War In Iran: Remember, Bush is the Decider - not Congress

In the discussion around the possibility of war with Iran, it's important to remember something - Congress already gave up its warmaking powers.

The language of the bills and resolutions being passed is largely irrelevant except as a propaganda matter, unless one of them specifically either authorizes force or forbids it. Under the War Measures Act, as I understand it, Bush has full authority already to attack Iran for 3 months before coming back to Congress. By the time 3 months is over, well, the point is moot. Congress gave up its war powers decades ago, and since then Presidents may prefer to come to Congress, but they don't really have to.

Now most Presidents, concerned about domestic political realities - do come to Congress. But with Dubya's messiah complex, combined with Cheney's determination to have this war - well, it worries me. At this point, I fear the only things really stopping this war from happening are:

1) Rice's influence with the President (laugh if you want, she's one of his mommies and she appears to not want war with Iran);

2) Rumors that many senior military officers have said they will resign en-masse rather than launch an attack on Iran. (And these are only rumors).

The bottom line is simple - while, under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war, Congress long ago abrograted that responsibility to the President. Bush is the Decider, every American, including Senators, are nothing but peasants when it comes to warmaking, and only Bush's decision matters. The only way Congress could, conceivably, do anything is to pre-emptively impeach Bush or to repeal the War Powers Act.

Ian Welsh July 12, 2007 - 6:04pm

Ian Welsh's diary | printer friendly version |

( categories: Iran | USA: Congress: Senate | USA: Presidency )

Bush & CO.

Impeach the whole lot of them!

_{repressive governments mix administrative clumsiness & inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies.}

kimmy July 12, 2007 - 7:16pm

Out of control presidency

America has an out of control presidency. It's been a fact since day one of this crew but the facts are only beginning to come out and those are just hints at malfeasance. These aren't people that have committed misdemeanors. These are war criminals. They must be laughing at the whiny attempts to discover their actions and put a stop to any further malevolent deeds.

I can understand Cindy Sheehan's upset with Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi is the proverbial San Francisco liberal yet she's quick to do the "blue dog" bend over. Consider that the left is looking to the likes of Jim Webb to defend the troops. When it counted with the supplemental, Webb was spouting Karl Rove lines about having to fund the troops. He's just a spotlight seeker.

This is a criminal government. The people know it. The Democrats are trying to pretend that they need a smoking gun but can't get any info so their hands are tied. But this is a government that should be brought down. The Department of Justice is a criminal branch of this criminal executive. Do you think the FBI's or DoD's internal activities are much different? There's talk about de-funding the Vice President but the entire executive branch should be de-funded. That means bringing down the government if the Bush gang won't submit to reasonable oversight. That may have been a bad threat from Gingrich in the '90s but the average American wants this crew brought down. Any and all funding bills of any kind should no only include oversight measures but also language criminalizing (felony level) any destruction of federal property, documentation, etc or any such materials related to the last six years of governance. After the crooks walked away from Watergate (for the most part) and Iran Contra, real attempts to prosecute criminal executive behavior is an absolute necessity.

But the Dems will let this play out and toss their hands up in the air.

The Republicans are trying to make the situation for any incoming Democratically controlled congress and presidency as difficult as possible. A war with Iran would only add to that. Their noise machine will blame everything on Democrats and after four years of disaster under Democratic rule people will likely risk going with Republicans again. Just as papa Bush pardoned his criminal henchmen on the way out, he also started a war as a lame duck and left the mess for Clinton, which the Republicans de-funded and then blamed Clinton for the whole thing.

It's not a bad Rovian type political move. Put the nation in such incredible debt and under such dire military and terrorist peril that the only spending possible will be towards the military-industrial complex and that reversing the situation will result in severe hardship for average Americans. "Go shopping" won't be a plausible instruction from a Democratic president with no treasury, no troops and a multi-level war. See taxes and a draft and Republicans back in power in 4 years after the worst, most criminal administration in America's history.

I read the calls for changes in the constitution at Balkanization and I have to laugh. We're in a time when it's far more likely to have constitutional changes to "sanctify" marriage by denying gays equal rights (a wrong in the Bill of Rights - a denial of rights in the Bill of Rights), ban flag burning, force "In God" or "Under God" into official use, end separation of church and state, yet those Balkanization guys whine about problems with the constitution. As with Social Security bonds, it's just a piece of paper and if the people interpreting and enforcing the constitution are criminal in nature, what's the good of paper?

I now look at Ken Starr as good. The independent prosecutor law was allowed to lapse because Democrats were worried that what happened to Clinton would be repeated and Republicans worried that it would be done to them. What should have happened instead of allowing the law to lapse is that a couple of dozen independent special prosecutors should have been made mandatory and permanent to investigate any and all indications of possible criminal activities in any and all branches of government. Whatever you might say about Ken Starr, he kept the Clinton group as squeaky clean as possible given the lax laws.

The problem with the Bush group is that they understand the simple comeback of a childhood bully facing someone half his size - "You and what army." The only branch of government that can effect justice or effect anti-crime actions is the executive branch. The only army or police force America has is controlled by a criminal president. But an independent special prosecutor could raid the FBI, raid the Pentagon, raid the DoD, raid Dick Cheney's office (the uber branch of government). Any attempts to stop the raids would be criminal. Oh I forgot. Also raid clowns like Scalia when they take vacation trips with people they are about to rule on.

Really, there needs to be a police force under the control of someone or some branch other than the executive branch. The "you and what army" line can't be allowed to have any significance anymore. Bush, Cheney and Rove have shown that.

Amos Anan July 12, 2007 - 10:17pm

At this point, I honestly

At this point, I honestly don't think the army would intervene if Bush was impeached. If anything, if Bush resisted, I expect the Pentagon would en masse head over and take deep pleasure in slapping him into irons.

The problem, as you allude, is now in two branches, however. I have no confidence that the Supremes would not find for Bush in any case where they are allowed to rule.

Still, my personal preference, would be to have the Sergeant-at-arms grab someone who doesn't show at a hearing, and force them to show. Force a constitutional showdown.

Ian Welsh July 12, 2007 - 10:24pm

You took "army" too literally.

I think you took my use of the child's phrase "you and what army?" too literally. It's that the executive is the only branch with the power of force. It was obvious a while back when the FBI raided the congressional offices of Rep. William Jefferson. The one with the cash in his freezer. Even the Republicans in congress were upset because of the direct use of force against the congress by the executive - in their home so to speak. Of course it didn't look good to have to defend from search and seizure a guy that looked so corrupt so nothing much was made of it at the time. But for me the significance of it was obvious in that the reverse was impossible. Congress couldn't make a raid on the White House no matter how much cash might be found in someone's freezer.

This abuse of power was apparent years before with the aggressive response to the "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about to begin" disclosures. Those lines were leaked by someone in the congressional intelligence committees investigating 9-11. The FBI quickly investigated everyone involved with the committees and wanted lie-detector tests done, including on senators. The aggressiveness of the congressional 9-11 investigation quickly disappeared. The leak was made into the horrible event. The lack of effective defense of America was trivialized and the 9-11 investigation became a controlled medium of propaganda absolving the Bush group of all responsibility or negligence with respect to 9-11.

Compare that leak to the Plame leak in terms of speed and aggressiveness of response. Never mind that the significance of the "zero hour" leak was far greater in terms of its evidence of Bush group incompetence and carelessness than its possible indications of internal methods of spying. Especially considering the prior August 2001 briefing of Bin Laden determined to attack.

Again. No reverse situation is possible. The FBI, the federal attorneys, etc, are all under the direction and control of the president. I don't know what power the Sergeant-at-arms has. It would be nice if he actually arrested some people while they were testifying and refusing to testify and then held them in the capital building. But that's about as likely as Democrats doing something significant like facing down the president on a funding issue.

..................................................
/foi.missouri.edu/whistleblowing/investigating.html
/www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/opinion/10SAT1.html

The New York Times
Editorial
August 10, 2002

Investigating the Investigators

One way to chill a Congressional investigation is to send a flock of F.B.I. agents to Capitol Hill to ask legislators to take polygraph tests and answer questions about their dealings with reporters. Unfortunately, that is precisely what is happening these days at the Senate and House Intelligence Committees as they review the government's response to terrorist threats in the years leading up to last Sept. 11.

The F.B.I. investigation may be the coup de grâce for a Congressional exercise that has been hobbled by timidity and mismanagement. The two committees should never have been given the job of examining intelligence failures because their own lax oversight of the C.I.A. and other spy agencies contributed to the nation's vulnerability last September. Assigning the committees to conduct a joint investigation suited the White House, which doesn't want an exacting inquiry and has resisted creation of an independent review commission.

Seizing on the leakage of information about intelligence lapses to the press, the White House moved this summer to deliver a debilitating blow by pressing Senator Bob Graham and Representative Porter Goss to order an aggressive investigation into the unauthorized disclosures. The lawmakers quickly caved and invited in the F.B.I.

The intelligence committees are part of a carefully constructed system designed to monitor executive branch intelligence activities and hold them accountable to the legislature and the law. To carry out these responsibilities, committee members are given access to classified information. Public disclosure of secret information is governed by strict rules drawn up by Congress, rules that Congress itself is empowered to enforce among its members. Bringing in the F.B.I., an executive branch agency, compromises the independence legislators need to do their jobs properly. It also places the F.B.I. in a conflict of interest, since the bureau is one of the agencies the committees should be investigating.

The disclosures that upset the White House involved two messages in Arabic intercepted by the National Security Agency last Sept. 10 but not translated until Sept. 12. According to a CNN report in June, one message said, "Tomorrow is zero hour"; the other said, "The match begins tomorrow." CNN attributed this information to "Congressional and other sources." In addition to nearly all the 37 members of the two committees, the F.B.I. has questioned some 60 Congressional staff members and officials at the N.S.A., the Pentagon and the C.I.A.

While leaks of this kind are embarrassing to the White House, intelligence agency bureaucrats and the two committee chairmen, they have helped alert the public to possible defects in N.S.A. monitoring operations and have increased public pressure for an independent investigation of possible intelligence failures. Senator Graham and Representative Goss would better serve the nation if they turned their attention to uncovering these failures instead of inviting the F.B.I. to investigate their fellow committee members.
..................................................

Amos Anan July 13, 2007 - 12:54am

I don't know, Amos

This is a criminal government. The people know it.

Well, hmm, I'm not so sure about that Amos. You aren't confusing "approval ratings" with that, are you?

-t

dasht July 12, 2007 - 10:27pm

No illusions.

I have no illusions about the American public. To this day I think the most significant event that turned public opinion against the Bush group and his Republican supporters was the sudden and steep rise in the price of gas after Hurricane Katrina. Sure that was after the floating dead, Cindy Sheehan and the 20 or so Ohio National Guard that were killed within about a week at the start of Sheehan's Crawford vigil to get Bush to talk to her. But those things are distant memories. The price of gas hits Americans in the wallet every day.

Iraq was supposed to cut the price of gas, even if that was never allowed to be stated.

I might agree with you if you said that much of the American public doesn't care if the Bush group is a criminal government. But there's that price of gas again and the indications that gas isn't the only way Bush is screwing them.

Amos Anan July 13, 2007 - 1:02am

you ever seen "The Graduate"?

You're one of those agitators?

One of those outside agitators?

I hate that.

-t

(If you lived in Berkeley and were paying attention, you'd find that screamingly funny.)

dasht July 13, 2007 - 1:21am

congressional powers

From here, it looks like congress managed their war powers realistically and, at the moment, an insubstantial subset pander by pretending they regret this.

-t

dasht July 13, 2007 - 1:26am

Dasht

Your comments are beyond the pale. I have bookmarked you in my "People to avoid" list.

adrena July 13, 2007 - 7:24am

Under the War Measures Act, as I understand it, Bush has full authority already to attack Iran for 3 months before coming back to Congress. By the time 3 months is over, well, the point is moot. Congress gave up its war powers decades ago, and since then Presidents may prefer to come to Congress, but they don't really have to.

The War Powers Act came up for renewal in the 90's and the R congress decided not to renew it; on the one hand, they wanted to keep Clinton on a close leash (correctly, in my book), on the other hand, they felt it was too restrictive.

So no war powers act. HOWEVER, the 'Resolution of Force' that Congress passed back in Sept. 2001 effectively gave Bush power to go to war with oh, anybody as long as he claimed it was terrorist-related. The PR line the R congressional leadership put out is that we didn't wish to dignify Al Queda with an official declaration of war. In retrospect, I can see that the administration was simply pushing for maximum power and the R congress gave it to them and the D's went along with it.

As it stands, because the current congress refused to clarify that the previous resolutions did NOT include the power to go to war on Iran, they left the implication that Bush could go to war with Iran if he simply declared them terrorist-y enough. This is not widespread support for war on Iran however, and the Bush administration knows it, which is why they're pushing to create an incident.

I'm 99% sure the rumours are true, if not the details. Some heavy uniform said enough is enough.

m, it's a bit late for a WH push for war, but not too late for a neocon coup

max July 14, 2007 - 10:21am

Oh: as it stands, it is too

Oh: as it stands, it is too late to push for a war with Iran in the positive outcome by the election sense. It's NOT too late to push a 'let's get a Republican elected' attack on Iran for 2008.

m, late summer next year

max July 14, 2007 - 10:22am

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War In Iran: Remember, Bush is the Decider - not Congress

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