Mr. Speaker – the approaching vote on this resolution has caused for me – and I am sure many of my colleagues – dilemmas and challenges of significant dimension.
Like many of my friends on both sides of the aisle – and like many Americans – I am opposed to increasing our troop presence in Iraq.
If I were the Commander and Chief, I would tell the Iraqis something similar to what Benjamin Franklin told the woman who asked him, as he came out of the deliberations on the Continental Congress, Dr. Franklin, what have you given us. He answered, a Republic, if you can keep it.
Mr. Speaker, I believe we have, with our blood and treasure, already won a great victory in when we deposed a dictator and helped the Iraqis set up a fledgling democracy. Frankly, I believe it is now up to them to keep it.
Mr. Speaker, The fall of Saddam has helped create a situation in the Middle East that I do not think we anticipated, but it is one that can be exploited. I believe that an ethnic and sectarian earthquake, both inside Iraq and across the broader Middle East, is underway. I believe the fault lines in this conflict can be seen moving today – not just in Iraq, but in Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere.
If I were Commander in Chief, I would do what I could to exploit the situation. And I believe it can be exploited, but not if we are acting as a referee in what has now become a civil war in Iraq.
I believe that prolonging or increasing the U.S. presence in Iraq will virtually guarantee that these fault lines move in a way that is not advantageous to the U.S.
If I were President of the United States, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you unequivocally that I would not be sending an additional 20,000 soldiers to Iraq.
But I am not the President of the United States. I am not the Commander and Chief. I am a member of Congress. And while I have every right as a member of Congress to voice my concerns and objections to what I see as flaws in the strategies this President may choose to employ, neither I nor this Congress has a right to micro-manage a war.
Mr. Speaker our Constitution vests sole authority over command of the U.S. military in the President of the United States – not in 435 Congressmen or in 100 Senators.
Our founding fathers empowered the President – not the Congress – with this authority precisely to avoid the kind of group micro-management of military strategy that we are seeing on this floor today.
I differ with this President on many things, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, one of them is his recently announced surge strategy.
But while I am concerned about the wisdom of this strategic military decision – Congress does not have the authority nor the ability to manage this war or any other war by committee. And I fear that this resolution is just the beginning of a long-term attempt by Congress to become the micro-manager of the conflict in Iraq.
As many members have correctly noted, this resolution is non-binding. But it has been described by its authors as just the bark from the Congressional Dog. The bite will come, they say, during the appropriations process.
As I said at the beginning Mr. Speaker, for a time this resolution posed a dilemma for me. But after hours listening to the debate and reading the Constitution to help me decide how to vote, there is no longer a doubt in my mind.
I accept the wisdom of the founding fathers and bend to the constraints of the document we swear to uphold and defend.
I hope that members on both sides will think very carefully about the precedent that this debate will set for future Presidents, future wars and future soldiers .and I would ask them to join me in opposing this ill-conceived resolution.
