Short-Circuiting the Surge
By E. J. Dionne
...
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, has proposed to colleagues that the strongest response to the surge would be a congressional resolution explicitly opposing the step.
Where cutting off funds is a "hollow threat," Biden said in an interview this week, a congressional resolution could have a powerful effect if it drew support from the significant number of Republican senators who are increasingly alienated from Bush's policies. An anti-surge resolution might not bind the president, says Biden, but it would exert considerable pressure on him to reconsider his approach.
More intriguingly, Biden is studying whether Congress might reconsider the original Iraq War resolution, which is now as out of date as the news stories of 2002, the year it passed. The resolution includes references to a "significant chemical and biological weapons capability'' that Iraq didn't have and repeated condemnations of "the current Iraqi regime,'' i.e., the Saddam Hussein regime that fell long ago. In effect, the resolution authorizes a war on an enemy who no longer exists and for purposes that are no longer relevant.
Biden is candid in acknowledging that it is difficult to find precedent for reconsidering a war resolution. Yet Biden's idea of revisiting the authority granted Bush could be a forceful way for Congress to reassert itself and encourage a full-scale debate on the future of American policy in both Iraq and Afghanistan...http://tinyurl.com/y4mjdp [Open in new window]
By E. J. Dionne
...
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, has proposed to colleagues that the strongest response to the surge would be a congressional resolution explicitly opposing the step.
Where cutting off funds is a "hollow threat," Biden said in an interview this week, a congressional resolution could have a powerful effect if it drew support from the significant number of Republican senators who are increasingly alienated from Bush's policies. An anti-surge resolution might not bind the president, says Biden, but it would exert considerable pressure on him to reconsider his approach.
More intriguingly, Biden is studying whether Congress might reconsider the original Iraq War resolution, which is now as out of date as the news stories of 2002, the year it passed. The resolution includes references to a "significant chemical and biological weapons capability'' that Iraq didn't have and repeated condemnations of "the current Iraqi regime,'' i.e., the Saddam Hussein regime that fell long ago. In effect, the resolution authorizes a war on an enemy who no longer exists and for purposes that are no longer relevant.
Biden is candid in acknowledging that it is difficult to find precedent for reconsidering a war resolution. Yet Biden's idea of revisiting the authority granted Bush could be a forceful way for Congress to reassert itself and encourage a full-scale debate on the future of American policy in both Iraq and Afghanistan...http://tinyurl.com/y4mjdp [Open in new window]
posted by Dan at 10:57 PM
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