Given the clarity of Article II, Sec. 2 of the Constitution, and the fairly obvious role Congress is supposed to have in approving treaties, there really shouldn’t be any question about lawmakers’ role in approving a new security agreement struck between the White House and the Maliki government.<\/p>\n
But this is Bush we’re talking about, so unambiguous constitutional language may not matter<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Bush administration yesterday advanced a new argument for why it does not require congressional approval to strike a long-term security agreement with Iraq, stating that Congress had already endorsed such an initiative through its 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n The 2002 measure, along with the congressional resolution passed one week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorizing military action “to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States,” permits indefinite combat operations in Iraq, according to a statement by the State Department’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs.<\/p>\n The statement came in response to lawmakers’ demands that the administration submit to Congress for approval any agreement with Iraq. U.S. officials are traveling to Baghdad this week with drafts of two documents — a status-of-forces agreement and a separate “strategic framework” — that they expect to sign with the Iraqi government by the end of July. It is to go into effect when the current U.N. mandate expires Dec. 31.<\/p>\n Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), whose questions at a House hearing Tuesday elicited the administration statement, described it as an “open-ended, never-ending authority for the administration to be at war in Iraq forever with no limitations.” The conditions of 2002 no longer exist, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n “I don’t think anybody argues today that Saddam Hussein is a threat,” Ackerman said. “Is it the government of Iraq that’s a threat?”<\/p>\n And if the argument based on the 2002 AUMF resolution weren’t odd enough, consider the White House’s position. This morning on Fox News, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino echoed Satterfield, saying that “we don’t know” whether Congress has any constitutional role in authorizing such treaties:<\/p>\n “The negotiations on it have just started. In fact, there was a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday. And members will be fully briefed. We don’t know if this is going to result in something that Congress will need to approve or not<\/b>. But they are going to be fully consulted all along the way.”<\/p>\n But the administration does know it will bypass Congress. In a follow-up letter to Satterfield’s testimony obtained by ThinkProgress, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Bergner said the President does have “constitutional authority” to “continue combat operations” in Iraq without Congress’s authorization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hillary Clinton recently brought this mess up<\/a>, noting, “[Bush] has continued to say he can enter into an agreement with the Iraqi government, without bringing it for approval to the United States Congress, that would continue America’s presence in Iraq long after President Bush leaves office. I find that absolutely unacceptable, and I think we have to do everything we can to prevent President Bush from binding the hands of the next president.” She re-emphasized it at a subsequent debate<\/a>, noting that the president is “intent upon negotiating a long-term agreement with Iraq which would have permanent bases, permanent troop presence,” without congressional permission.<\/p>\n She’s right. This is utterly ridiculous. Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) told the WaPo that the administration’s line “creates the basis for a constitutional confrontation.” Good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Given the clarity of Article II, Sec. 2 of the Constitution, and the fairly obvious role Congress is supposed to have in approving treaties, there really shouldn’t be any question about lawmakers’ role in approving a new security agreement struck between the White House and the Maliki government. But this is Bush we’re talking about, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nTP has the story<\/a>.<\/p>\n