The Power to Wage War and to Stop War
Bob Williams
April 28, 2007
A constitutional crisis is brewing in Washington. The crisis is over who can start a war and who can end a war, and it’s a replay of a crisis we’ve been through before. The House and Senate have passed legislation that would fully fund the war effort for now but would impose a time limit on our continued combat in Iraq. Bush has said he will veto any bill with a time-table for withdrawal; for him this is failure to support the troops who are there in harm’s way. Bush now criticizes Congress for “legislating defeat”.
Can Congress end a war by demanding that our troops be withdrawn or redeployed? Certainly Congress can refuse to fund further military operations after a specified point in time. But this hands Bush the formidable opportunity to use the presidential pulpit to denounce Congress for failing to support the troops. This is the Vietnam debate all over again.
In 1964 Congress gave Lyndon Johnson the power to go to war in Vietnam by passing the Tonkin Gulf resolution. Congress was not informed of the Navy’s activities off the Vietnam coast at that time and was given mistaken information about a supposed attack on our ships on August 4, 1964. An eerie similarity exists between the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ justification for the war in Iraq and the Tonkin Gulf incident, producing parallel resolutions taking us into wars.
As public and congressional opinion swung against the war in Vietnam President Nixon and Congress locked horns, much as have Bush and Congress today. The McGovern-Hatfield amendment to pull out of Vietnam by the end of 1970 was strongly opposed by Nixon and his congressional allies and failed to get sufficient votes. In 1970 Nixon approved a bombing attack on Cambodia in which more bombs were dropped than in all of World War Two and an estimated 750,000 Cambodians died. When the magnitude of the accompanying ‘incursion’ became known Congress prohibited further funding for the Cambodia operation. U.S. military operations ceased there.
Congress rescinded the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1971. Nixon signed the bill but asserted the right to continue hostilities to protect the troops. This war was not finally brought to a close until January, 1973, after the loss of 58,191 American soldiers. Later in 1973 Congress passed the War Powers Act, over Nixon’s veto, to define the role of the President and Congress in making war. It has proven ineffective. The Pentagon speaks of learning the lessons of Vietnam and perhaps they have, but the executive and legislative branches of our government have learned little.
Our constitution gives the President very few war powers because the founders did not wish to create an autocrat with the power of a king. The President’s power is described in a single sentence, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy . . . and of the Militia . . . when called into actual service . . .” Congressional powers are more numerous: to define and punish offenses against the law of nations, to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide a navy, and to make rules for the regulation of the military forces.
What the founders could not foresee were the changes in our nation during the Cold War years after World War Two. Under the executive branch an elaborate security apparatus arose including the CIA, the NSA and 20 or more other intelligence agencies. Individual member of Congress have little or no access to the intelligence produced by these agencies. They rely on the executive branch for this information and this gives the President far more power than envisioned in the Constitution. Congressional oversight exists in theory but has been dormant for the past 6 years.
The new Congress has restarted congressional oversight. This Congress has gone on record opposing the further accumulation of power within the executive branch. They have strong constitutional grounds for this, but the issue of stopping or continuing the war will be fought more on political grounds than on constitutional grounds. In the late 60s and early 70s we were told that ‘Vietnamization’ of the war would permit us to disengage there. Today we are told that in Iraq, “we will stand down as they stand up”. There is not much difference in those statements and the outcomes can be little different.
How long this war will last will depend not only on Congress’s ability to take back some of its war powers but on its ability to present these actions to the American public as the proper thing to do.
Can Congress end a war by demanding that our troops be withdrawn or redeployed? Certainly Congress can refuse to fund further military operations after a specified point in time. But this hands Bush the formidable opportunity to use the presidential pulpit to denounce Congress for failing to support the troops. This is the Vietnam debate all over again.
In 1964 Congress gave Lyndon Johnson the power to go to war in Vietnam by passing the Tonkin Gulf resolution. Congress was not informed of the Navy’s activities off the Vietnam coast at that time and was given mistaken information about a supposed attack on our ships on August 4, 1964. An eerie similarity exists between the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ justification for the war in Iraq and the Tonkin Gulf incident, producing parallel resolutions taking us into wars.
As public and congressional opinion swung against the war in Vietnam President Nixon and Congress locked horns, much as have Bush and Congress today. The McGovern-Hatfield amendment to pull out of Vietnam by the end of 1970 was strongly opposed by Nixon and his congressional allies and failed to get sufficient votes. In 1970 Nixon approved a bombing attack on Cambodia in which more bombs were dropped than in all of World War Two and an estimated 750,000 Cambodians died. When the magnitude of the accompanying ‘incursion’ became known Congress prohibited further funding for the Cambodia operation. U.S. military operations ceased there.
Congress rescinded the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1971. Nixon signed the bill but asserted the right to continue hostilities to protect the troops. This war was not finally brought to a close until January, 1973, after the loss of 58,191 American soldiers. Later in 1973 Congress passed the War Powers Act, over Nixon’s veto, to define the role of the President and Congress in making war. It has proven ineffective. The Pentagon speaks of learning the lessons of Vietnam and perhaps they have, but the executive and legislative branches of our government have learned little.
Our constitution gives the President very few war powers because the founders did not wish to create an autocrat with the power of a king. The President’s power is described in a single sentence, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy . . . and of the Militia . . . when called into actual service . . .” Congressional powers are more numerous: to define and punish offenses against the law of nations, to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide a navy, and to make rules for the regulation of the military forces.
What the founders could not foresee were the changes in our nation during the Cold War years after World War Two. Under the executive branch an elaborate security apparatus arose including the CIA, the NSA and 20 or more other intelligence agencies. Individual member of Congress have little or no access to the intelligence produced by these agencies. They rely on the executive branch for this information and this gives the President far more power than envisioned in the Constitution. Congressional oversight exists in theory but has been dormant for the past 6 years.
The new Congress has restarted congressional oversight. This Congress has gone on record opposing the further accumulation of power within the executive branch. They have strong constitutional grounds for this, but the issue of stopping or continuing the war will be fought more on political grounds than on constitutional grounds. In the late 60s and early 70s we were told that ‘Vietnamization’ of the war would permit us to disengage there. Today we are told that in Iraq, “we will stand down as they stand up”. There is not much difference in those statements and the outcomes can be little different.
How long this war will last will depend not only on Congress’s ability to take back some of its war powers but on its ability to present these actions to the American public as the proper thing to do.
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