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State Dept: Authorization for War with Iraq Also Authorizes Protecting Iraq
As we noted yesterday, the administration is determined to strike a longterm security agreement with Iraq while avoiding the Constitutional requirement that the Senate ratify treaties.
To avoid that outcome, the administration has said that any agreement with Iraq will contain no security guarantee -- just an agreement that U.S. forces will remain in Iraq. Voila! no treaty.
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) isn't convinced. And during a hearing Tuesday before a House foreign affairs subcommittee, he grilled the State Department's Iraq coordinator about the deal.
But in a State Department official's written reply to Ackerman's questions (which you can see here), the administration showed that it has another trick up its sleeve.
Congress doesn't have to approve any agreement with Iraq, the official writes, because it already has... sorta. That came in the form of the 2002 Iraq war authorization, which authorized force to neutralize the "continuing threat posed by Iraq." Apparently in the administration view, that was also a blanket authorization for the ensuing occupation of Iraq.
Ackerman, speaking yesterday, wasn't convinced: "I don't think anybody argues today that Saddam Hussein is a threat," he said. "Is it the government of Iraq that's a threat?"
But if he doesn't buy that, then there's also Congress' post-9/11 authorization, the official writes, which "authorized the President to use all necessary and appropriate force against nations, organizations, or persons involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States." Because the president has said that the invasion was consistent with that authorization, it apparently is. Or at least by their way of seeing things.
Still skeptical? Oh! But there's more. "In addition, Congress has repeatedly provided funding for the Iraq war, both in regular appropriations cycles and in supplemental appropriations." Little did they know that with their annual appropriations, they were tacitly approving a longterm deal.
Evidently, the adminstration is convinced that if they continue to throw enough stuff at the wall, something will stick.
For some reason, Dems in Congress remain unconvinced. Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) even told the Post that the letter "creates the basis for a constitutional confrontation."
Josh
Zachary
I have watched the entire hearing twice now and it is amazing that neither Satterfield or the DOD Rep. were will to say that what they were doing was Constitutional. Both Cspan and The Gavel.com have video available to watch. Cspan has been replaying the hearing late at night and there is much that should be picked out and pointed to. The smugness of Satterfield will make you want to just slap himback to Iraq.
March 6, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Congress---????
We don't need no steeenking Congress!!!
March 6, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a difference between "authorizing" force; and "requiring" budget authority. Congress permitted force, but it did not authorize funds for an indefinite, poorly executed occupation. Congress is not bound to fund what the President will not competently manage: Warfare.
March 6, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a stupid thing to assert, leaving the US commitment ill-defined:
If there is "no" security guarantee, why bother putting US forces in harms way?
Pretending that there is "no security guarantee" while the US forces are there is a fiction. The US forces are not going to permit insecurity in Iraq to affect their deployments; rather, they'll use the insecurity to expand their operations.
Does the President propose to use "the lack of security agreements" as a precondition to expand US forces to expand security into Iran?
If the troops, by their being in Iraq, are "not" linked with any agreement to provide security, why are the troops there; and when will the US have met specific goals to justify removing those US combat troops?
March 6, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is absurd:
The occupation must be lawful, and consitent with Geneva.
The only "authorization" that matters is the Congressional budget appropraition. Congress is not required, and cannot, appropriate funds for more than two years. This President, as is his habit, hopes to Congress to approve, with inaction, one thing, and deliver them soemthing else, requiring later action.
Time for the Congress to do what the public wanted in 2006: End this war, bring the troops home, and stop giving the President limited financial resources to wage reckless warfare. His conduct is constrained by law and financial resources. Congress is not interested in binding him on either, they should not be surprised if he expands both into Iran.
March 6, 2008 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, this is scary, a groundswell of upheavel resulting in another strongly worded letter:
Letters do not confront, Presidents have confronted.
The President already confronted Congress and the Constitutiion, but the Congress did nothing and has not impeached. Why would the Congress care about subsequent violations or confrontations? They were not serious then; they are not serious now.
The Congress would ask us to believe the fiction that the President's occupation in Iraq is a "new type of Confrontation", when it's the same Congressional capitulation.
March 6, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
What ever government we had prior to Cheney/Bush is gone and the DINOs have neither the will or capacity to set things right.
March 6, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
That only means anything if Congress has the stones to actually go on record opposing funding for it. Clearly they don't have the stones to go up against Shrub on any issue that he can frame as a national security issue (RE: the Iraq war, telecom immunity, etc..)
March 6, 2008 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only checks Congress knows how to do and do well are blank checks! Heaven forbid, they think about anything.
March 6, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is not a problem:
Congress, lying on the ground, has no fear whether something will stick. They're lying in it.
March 6, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look at this word-play they're using on Presidential power:
Notice they're distinguishing the "Presidency" from "the next President." Recall Addington referred to the "Presidency" as a generic term, not attached to any specific person. Now, they're reversing themselves, pretending that there is something less than this "Presidency"-thing, but attached to a specific person.
The agreement that agrees to nothing, but binds the United States to something nebulous. The President needs to be clear why there is the requirement to rush on something he would have us believe is "nothing"; nothing can wait.
- If the agreement will contain "no troop commitment", then what is the US agreeing to?
- If the US will make "no promise" to defend Iraq, what are the troops doing there now, and planned in the future?
- If this agreement will, in effect, "do nothing," why have an agreement, why rush, and what is the motivation to agree to anything that is "nothing"?
March 6, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the Constitution that creates the Executive Branch also gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach the President.
March 6, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why does this story matter? The implication is that Bush can somehow force the next president to maintain troops in Iraq in order to honor a security guaranty. Who or what institution could enforce that contract if the future president decided to break it? What is to stop any of the current candidates from announcing their intent not to honor such a guaranty right now? That would be pretty useful to know before I vote.
March 6, 2008 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Note that David Satterfield is an unindicted co- conspirator in the upcoming AIPAC trial. He was one of the AIPAC staffer's stove pipes and the mystery is why he and the other stove pipe (Pollack)haven't been charged.
Also ask Clinton to comment on the consequences of her vote for that blank check and ask why 22 of her Dem colleagues refused to sign on.
March 6, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thankyouverymuch, presidential wannabe Clinton.
March 6, 2008 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I were running for president I might have a comment about this. Heck, I might even do something about it.
March 6, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Such an assertation is an establishment of sovreignty. Iraq is now an imperial state of America.
Mess.
What a goddamn mess.
March 6, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
In fact, such an assertation really intends to ensure the protection of the military-industrial complex and the uninterrupted deployment of American power. Such a thing probably could be loosely construed, at least by this Supreme Court, as something that would legally protect companies like Halliburton and KBR -- even through a tangled legal bureaucracy for years to come.
Every single action of this administration has not been in the best interests of the Constitution and thusly the protection of the people but an example of the corporate-religious-military-industrial complex ensuring their livelihoods to exist from now until infinity. The Consitution of the United States is no longer their master, nor has it been for quite some time.
If their bloodlust for power isn't reigned into check, this country is FUBAR.
March 6, 2008 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seeing that Bush is taking the troops in Iraq into the next century, I guess everyone is reviewing the votes for Kyl-Lieberman that declared the Iranian army to be terrorists and AUMF?? No? Well, why not?
I wonder where the dialog got lost about pulling troops out - next week? No one now is talking about less than x number of years. That is some serious Bushco mojo working when he will not even be in power. Pretty breathtaking for Mr. 19%.
March 7, 2008 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lynn Dee Another example of deciding whom to vote for by evaluating the candidates' supporters!
Isn't a campaign made up of supporters supporting a candidate? You ARE the campaign, not those ethereal bromides like the 'reach across the aisle' stuff that Obama tosses out.
You're the money, the energy, the votes and 'the voice' that make him a viable candidate...the winning candidate, I believe, in the dem primary even tho I support Clinton.
And yet, you guys seem willing to blow it all because you like to talk trash. Not smart.
March 7, 2008 1:38 AM | Reply | Permalink