Posted on 07/08/2008 6:47:28 PM PDT by STARWISE
The United States needs a new law requiring that the president consult with Congress before going to war, a blue-ribbon panel led by two former secretaries of state said Tuesday.
The current War Powers Resolution is "ineffective, and it should be repealed and it should be replaced," James Baker said in a joint appearance with Warren Christopher, announcing the results of the study they led.
The recommendation follows failed efforts by Democrats in Congress to put a stop to the war in Iraq or to put conditions on President Bush's conduct of it.
Congress passed a joint resolution to authorize armed force against Iraq in 2002, but some Bush opponents say it should not have been interpreted as a blank check for the United States to invade and occupy the Persian Gulf nation.
Baker, who served in George H.W. Bush's administration, and Christopher, who served under President Bill Clinton, said their project was not prompted by any specific war, with Christopher adding that the commission had "tried very hard not to call balls and strikes on past history here."
"We didn't direct this report at any particular conflict," Baker added.
The existing law, the War Powers Resolution of 1973, has been regarded as unconstitutional by every president since it was passed as a response to the Vietnam War, Baker and Christopher said. It requires presidents to report regularly to Congress about ongoing conflicts, but the provision has been flouted.
"No president has ever made a submission to Congress pursuant to the War Powers Resolution since 1973," former Sen. Slade Gorton, a Republican member of the committee, said Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
The War Powers Consultation Act of 2009:
* Provides that the president shall consult with Congress before deploying U.S. troops into "significant armed conflict" – i.e., combat operations lasting, or expected to last, more than a week.
* Defines the types of hostilities that would or would not be considered "significant armed conflicts."
* Creates a new Joint Congressional Consultation Committee, which includes leaders of both Houses as well as the chair and ranking members of key committees.
* Establishes a permanent bipartisan staff with access to the national security and intelligence information necessary to conduct its work.
* Calls on Congress, to vote up or down on significant armed conflicts within 30 days.
Commission members: Slade Gorton, former U.S. Senator from Washington; Lee H. Hamilton, former Member of Congress from Indiana; Carla A. Hills, former U.S. Trade Representative; John O. Marsh, Jr., former Secretary of the Army; Edwin Meese, III, former U.S. Attorney General; Abner J. Mikva, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; J. Paul Reason, former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet; Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor; Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University; and Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin served as the Commission's historical advisor. John T. Casteen, III, President of the University of Virginia, and David W. Leebron, President of Rice University, served as ex officio members.
John C. Jeffries, Jr., the Emerson Spies and Arnold H. Leon Professor of Law of the University of Virginia School of Law, and W. Taylor Reveley, III, Interim President and John Stewart Bryan Professor of Jurisprudence at the College of William & Mary, served as Co-Directors of the Commission.
The James A. Baker, III Institute of Public Policy at Rice University, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, Stanford Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the William & Mary School of Law served as partnering institutions.
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Congress being given more secrets and classified information in a possible lead up to war? Why not just surrender now.
Anytime a bipartisan panel says something, it must be true.
~~Pong!
Good grief, look who is in this group...Doris Kearns Goodwin, etc. Former this and former that and plagerists. Why is anyone listening.
Related:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2042537/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2042506/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2042432/posts]
Unreal.
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National War Powers Final Report
Panel calls for new war powers law
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11605.html
Excerpt:
The debate over the respective powers of Congress and the president to wage war arises from the way the Constitution divides authority between the legislative and executive branches.
The Constitution names the president as commander-in-chief but invests Congress with the power to declare war and control funding.
“The question of how our nation makes the decision to enter into war,” Baker said, is “an issue that has bedeviled legal experts and government officials since the Constitution was framed.”
Congress passed the War Powers Resolution of 1973 near the end of the Vietnam War. The law says the president can deploy troops only if authorized by Congress or in a national emergency and requires the president to give regular reports to Congress on all ongoing conflicts. But the law has not been regularly invoked, and the White House reports are “almost meaningless,” said Christopher.
“The biggest problem with the 1973 resolution is that most legal experts consider it to be unconstitutional,” Baker said, because it limits the president’s war powers too much.
“We think that the rule of law, which is of course the centerpiece of American democracy, is undermined and is damaged when the main statute in this vital policy area is regularly questioned or ignored.”
While many attempts have been made over the years to amend the 1973 law, they have failed because the legislation shifted too much power toward either the president or Congress, said commission member and former Democratic Rep.Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana.
“That is the reason we have decided not to try to resolve the Constitutional issue, but to come forward with a very practical solution,” he said, “that will be politically acceptable but that will make a big step forward on a critically important point.”
Congress has the sole power to declare war. However, the president is the commander in chief. Any law requiring him to "consult" would make him less than the commander in chief and would therefore be unconstitutional.
I know the big brains in Washington don't actually care about the Constitution but once in a while couldn't they just pretend?
The Go Into Harms Way and Have The Rug Pulled Out From of You Act of 2009.
I would think that most problems could be solved with 30 mega-tons within 7 days. This is the same crew that gave us surrender in Iraq instead of the surge. If Schumer supports it I know it is a bad idea. I expect Obama will flip-flop on this in the first week.
They could care less about the rule of law. It's about power and control.
Only Congress can declare war, but the President has the power, as Commander in Chief, to undertake hostilities any time he considers it necessary. That is the President’s Constitutional power.
The only known (to me) movement conservative on the panel is Ed Meese. Scowcroft and Baker are 100% utilitarian - they don’t care much about ideas.
This would be a major power grab by the legislative branch at the expense of the executive. Certainly any President would veto it. If the War Powers Act is unconstitutional, this thing, with a permanent congressional staff to serve a check on executive military authority, is an abomination on a par with the stupid “co-presidency” that was briefly contemplated back when Reagan became the Republican Nominee in 1980.
These people are nuts.
History may be repeating itself soon; anyone who’s read their American history (even the PC versions) knows what I’m referring to.
And who exactly asked for this?
Anything with Baker and/or Christopher—I disregard.
I have no use for either of these two clowns.
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