After ten years of effort, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia is on the verge of getting Congress to revoke the authorizations that drove the United States into war with Iraq in the early 1990s and again in the early 2000s.
Kaine has the backing of the White House and a bipartisan coalition, along with Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana. On “The Lead” on Thursday, he and Young addressed AWN’s Jake Tapper about their idea.
I had further questions for Kaine, the most pressing of which was what revoking these authorizations would accomplish now that both had fallen out of use.
Another authorisation for the use of military force, or AUMF, passed in 2001 has kept the United States military busy in a number of nations.
My phone call with Kaine, which has been edited for length and includes a history lesson about pirates, is included below.
What is the history of war powers?
WOLF: Give folks a concise outline of war powers from your perspective. What can and can the president do, and what should Congress do?
KAINE: When the Constitution was being drafted in 1787, this was one of the most contentious issues.
One of the reasons it was so extensively debated was that they were doing something very different from other nations, which had tended to make war initiation a decision for the king, emperor, monarch, or executive.
Article 1 states that Congress must declare war by vote. Congress also has the fiscal authority to support the government, including military.
According to Article 2, the president is the commander in chief. The premise is that Congress votes to commence, but the worst-case scenario is 535 commanders in chief. So, once a vote is taken to begin military action, the executive gains control of any military action.
The disputes at the time and in the years that followed claimed that the commander in chief has the authority to act without the approval of Congress to defend the United States from an impending assault. Defense can always be done by the administration, but offensive military action requires a congressional approval.
That is crystal clear.
The rationale for this is explained plainly in the arguments. The idea is to have the people’s elected representatives debate in front of the public whether a war is in the national interest, where troops are sent into harm’s way and risk life and limb.
However, Congress has frequently abdicated its role to the administration because war votes are politically difficult.
Whigs and Federalists, followed by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, frequently delegated power to presidents of all parties. That’s a careless trend that I was determined to correct when I entered the Senate ten years ago.
We are not at war with Iraq’s government. What’s the point of revoking these authorizations?
WOLF: Peace treaties have ended conflicts. Technically, the Korean War is still ongoing, I suppose. Why is this so critical in the context of Iraq right now?
KAINE: The Korean War is at a standstill, but there is no peace pact to terminate the conflict. Many individuals are taken aback by this.
In this case, both Sen. Young and I feel that Congress should reassert its authority to declare war, as well as to proclaim when a conflict has ended.
In the case of Iraq, we declared war on the country twice: once in 1991 to evict Iraq from Kuwait, and again in 2002 to destabilise Saddam Hussein’s government and the Baath Party.
Obviously, the Gulf War was over fast, and Iraq was driven out of Kuwait. The Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein was deposed. As a result, our conflict with Iraq is no longer continuing.
Iraq, in particular, is no longer an adversary. Iraq has suddenly become a security partner. We’re collaborating closely with Iraq to combat terrorism – ISIS – and we’re also collaborating with Iraq as a security partner to oppose Iran’s harmful influence in the area.
Sen. Young and I see it this way: first, this is a congressional power that we should respect.
Second, it is improper to have a pending war authorization against a country with which we are currently cooperating.
Third, having a war authorization that isn’t actually needed provides a chance for mischief that a president may take and use to say, yeah, look, Congress gave us the authority to do this.
That’s another reason why, once a conflict is finished, Congress should retire the authority so that the president has to come back to us if he decides that military action is required.
