Originally posted on January 29, 2007.

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I have been listening today about Hillary R. Clinton, who today told people that the President misused the authority she and the rest of Congress gave him to conduct the war in Iraq.

Now, I want you to do two things... First, re-read that first statement. After that, go read the US Constitution and tell me where the Congress can simply vote the President authority to deploy troops into a conflict.

Note, we are not talking about a declaration of war, which Congress clearly has the authority to do.

See, I have been amazed by people in Congress, who think that they can get in the way of the President's current policy in Iraq, which will include the deployment of an additional 21,000 US soldiers.

If you listen to the news, you are able to spot our representatives in Congress in various mis-statements about what they can do, or what Congress can do, or what influence they have over the President and his policices.

Let's look at a couple...

1: Congress authorized President Bush to invade Iraq, and that authorization was based on lies, and therefore was a misuse of Congressional authority. (This was the statement that Hillary Clinton has been recently putting out to the public to explain her vote *for* the Iraq war.)

Congress does not authorize the President to conduct war unless they sign a declaration of war. In the case of the vote on the Iraq war, the US Congress voted to support the President as a show of solidarity on the issue. Just as in so many other votes on this issue, the Iraq war vote in Congress had no legal force upon the President...it was a show of support.

2: The Iraq Study Group report should be fully-implemented as it has the force of a Congressionally-passed piece of legislation.

Last year, Congress commissioned the Iraq Study Group to do fact-finding related to their work, and compile a report on the subject of strategy in Iraq. This happened, and last month, the ISG released their report, which contained a large number of recommendations. The President supported the work of the ISG, but largely put the work of the ISG aside in favor of the policy of "the surge".

This last weekend, former Secretary of Defense William Perry told the Commonwealth Club of California that the ISG report had no legal force on the President. Basically, when it comes right down to it, the ISG report simply was a long list of opinions that the President was free to pick and choose from. He chose to use very few of them.

3: Any vote against the "surge" policy will force the President to reconsider the policy.

Well, once again, unless the US Constitution has changed since 2001, Congress can not force the President to pull back a deployment of troops. Congress has one option in this event, and they won't do it because they would rightly be accused of being soft on the war on terror.

Congress can de-fund the war in Iraq.

If they do this, the US Army would quickly run out of cash reserves and would be put in the crisis situation of not bveing able to pay for operations. They would be at the mercy of the enemy, who would see such a move as perhaps the ultimate move of weakness on our part. This is why even the most flamingest Liberalista will *not* vote to de-fund the US operation in Iraq.

Congress has neither the power to change the President's policy, nor the willpower to stop in in the way that they can...through the power of the purse.

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John B.
Blog Guy

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