is certainly all screwed up and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You really have no idea how the UNSC works, do you? Nor did you read the link I provided several pages ago on 1441 OR the UNSC…did you? Or, I should caveat that…you might have read it, but clearly you didn’t understand what you read.
Regardless of the resolution, anything binding by the UNSC can be vetoed by a single vote from one of the permanent members. It was deliberately set up that way. The votes of the other, non-permanent members is more pro-forma, since the only votes that REALLY count are the 5 from the 5 permanent members. So, yes…assuming the US (or Bush in this case) petitioned for a new binding resolution from the UNSC condemning Iraq for non-compliance with 1441 and authorizing military force (it’s to laugh that this would ever be seriously requested) then France, Russia or China could have vetoed it with a single vote, assuming the rest went along or abstained. That’s the way the UNSC works, moron.
You know, rather than continue to point out that you are wrong, I’m going to ask you for a cite showing that this is how it works. Put up or shut up, NFBW. No walls of text, no hand waving, no blustering bullshit…show me that this is how it works.
Clearly it didn’t require him to do so, since, again, this is all in the past and has already happened. I wish you could grasp this seemingly simple fact, but I’ll settle for you producing a cite demonstrating what I’m asking for in the previous paragraph and let HA deal with this question by beating HIS head against the brick wall of your stupidity.
That’s not true. Bush could always defend the national security of the USA against Iraq whenever he decided it needed defending. President Clinton set the precedent that he could do that without a specific AUMF to enforce UN Resolutions against Iraq. But Iraq was in material breach if all UNSC Resolutions when he bombed Iraq heavily in 1998.
But the blank check stooges here will not recognize that Iraq was in material breach in October 2002 and when Bush was fine with 1441 language the following month.
Bush agreed to the terms of 1441 when Iraq was in material breach and inspections had not yet been resumed. That meant peacefully disarming Iraq was possible including in Bush’s mind.
But then Bush decided that peacefully disarming Iraq was no longer possible after several months of meaningful inspections with 200 Inspectors in Iraq getting their work done without killing anybody.
Why would anyone think or agree or suppose that Bush was enforcing 1441 when he left all rational thought behind to start a war?
Why not call Bush to account in any way possible for what he did. The language in the AUMF is clear. Clear enough to ask questions why Bush did not comply with what Congress authorized him to do.
Who is this idiot complaining about? My point is that Bush was beholden to Congress and the AUMF they passed. It authorized the use of military force against Iraq to ‘enforce’ all relevant UNSC Resolutions regarding Iraq. It appears to me that Bush made himself beholden to UNSC Resolution when John D. Negroponte voted to pass UN Res 1441. But Bush made himself not beholden to the UNSC when the inspection process really started to work. The majority members of the UNSC did not see the need to enforce 1441 or any preceding Resolutions by military force.
So my point remains that Bush/U.S. was not beholden to the UN and the UN could never force the U.S. to be beholden to the UN, but Bush and a few of the stooges here need to quit being suckers for the GREAT Bush lie that Iraq did not cooperate with the post-1441 inspectors, so he had no choice other than invade.
In other words Bush’s lie about Iraq’s lack of cooperation is what Bush will tell you is why he could not be beholden to the UNSC efforts to disarm Iraq peacefully.
Think about why my stating this stuff is a problem for so many stooges here.
You are slow aren’t you? The failure of the critical Public Law written by Congress to restrain Bush from doing whatever he or Dick Cheney or his heavenly father told him to do does not mean it did not require Bush to ‘enforce’ all UNSC Resolutions with regard to Iraq. It means Bush failed to comply or abide or submit to the will of Congress.
Bush had to know that Iraq was cooperating sufficiently to avoid war… not matter what the AUMF language said.
That is because Bush was convinced prior to 1441 and as he authorized Negroponte to vote for 1441 that Iraq had zero UN inspectors in Iraq - yet Iraq was not a high enough threat at that time that Bush thought war was absolutely necessary.
Bush left a trail of wanting to disarm Iraq peacefully through the UN. So in October and November 2002 Iraq was not a severe or immediate enough threat for Bush to declare the need that war was necessary. The peace process would continue for over three more months.
But when there had been UN inspectors inside Iraq for four months and there could have been CIA agents inside Iraq at Saddam’s invite, Bush concluded on his own that by March 17, 2003 Iraq had become this immediate and serious threat that there was no choice but to invade.
My god, Blix had said Iraq was cooperating proactively and had been cooperating on access from the very beginning, and Iraq had the stones to actually invite the CIA to come in and look for WMD on their own and with inspectors… So the threat by Iraq is way up… The threat is too big now… Bush had no other choice but to invade.
And you are so ignorant and irrational that you think the drafters of the AUMF did not want Bush to enforce ‘all’ relevant UNSC resolutions … including the peaceful disarming Resolution when or if it passes, when the clearly wrote they were authorizing force in order to enforce ‘all’ relevant UNSC resolutions with regard to Iraq.
What did they mean when they wrote that?
Was it 'authorizing force in order to piss on and defy ‘all’ relevant UNSC resolutions with regard to Iraq including the one that Bush said he wanted and in one month after the vote he got.
Yeah… The language in the AUMF gave Bush the authority to use force if he pissed all over 1441 after promising to seek it and finally get it and Iraq cooperated proactively under it at least four or five weeks prior to the war… as Blix so clearly stated.
I agree with your first two sentences but then your mush brain takes over. There was no veto of Bush’s draft resolution required because Bush could not get the non-permanent members to vote his way because they could see the obvious results that Iraq was cooperating as they had never cooperated before.
It is obvious, must be except to morons, that nine refusals of an affirmative vote against Bush’s draft resolution meant that a veto to block nine yes votes was not ever going to be necessary.
UNSC resolutions are passed by affirmative votes an no permanent member no votes.
It is obvious that Bush could not count France, Russia, or China as a yes vote so they needed seven non perm members to signal a yes. I think Bush bribe Bulgaria and one or two others but that was about it,
Since Bush had signaled he’d do what he (or dick) wanted regardless whether or not the UNSC authorized war - the point about the veto was all moot anyway.
My point stiil is and you can’t deal with this fact, that Bush was not enforcing 1441 because the autorizing body and inspectors did not declare Iraq in violation of 1441 where a meeting needed to be convened.
And Bush could not enforce or ignore 1441 if Iraq was not violating it.
Bush enforced the Bush Doctrine, and that is what he and his supporters should be saying.
But the AUMF did write ‘in order to enforce the Bush Doctrine’ or the Cheney 1% doctrine.
So, that would be a ‘no’ wrt a cite to back your bullshit up. Ok, that figures, since HA has repeatedly asked you to back up your interpretation of the AUMF and you’ve yet to provide anything.
No. You are a dumbass. There is nothing to be cited. I agree that the French and Russians can veto anything. You have posted that fact as if it means something to the discussion. It means nothing. I agree with your keen sense of the obvious on the Permanent member numbers. But there was no chance for a veto on Bush’s draft resolution in early March because he could not count on enough votes to pass it. Bush needed nine promises to vote yes. He was at least four short. There was no veto of anything. So you have no point and so you pull your stupid cite stunt again.
I see how you could be stupid enough to have supported Bush’s stupid decision to invade Iraq after the chief UN weapons inspector told the entire world that Iraq had come around to proactive cooperation in addition to full cooperation on access since the start of new inspections began in December 2002.
You really have no idea how the UNSC works, do you? Nor did you read the link I provided several pages ago on 1441 OR the UNSC…did you? Or, I should caveat that…you might have read it, but clearly you didn’t understand what you read.