REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Bush's Iraq Resolution
The president should make Congress an ally in fighting Saddam.
Alberto Gonzales is surely right on the law. As the White House counsel has informed his boss, President Bush already has full authority under the Constitution to order the U.S. military to depose Saddam Hussein. But in our view he'd still be wise to seek a vote of Congressional support.
His legal authority starts with the original 1990 United Nations resolution against Saddam, which endorsed "all necessary means" not only to oust the dictator from Kuwait but "to restore international peace and security in the area." The U.S. Congress then passed its own resolution endorsing force to implement that U.N. mandate, including all of the later U.N. resolutions on inspections. No one disputes that Saddam has violated those resolutions and remains a threat to security, so the legal case for using force today seems more than solid.
Historically, too, outright declarations of war by Congress have been rare: Only five, to be precise, the last one coming after Pearl Harbor. Yet U.S. Presidents have used force hundreds of times without a formal declaration, and these columns have long argued for an expansive interpretation of Presidential war-making power. If Congress wants to stop a President, it can always use the power of the purse and cut off funds.
But whatever the legal rules, politics in a democracy has its own logic. Mr. Bush would be smart to seek Congressional support for an Iraqi operation not because he needs it to start a war but because he may need it to finish one. Shutting Congress out of the decision to go into Iraq opens the door to letting the Members second-guess every decision if things start to get sticky.
There is always the chance that Congress could refuse the President. But this must be measured against the strong case the Administration has, a case Vice President Dick Cheney pressed earlier this week in Nashville. Mr. Cheney flatly declared that when it comes to a nuclear-armed Saddam, "the risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action."
Even the critics with the most credibility--Brent Scowcroft and James Baker III--do not dispute Saddam's actions or the nature of his outlaw regime; their concerns have to do with means and timing and, it should be said, a remarkable faith in U.N. inspections. "The argument comes down to this," Mr. Cheney responded crisply: " 'Yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is, we just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it.' " This is surely what Henry Kissinger was also getting at, when he wrote recently that "waiting will only magnify possibilities for blackmail."
A Congressional debate would also compel greater political honesty. Democrats would be forced to confront the ghosts of Vietnam, while Republicans could sift their various strains of isolationism, realpolitik and so on. Some of these Members will one day be running for President; it will be healthy to have them stand up and be counted now on a question of national leadership.
Some in Congress are almost begging to be permitted to help Mr. Bush. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay has been the most vocal, but support for action on Iraq isn't confined to one side of the aisle. As far back as December a number of lawmakers--from John McCain and Joe Lieberman to Henry Hyde and Richard Shelby--wrote President Bush declaring that "it is imperative that we plan to eliminate the threat from Iraq." Even New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler, hardly a Bush stalwart, told Fox News that the President would get Congressional approval.
The Bush Administration also stands to benefit from an effort that clarifies its own position. Mr. Cheney's speech Monday was a powerful sample. The Vice President speaks with some authority on Saddam: He was at the Pentagon in 1991. Back then advocates of "containment" were championing economic sanctions. This time it's U.N. inspections.
Mr. Cheney reminds us that inspections are a poor tool against someone like Saddam. In the spring of 1995, inspectors were about to certify that Saddam had shut down his programs aimed at developing chemical and longer-range ballistic missiles--until Saddam's son-in-law defected. That defection ultimately led inspectors to an Iraqi chicken farm where Saddam was hiding documents about some of his secret weapons programs.
As for seeking a formal vote in the U.N., even Mr. Baker concedes that that body "already has sufficient legal authority" to deal with Iraq. Merely because the U.S. failed to act immediately after Saddam ejected U.N. inspectors in the 1990s doesn't mean that authority has vanished. More than another U.N. resolution, what Mr. Bush needs is some public acknowledgment by an ally of what everyone already knows: That inspections are a dead letter.
Certainly America ought both to welcome and solicit international partners in the effort against Saddam. But we are more likely to gain partners the more the U.N. and our allies know that the U.S. is serious and will not be deterred. This is another reason for holding a Congressional vote; a bipartisan endorsement of U.S. resolve would rally more nations to our side than would any U.N. debate.
Mr. Cheney's powerful speech showed a commitment to ousting Saddam that will be difficult to walk away from. He can make that commitment unmistakably clear to Saddam, and the world, by asking Congress to declare itself as well.
