Posted on 03/07/2008 10:49:20 PM PST by NormsRevenge
President Bush can't make major, long-term economic and military commitments to Iraq without consulting Congress first, according to a resolution introduced Thursday by several legislative authors, including two Bay Area House members.
The resolution isn't binding, acknowledged Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who crafted it along with Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, and Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, to put on record congressional opposition to such far-reaching pacts.
"Consistently I have seen this administration ... really erode our checks and balances, erode our democracy," Lee told reporters Thursday. "This resolution is long overdue and we've got to move it forward."
The resolution raises "the level of awareness, it educates the public, it brings the debate to the forefront of our legislative agenda. ... While it may not be binding, I think this would be a very clear message that he (President Bush) needs to back off."
The White House in November announced a U.S.-Iraq "Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation" envisioning long-term commitments, and is still negotiating the relationship between the nations after the United Nations multinational force mandate expires at the end of 2008.
The declaration drew criticism from some in Congress, and the Bush Administration claimed it'll be nothing more than a traditional Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Constitutional law experts who joined Thursday's conference call said that's not so.
Yale Law School associate professor Oona Hathaway, who testified on the subject Tuesday before Congress, said no SOFA has ever done the kinds of things the Bush administration now wants to do: extend the legal authority for U.S. troops to operate in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires, and grant legal immunity to private American military contractors working in Iraq.
Yale Law School professor Bruce Ackerman, a constitutional law expert, said the president as Commander in Chief can engage in ordinary SOFAs, "but when he goes beyond the powers of Commander in Chief he has to get the consent of Congress ... and both of the provisions that Professor Hathaway described are plainly of this kind."
The President "does not have the authority unilaterally to determine the status of Americans working abroad ... Congress must have that power, this is a very serious matter indeed," Ackerman said, adding Congress' 2002 vote to allow military engagement against Saddam Hussein's regime clearly doesn't authorize further military commitments.
The resolution says any agreement, other than a treaty, involving stationing U.S. military forces or using U.S. financial resources in Iraq should have to be approved by Congress, and that no pact exceeding a SOFA's usual scope will have legal effect without Congress' OK.
Right. Great idea. Congress has earned that trust and respect. Yeah, sure. I’d trust a circus freak on crack before I’d trust a congresscritter.
What the hell does four idiotic libs know about democracy. The libs want to destroy our democracy, not erode it.
Presumably, this would prevent a Democratic President from negotiating NAFTA 2 or abolishing the military.
What’s that you say, it only applies to Republican presidents? Silly me. Slap, Slap.
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