A week ago, the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks clearly dominated the public’s attention. Today, however, is another important five-year anniversary related to the war on terror, which probably won’t generate much in the way of news items, but shouldn’t go overlooked.
As Shayana Kadidal and Ari Melber explained in a terrific Baltimore Sun op-ed, Congress approved a resolution five years ago today authorizing the president to attack Afghanistan and use force against any other “nations, organizations or persons” involved in the 9/11 attacks. At least as far as the Bush administration is concerned, this resolution quickly became a key document in the president’s drive for additional power.
One of the first and most disturbing abuses occurred in August 2002, when White House attorneys said the Sept. 18 authorization allowed the president to invade Iraq without any other congressional approval. Congress went on to provide specific authorization for the Iraq war, of course, but the administration has not backed down from its position. In fact, during Senate testimony last October, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cited the Sept. 18 authorization as sufficient grounds to invade another country: Syria.
In court, the administration has argued that the Sept. 18 authorization gives the president the enormous power to indefinitely detain American citizens without charges. (The case, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, was ultimately resolved without fully addressing the claim.) President Bush has defended two other wartime programs recently rebuffed by federal courts – warrantless domestic spying and military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees – as similarly sanctioned by the authorization.
Good point. This resolution slowly but surely became the catch-all excuse to justify every decision the administration wanted to make, but couldn’t find a legal way to defend. The AUMF, in other words, became the “blank check” Bush wanted — every controversy effectively drew a response of, “But Congress said I have to respond to 9/11.”
The resolution never mentioned Iraq, warrantless spying, or detention policies, but it didn’t matter; it (almost literally) became Bush’s get-out-of-jail-free card.
Five years after Congress authorized force to destroy the perpetrators of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders remain at large. It is a tragic irony that President Bush spent years embellishing the Sept. 18 authorization to cover new targets and illegal actions, yet failed to catch the enemy the authorization was meant to destroy.
In public and in court, the administration still claims it got a blank check on Sept. 18, 2001. But it is now clear that Congress did not write a blank check – the president forged it.
Quite right.
Even in the intense, fearful days immediately after 9/11, there’s simply no way Congress would have approved — at least not with unanimous support — a resolution that allowed the White House to ignore the rule of law entirely.
For the administration to misuse a resolution with simple and straightforward language, twisting its meaning to reach some absurd policy conclusions, is … well, it’s actually kind of predictable, isn’t it.