Congress could force withdrawal from Iraq
[I haven’t seen the bit about the War Powers Act giving Congress the
right to force withdrawal anywhere else. Seems important, not, of
course, that the Dems are about to do anything rash.]
Financial Times - January 11, 2007
Congress is helpless only out of choice By Jacob Weisberg
Several decades back, the psychologist Martin Seligman developed his
theory of “learned helplessness”. Subjected to repeated punishment,
animals and humans come to believe they have no control over what
happens to them, whether they actually do or not. In Seligman’s
original experiment, dogs given repeated electrical shocks would
prostrate themselves and whine, even when escaping the abuse lay
within their power.
As with canines, so with congressional Democrats. In theory, they now
control a co-equal branch of government. In practice, they are so
traumatised by years of mistreatment at the hands of a contemptuous
executive that they continue to cower and simper whenever master
waves a stick in their direction.
This phenomenon is at its most pitiable when it comes to Congress’s
powers over national security, terrorism and the war in Iraq. Last
Sunday, Senator Joseph Biden, the Democrats’ dean of foreign policy,
was asked on Meet the Press what he intended to do when President
George W. Bush announced his plan to send additional American troops
to Iraq. “There’s not much I can do about it,” Mr Biden shot back.
“Not much anybody can do about it. He’s commander-in-chief.”
This has been the attitude of most of Mr Biden’s colleagues. Nearly
all of them think that the war in Iraq is a losing proposition, which
Mr Bush’s pending escalation will make worse. Most favour gradually
reducing the number of Americans deployed in Iraq. Yet they are
behaving for the most like dazed onlookers at the scene of a
disaster. At best, they are willing to consider expressing their
disapproval of Mr Bush through a non-binding resolution, also known
as “talking to the hand”.
In fact, congressional Democrats have the power to stop the war any
day they want. Rejecting additional funding, which 12 senators voted
to do in 2003, is merely the most dramatic and least politically
attractive of their options. Congress can pass a law that says the
president cannot send more troops. It can limit the length of
military tours of duty. It can legislate a deadline for withdrawal. A
few anti-war types are, in fact, proposing such drastic measures. But
such voices remain a small, if vocal, minority.
Congress learnt to be helpless by standing aside as successive
presidents asserted that the war power belongs to them alone. That is
not what the constitution says. Article one, which gives the
legislative branch the sole power to declare war, also puts it in
charge of creating, funding and regulating the armed forces. But
every president since Harry Truman has taken the position that it is
unreasonable for permission to be required from Congress in advance
of military action.
Congress’s frustration with being brushed aside boiled over during
Vietnam, resulting in the passage of the 1973 war powers resolution.
All presidents since Richard Nixon have maintained that this law –
which creates a 60-day period after the onset of hostilities for
presidents either to get congressional approval or withdraw troops –
is an unconstitutional infringement of their article two power as
commander-in-chief. Both Presidents Bush asserted that they needed no
congressional authorisation for their Gulf wars – and Congress, in
both cases, chose to avoid a showdown by handing them authorisation
anyhow. This has left unsettled the question of whether a president
can in fact go to war over Congress’s objection.
But Congress’s power to terminate a war is even clearer than its
power to forbid one in the first place. A provision of the war powers
resolution states specifically that the president must remove forces
when Congress so orders. Faced with military deployments they
disliked in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, Republican lawmakers did not
hesitate to invoke this authority during the Clinton years.
Perhaps the most striking example was the military intervention in
Somalia. In 1993, the House of Representatives passed an amendment
saying US forces could remain there only one more year. Two
subsequent defence appropriations bills cut off funding for the
deployment. Congress also drew limits around how US personnel and
bases could be used.
When they say they are incapable of stopping Mr Bush’s plan, what
congressional Democrats really mean is that they are afraid to oppose
it. With only 17 per cent of respondents supporting the “surge”,
according to a recent ABC-Washington Post poll, it is hard to see how
voting against more troops would be an act of political suicide. But
after years of being called weak, unsupportive of the troops and
unpatriotic, flinching at conservative threats has become a Pavlovian
Democratic response. Earlier this week, Tony Snow, White House
spokesman, said the war in Iraq remained necessary because Americans
“don’t want another September 11″. It is hard to imagine anyone being
taken in by this non-sequitur, yet many still are. By feigning
helplessness, Democrats also leave the onus for whatever happens next
in Iraq on Mr Bush.
There are plausible arguments for supporting a surge and some good
ones for rejecting a precipitous pullout. But Democrats who argue for
withdrawal and fail to act on their convictions have no leg to stand
on. By abdicating their constitutional role, they feed the executive
monster Mr Bush has created. If they are serious about ending the
war, Democrats must quit yelping and bite back.
The writer is editor of Slate.com