Congress violated the Constitution by giving Bush the power to invade Iraq

[G_j]

Of course most of us here knew this..
Is Congress really so ignorant of the Constitution? I doubt it.

www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9843

The First Lie 

John C. Bonifaz is an attorney in Boston and the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush. (NationBooks-NY, January 2004)

While all of the Democratic presidential candidates (except Sen. Joseph Lieberman) criticize President George W. Bush for his unilateral recklessness in starting a war against Iraq, they are missing a larger point: The invasion was not just reckless. It was unconstitutional.
It is time to set the record straight.

The United States Congress never voted for the Iraq war. Rather, Congress voted for a resolution in October 2002 which unlawfully transferred to the president the decision-making power of whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq. The United States Constitution vests the awesome power of deciding whether to send the nation into war solely in the United States Congress.

Those members of Congress—including certain Democratic presidential candidates—who voted for that October resolution cannot now claim that they were deceived, as some of them do. By unlawfully ceding the war-declaring power to the president, they allowed the president to start a war against Iraq based on whatever evidence or whatever lies he chose. The members of Congress who voted for that October resolution are as complicit in this illegal war as is the president himself.

Imagine this: The United States Congress passes a resolution which states: "The President is authorized to levy an income tax on the people of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to pay for subsidies to U.S. oil companies." No amount of legal wrangling could make such a resolution constitutional. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants the power to levy taxes exclusively to the United States Congress.
...more..

[G_j]

1. just a friendly reminder

for when those in Congress say they were "decieved".

[havocmom]

2. Amusing that this is getting attention as questions being raised about

the malAdministration and the Constitution. Again, the ol shell game is afoot.

I can almost here whinney voices in the WH: "Hey, those other guys violated the constitution too...." Makes me laugh at all those ditto heads who ranted about 'the grownups being in charge now'.

[K-W]

3. That part of the constitution was thrown out long before Bush

the resolution was just politics. Bush would have been in line with his predecessors if he just invaded on his own. It would be nice if everyone in the country had a deep understanding, love and respect for the constitution.

[9215]

4. You might want to check out the War Powers Act.

This has really mucked up the issue of declaring war and has let both the Congress and the Executive Branch off the hook.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Maybe...

and I'd have to refresh my memory about a lot of it, but it seems the War Powers Act was to make some sense out of Constitutional contradictions.

The President, as CIC, always had the right to use force to defend the country, but there remains a lot of argument over just what that means. As a superpower, "defense" can be stretched pretty thin when justifying a military action. This act was suppposed to straighten that out a bit.

We haven't had a declaration of war since WWII, but we've been in a lot of wars since then. Congress can't cede its power to declare war, but it can "authorize force." A large part of the problem is that when it does, it never follows up and supervises the President's use of that force.

[9215]

6. It's been awhile since I've looked at this

it is interesting how the distinction between "authorizing use of force" and "delegating war powers" gets blurred in this matter.

But the bottom line, IMO, is that the Constitution requires the Congress to declare war and it has essentially and conveniently abrogated that authority. It's a win-win for Congress: they are not held responsible if a war goes badly and if it goes well they can proudly claim they stood by the President. I think the War powers Act was desirable for the Congress so they could shirk this responsibility. :grr:

By definition we are not at "war" with Iraq now or ever. Hopefully the mess that Iraq has become will force this issue to the surface and the next time the war profiteers try this shit we can say: "Remember Iraq".