WalkingThinkTank.com
ideas that go places
TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2007
The one thing both war supporters and war opponents should
be able to agree upon is that we should never again go to war
the way we did in 2003.
There’s no question that when the nation goes to war, our
chances of success are greatest when our political leaders are
united. That unity of purpose is critical to maintaining the
political support needed to carry out a long, difficult mission,
and it is necessary to send a clear message to the enemy that
America’s resolve is firm.
That unity can only come from broad political agreement over
both the need to threaten force and the broad strategic means
for carrying out such a threat. It is the latter that was woefully
lacking in our invasion of Iraq.
Because Congress never did its due diligence before voting to
authorize force in October 2002, Democratic leaders who
approved the war resolution were already beginning to voice
misgivings before the battle was joined. So we were left with
the worst possible scenario: a bitterly divided Congress, a
divided nation and a disastrous strategic plan.
We owe it to our troops and their families to never let this
happen again, and this Congress has a chance to help make
sure it doesn’t. It can do so by laying out a framework that will
govern how we go to war in the future – if not by force of law
then by the power of firm principles etched into the conscience
of a nation.
To understand just how haphazard the path to war has been,
one only needs to look at the run-up to the two Iraq wars, a
dozen years apart.
The first President Bush assembled a coalition that included
34 countries and gained the backing of the United Nations
Security Council for forcibly expelling Iraq from Kuwait. But
Bush 41 didn’t ask Congress to weigh in until after he had
already moved more than 400,000 U.S. troops to the region.
Just days before coalition forces launched Operation Desert
Storm, the Senate gave Bush the power he sought by a slim
52-47 margin. With just a few more votes in opposition, war
would have been put off indefinitely and the U.S. ability to
hold together the coalition would have been severely tested.
The current President Bush didn’t want to wait until the eve
of battle to lock up support from Congress. The October vote
came five months before the invasion, near the beginning of
our diplomatic efforts and war preparations. But by March
2003, the case for war was a harder one to make. By then, UN
inspectors had been readmitted to Iraq to search for evidence
of weapons programs; the UN Security Council had weighed in
against the war; and questions had been raised both about the
size of the U.S. force and the legitimacy of key pieces of
intelligence.
There’s no telling how Congress would have voted in February
or March of 2003, but there’s no question that the nation –
and our troops – would have been better served by a full
debate at that time. If nothing else, by reserving its
Constitutional role of authorizing force, Congress would have
had greater leverage to influence the administration’s war
planning.
In retrospect, Bush 41’s diplomatic efforts and military
preparations in the run-up to the first Gulf War are seen as
masterful. And because the ground war lasted only 100 hours
and casualties were limited, public support was never tested.
But a single, eleventh-hour debate that demonstrated only
narrow political support for the war produced a weak
domestic posture for seeing through a difficult and prolonged
conflict.
“There is no consensus in America for war and, therefore, the
Congress should not vote to authorize war,” Sen. John Kerry
said on the floor of the Senate in January 1991. Explaining his
vote years later, Kerry said, “I was not against using force. I
was against moving so precipitously that we didn’t have the
consent . . . of the American people.”
While there’s no certainty it would have made a difference and
produced a more robust political consensus, the nation would
have been better prepared for a difficult fight if Congress had
debated the case for war in the fall of 1990, before the
administration deployed offensive forces to the region.
Congress can’t ensure that every war it authorizes will have
broad political support, but it can lay out a framework for
going to war that maximizes the chances the country will
remain unified in wartime. What is called for is a two-step
process. First, Congress needs to determine that there is a
legitimate case for threatening to use force, thereby
supporting the deployment of offensive forces in preparation
for war. A second vote – a vote to authorize force – would
deliver the judgment of Congress that war is necessary.
The framework I’m suggesting is different than the one
offered by Sen. Carl Levin in October 2002. Levin’s
resolution, which failed by a 75-24 vote, would have made the
authorization of force contingent upon support of the United
Nations Security Council. Without UN support, Bush would
have had to come back to Congress for another vote.
While the backing of the UN is certainly desirable, there is no
reason for Congress to outsource its authority to the UN in all
circumstances. After all, when the nation goes to war, it’s even
more critical to have the support of the American people than
it is to have the support of the international community. A
future Congress may decide that a war is necessary, with or
without UN support. Or Congress may decide that war is not
called for despite UN approval of force, as Levin and 46 other
senators believed in 1991.
For this Congress to offer a framework that guides future
decisions to go to war requires a simple construction that is
adaptable to all circumstances but will maximize the chances
that lawmakers will debate the issues thoroughly and that the
president and Congress will be partners in readying the nation
for war.
Here is my suggestion for the wording of The Unity in
Wartime Act of 2007:
This framework provides the president ample flexibility to
respond rapidly for defensive purposes, such as the stationing
of troops near Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq in 1990 to
deter further aggression. It also provides the latitude for the
president to effect more limited deployments. But it insists
that Congress make its voice heard when large-scale
mobilizations for offensive action are involved.
No president is going to cede a central power of the executive
branch to Congress, and a vote on a deployment would not
have the force of law. But what matters is that future
Congresses will have a clear framework to anchor them
amidst a riptide of high emotion and political pressure.
Whether or not a president asks Congress to sign off on a
large-scale deployment, lawmakers would understand it is
their obligation to debate whether the threat of force is
warranted. But the fact that this debate will take place should
encourage a president to work closely with the Congress to
ensure an affirmative vote.
For their part, members of Congress will understand their
obligation to cast two separate votes: one on the need to
mobilize our troops to threaten the use of force, and another
to authorize the use of force. The first vote, in effect, says that
we mean business. The second vote says that war is necessary
and the nation is ready to begin carrying out its threat of force
at the president’s discretion.
The framework doesn’t insist on any time lapse between the
two votes. The nature of a conflict could call for immediate
action. But the need for a second vote will encourage
lawmakers to reflect on their most solemn duty and to make a
determination as to whether or not it is premature to
empower the president to take the nation to war.
Members of Congress – both those who support the war in
Iraq and those calling to bring the troops home – should all
understand that the nation is paying a great price because the
premature debate over authorizing force produced a fragile
consensus that has become a deep fracture. Because they
have learned from hard-won experience, they owe it to the
men and women of our military to make this lesson indelible,
and out of this dark chapter in our nation’s history to find
shared principles that will light a path for a future Congress to
travel in their hour of uncertainty.
what do you think?
be able to agree upon is that we should never again go to war
the way we did in 2003.
There’s no question that when the nation goes to war, our
chances of success are greatest when our political leaders are
united. That unity of purpose is critical to maintaining the
political support needed to carry out a long, difficult mission,
and it is necessary to send a clear message to the enemy that
America’s resolve is firm.
That unity can only come from broad political agreement over
both the need to threaten force and the broad strategic means
for carrying out such a threat. It is the latter that was woefully
lacking in our invasion of Iraq.
Because Congress never did its due diligence before voting to
authorize force in October 2002, Democratic leaders who
approved the war resolution were already beginning to voice
misgivings before the battle was joined. So we were left with
the worst possible scenario: a bitterly divided Congress, a
divided nation and a disastrous strategic plan.
We owe it to our troops and their families to never let this
happen again, and this Congress has a chance to help make
sure it doesn’t. It can do so by laying out a framework that will
govern how we go to war in the future – if not by force of law
then by the power of firm principles etched into the conscience
of a nation.
To understand just how haphazard the path to war has been,
one only needs to look at the run-up to the two Iraq wars, a
dozen years apart.
The first President Bush assembled a coalition that included
34 countries and gained the backing of the United Nations
Security Council for forcibly expelling Iraq from Kuwait. But
Bush 41 didn’t ask Congress to weigh in until after he had
already moved more than 400,000 U.S. troops to the region.
Just days before coalition forces launched Operation Desert
Storm, the Senate gave Bush the power he sought by a slim
52-47 margin. With just a few more votes in opposition, war
would have been put off indefinitely and the U.S. ability to
hold together the coalition would have been severely tested.
The current President Bush didn’t want to wait until the eve
of battle to lock up support from Congress. The October vote
came five months before the invasion, near the beginning of
our diplomatic efforts and war preparations. But by March
2003, the case for war was a harder one to make. By then, UN
inspectors had been readmitted to Iraq to search for evidence
of weapons programs; the UN Security Council had weighed in
against the war; and questions had been raised both about the
size of the U.S. force and the legitimacy of key pieces of
intelligence.
There’s no telling how Congress would have voted in February
or March of 2003, but there’s no question that the nation –
and our troops – would have been better served by a full
debate at that time. If nothing else, by reserving its
Constitutional role of authorizing force, Congress would have
had greater leverage to influence the administration’s war
planning.
In retrospect, Bush 41’s diplomatic efforts and military
preparations in the run-up to the first Gulf War are seen as
masterful. And because the ground war lasted only 100 hours
and casualties were limited, public support was never tested.
But a single, eleventh-hour debate that demonstrated only
narrow political support for the war produced a weak
domestic posture for seeing through a difficult and prolonged
conflict.
“There is no consensus in America for war and, therefore, the
Congress should not vote to authorize war,” Sen. John Kerry
said on the floor of the Senate in January 1991. Explaining his
vote years later, Kerry said, “I was not against using force. I
was against moving so precipitously that we didn’t have the
consent . . . of the American people.”
While there’s no certainty it would have made a difference and
produced a more robust political consensus, the nation would
have been better prepared for a difficult fight if Congress had
debated the case for war in the fall of 1990, before the
administration deployed offensive forces to the region.
Congress can’t ensure that every war it authorizes will have
broad political support, but it can lay out a framework for
going to war that maximizes the chances the country will
remain unified in wartime. What is called for is a two-step
process. First, Congress needs to determine that there is a
legitimate case for threatening to use force, thereby
supporting the deployment of offensive forces in preparation
for war. A second vote – a vote to authorize force – would
deliver the judgment of Congress that war is necessary.
The framework I’m suggesting is different than the one
offered by Sen. Carl Levin in October 2002. Levin’s
resolution, which failed by a 75-24 vote, would have made the
authorization of force contingent upon support of the United
Nations Security Council. Without UN support, Bush would
have had to come back to Congress for another vote.
While the backing of the UN is certainly desirable, there is no
reason for Congress to outsource its authority to the UN in all
circumstances. After all, when the nation goes to war, it’s even
more critical to have the support of the American people than
it is to have the support of the international community. A
future Congress may decide that a war is necessary, with or
without UN support. Or Congress may decide that war is not
called for despite UN approval of force, as Levin and 46 other
senators believed in 1991.
For this Congress to offer a framework that guides future
decisions to go to war requires a simple construction that is
adaptable to all circumstances but will maximize the chances
that lawmakers will debate the issues thoroughly and that the
president and Congress will be partners in readying the nation
for war.
Here is my suggestion for the wording of The Unity in
Wartime Act of 2007:
- Congress shall debate and render its judgment of
support for or opposition to any military deployment of
more than 20,000 troops to a conflict zone for the
purpose of threatening offensive operations, but such a
vote shall not constitute an authorization of force. The
authorization of force will require a separate vote.
A conflict zone is defined as a zone where hostilities are
ongoing or a base for launching offensive operations in a
region.
This framework provides the president ample flexibility to
respond rapidly for defensive purposes, such as the stationing
of troops near Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq in 1990 to
deter further aggression. It also provides the latitude for the
president to effect more limited deployments. But it insists
that Congress make its voice heard when large-scale
mobilizations for offensive action are involved.
No president is going to cede a central power of the executive
branch to Congress, and a vote on a deployment would not
have the force of law. But what matters is that future
Congresses will have a clear framework to anchor them
amidst a riptide of high emotion and political pressure.
Whether or not a president asks Congress to sign off on a
large-scale deployment, lawmakers would understand it is
their obligation to debate whether the threat of force is
warranted. But the fact that this debate will take place should
encourage a president to work closely with the Congress to
ensure an affirmative vote.
For their part, members of Congress will understand their
obligation to cast two separate votes: one on the need to
mobilize our troops to threaten the use of force, and another
to authorize the use of force. The first vote, in effect, says that
we mean business. The second vote says that war is necessary
and the nation is ready to begin carrying out its threat of force
at the president’s discretion.
The framework doesn’t insist on any time lapse between the
two votes. The nature of a conflict could call for immediate
action. But the need for a second vote will encourage
lawmakers to reflect on their most solemn duty and to make a
determination as to whether or not it is premature to
empower the president to take the nation to war.
Members of Congress – both those who support the war in
Iraq and those calling to bring the troops home – should all
understand that the nation is paying a great price because the
premature debate over authorizing force produced a fragile
consensus that has become a deep fracture. Because they
have learned from hard-won experience, they owe it to the
men and women of our military to make this lesson indelible,
and out of this dark chapter in our nation’s history to find
shared principles that will light a path for a future Congress to
travel in their hour of uncertainty.
what do you think?
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WalkingThinkTank.com
an independent's search
for fairness, responsibility
and common sense