The U.S. Senate’s wrangling over President Bush’s Iraq strategy has raised important questions over Congress’ war powers. In our view, Congress not only has the right to exercise oversight over this and any war, it has an urgent need to do so if there is to be any hope of crafting policies that enjoy the broad public support necessary to sustain them.
The president recently argued that he was the sole “decider” of war policy issues since Congress in 2003 initially authorized the use of force in Iraq. Wisely, he’s now conceded the legislative branch can take a broader and ongoing role if it chooses.
Meeting last week with The Wall Street Journal editorial board, Bush admitted Congress has “the right to use the power of the purse to determine policy” and can put conditions on the use of the funds it appropriates.
That’s a Congress he hasn’t known until now.
While still defending his war policy, the president used last week’s interview to strike a more conciliatory pose than some of his hard-line defenders in the Senate – who Monday managed to delay debate on a bipartisan, non-binding resolution of disapproval of Bush’s plans to send 21,500 additional troops into Iraq.
Republican whip Trent Lott dared lawmakers opposed to the build-up to do something more substantive than simply passing a non-binding resolution. Such a resolution is “a lot of sound and fury without any real effect, signifying nothing,” Lott taunted.
Lott’s school-boy tone was in stark contrast to the testimony of five scholars who appeared last week before a subcommittee on the Constitution chaired by Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold. Four said that beyond the unchallenged power of Congress to declare war, the Constitution also bestows upon the legislative branch the power to limit the president’s direction of war concerning its purpose, scope and duration.
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican, specifically disputed Bush’s original claim that the president was “the decider” on all matters concerning the war. The Constitution provides for “shared power,” Specter said, and “suspicion of what the administration is doing to extend its executive powers” has led to “an atmosphere of mistrust.”
Specter is right both as a matter of constiutional law and practical politics. Congress has always exercised oversight in major conflicts, including the Civil War, World War II and Vietnam. When appropriate, such hearings can help cement public support for the war. Missouri Sen. Harry S. Truman’s outstanding leadership of a committee investigating war profiteering led Franklin D. Roosevelt to pick him as his running mate in 1944. After Roosevelt’s death, Truman seamlessly carried on U.S. war policy.
In contrast, presidents who mishandle war policy in the eyes of the public risk total repudiation by Congress. Disenchantment with the Vietnam War under President Nixon led to a cutoff of funds in 1975 under his successor Gerald Ford. The South Vietnamese government collapsed soon after.
The 109th Congress failed to exercise its oversight of the Iraq war. The 110th is right to get involved, and the White House would do well to listen and cooperate. The president and his Senate supporters should use the current debate to try to craft true bipartisan policies aimed at bringing the conflict to a swift and honorable end.
