bush has the legal authority to attack Iran.

I don't like it, but he does. He doesn't need to get Congressional authority to, say, bomb the shit out of Iran for 3 or 4 halcyon days.

Impeachment is the only way to curb him from exercising these authorities.

I don't think it would inhibit bush from attacking Iran.

But even if it didn't, we still need to impeach the bastards.

would stop bush from bombing Iran? It didn't stop Clinton from launching military attacks.

Rumsfeld is gone. Rove is gone. Gonzo is gone. If we impeach Cheney first, he will be gone too. I don't believe el pretzledente will be able to sneak in an attack on Iran and fight impeachment at the same time.

has to do with a trade-off between the two. And one scenario is that I wouldn't put it past the nimrod to push the magic button the moment he was served with impeachment papers.

Remember those non-state players and their dirty bombs? Well in about a year we'll be "learning" that the Trade Center was, you guessed it, suitcased nuked. You heard it hear first.

He is the Decider and if he decides he has the power he will do it. And nobody will do a damn thing about it.

but the point is that under our Constitution and the War Powers Act, he has legal cover.

To strip the Presidency of the Commander in Chief title, and transfer it to a career military officer appointed by the President, has to be non-partisan, and approved by the Senate, and has to report to Congress. This Commander in Chief cannot, under any circumstances, deploy troops unless a declaration of war was made through an act of Congress. After that, tactical decisions would be made by this person and any advisors they have, with periodic reports to Congress.

Are you even fully aware of what you are proposing in that first line?

first of all tactical decisions are already in the hands of the military, it is the strategic decisions that the head cheese gets to make and I want that process to be in the hands of the President.

The fact that we have had a perfect negative storm with the current administration doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

day long. We are going to know the guilt of this for the rest of our lives.

This is the most despicable act in the history of recent man.

We don't have to talk about legality, we must acknowledge that the name of the person mentioned is a psychiatric madman. The real people behind it are the greediest in history.

Equal to greed is the obsession with controlling us - which this does. We are refusing to acknowledge that our leaders did us and this country in.

Vile act by vile humans for madman humans.

Going in to bomb them - why not do it border to border and get it over with. No one is going to put you in jail - Not the Europeans - they seem to be in on it.

Why talk legalities. The Constitution was crapped on.

There were much worse in the 20th century. Hitler. The death camps. The gas chambers. The medical experiments. Etc.

Pol Pot.

Stalin.

Please watch the comparison. It diminishes the brutality of the above.

I know that the people would reject his attack. I suspect that many generals would also reject it. I envision another Saturday Night Massacre of Nixonian proportions if he gives the order to attack Iran.

You heard it here first. (unless I'm wrong) :)

He is acting within the Framework of the Constitution, any General that challenged the President would be a traitor and I would help hunt down such a traitor. I might not like the President, but no general can overrule the law........

That will not sit well with the American people.

This Regime does not give a damn about the "American people". Isn't that clear yet?

But what Bushco doesn't realize is that the people have had it with him and war. If he pulls this crap, as I said, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

he better have a damn good reason, and it better not be another lie. It's not like the U.S. president can go around committing war crimes for the hell of it. From the Constitution to the War Powers Act the president still has to report to Congress, even after the fact.

awake every sleeper cell located in the US. But hey, we knew they were here already. This would give the US. the permanent presence they were fighting for in the middle east.
I believe there are many Skull & Bones people playing this scenario out in the background.

is a member

As far as I am concerned it will be an illegal attack. I don't care about the War Powers Act. In my view that was only created to be used during an actual national emergency, such as an attack (by a country- not those losers on 9/11). Iran has done nothing to us. Any attack on them makes US the war the criminal. And should that happen, Bush needs to be tried and convicted at the Hague. And hopefully jailed forever like other fascist assholes.

Unfortunately the War Powers Act isn't as narrow as it should be.

How did you feel about Clinton's bomb attacks on Iraq in 1998? Do you feel that was legitimate?

The question is whether the people he orders to do such a thing would follow such orders and become war criminals.

Don

Hagel: White House Originally Wanted 2002 Iraq War Resolution to Cover Entire Middle East

hagelThe Bush administration has taken a series of steps in recent weeks that appear to be setting the stage for a military confrontation with Iran. Congressional leaders have been raising red flags. “I’d like to be clear,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said last week. “The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization.” Recent comments made by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) explain why Congress’s resistance is so vital.

In an interview in GQ Magazine, Hagel reveals that the Bush administration tried to get Congress to approve military action anywhere in the Middle East — not just in Iraq — in the fall of 2002. At the time, Hagel says, the Bush administration presented Congress with a resolution that would have authorized the use of force anywhere in the region:

HAGEL: inally, begrudgingly, sent over a resolution for Congress to approve. Well, it was astounding. It said they could go anywhere in the region.

GQ: It wasn’t specific to Iraq?

HAGEL: Oh no. It said the whole region! They could go into Greece or anywhere. Is central Asia in the region? I suppose! Sure as hell it was clear they meant the whole Middle East. It was anything. It was literally anything. No boundaries. No restrictions.

GQ: They expected Congress to let them start a war anywhere in the Middle East?

HAGEL: Yes. Yes. Wide open. We had to rewrite it. Joe Biden, Dick Lugar, and I stripped the language that the White House had set up and put our language in it.

Asked about his vote in support of the final Iraq war resolution, Hagel told GQ, “Do I regret that vote? Yes, I do regret that vote.”


http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/24/hagel-iraq-resolution/



Then there's this article by John Dean:

<snip>

Because the constitutional experts submitted formal statements to the Committee, which are available online, and several of them are terrific briefs on the law and relevant history, I have linked those statements to their names. Rather than rely solely upon their own summaries of their positions, given during the hearing, I have instead cited from, and commented on, their prepared statements seeking to set forth the essence of their positions.

What is especially significant, in my eyes, is that the conclusion that Congress does indeed have power to significantly restrict the Administration in its plans for war, transcends politics: Even experts who have worked for Republican administrations have come to this conclusion.

Statements of Constitutional Experts

Professor David Barron from the Harvard Law School opened the testimony. Barron is a graduate of Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Reinhardt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as well as for Associate Justice Stevens on the United States Supreme Court. He served as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, before joining the faculty at Harvard Law School in 1999.



"Congress possesses substantial constitutional authority to regulate ongoing military operations, and even to bring them to an end," Barron stated, explaining that while the power of the purse is the strongest authority to control executive military actions, it is not the only power. Barron's statement reviews relevant rulings of the Supreme Court, and finds in them, and in the Constitution, no real limits on Congress's powers to manage a war. In fact, his review of the sources related to this question shows that to find otherwise would be contrary to the clear intention of the nation's Founders to control the chief executive.

Professor Robert Turner graduated from the law school at the University of Virginia and is now a professor there. He co-founded the school's Center for National Security Law. He served as the National Security Advisor to Senator Robert Griffin (R-MI) in the mid 1970's and worked at the Pentagon, the White House, and the State Department during the Reagan Administration, and from 2001 to 2003 worked in the Bush White House Counsel's office.

Professor Turner's statement was based as much on "a practical appreciation of the imperatives of presidential military decision making in a time of crisis as from a deep study of the case law." While the committee was not seeking policy advice, Turner was offering it. He concluded that "Congress does indeed possess the power to limit the broad outlines of hostilities through legislation," but he explained, in effect, why in his view, Congress should not use that power, as a policy matter.

Dr. Louis Fisher is a Constitutional Law Specialist at the Library of Congress. Before joining the Library of Congress, he spent thirty-six years at the Congressional Research Service. Dr. Fisher has published a number of authoritative books relating to legislative versus executive branch conflicts. (And I have most of them on my book shelf.) Dr. Fisher's statement explained that not only does Congress have the power to influence the direction of the nation's military when at war, but its members have the responsibility to do so. Drawing on history, he sets forth what the Framers of the Constitution did, and why they did it. His statement is rich in historical quotations that are not the now-hackneyed comments commonly found in discussion of these issues.

For example, in 1793, Fisher reported, Madison called war "the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. . . . In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."

And in 1861, Fisher advised the committee, Attorney General Edward Bates explained that the President is Commander in Chief not because he is "skilled in the art of war and qualified to marshal a host in the field of battle." Rather he is Commander in Chief so whoever leads U.S. armies to battle "is subject to the orders of the civil magistrate, and he and his army are always 'subordinate to the civil power.'"

Bradford Berenson, now a partner at Sidley & Austin, graduated from the Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Associate Justice Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court. He also served as Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, a position in which he focused on the relationship between the Congress and the Executive.

Berenson took an approach similar to Professor Turner's. Accepting that the Constitution and rulings make it very clear that Congress has ample power and authority relating to this nation's military activities, he instead made a policy case as to why Congress should not exercise their power. He acknowledged the nature of his statement when summarizing it for the committee, and quickly conceded, "I think the constitutional scheme does give Congress broad authority to terminate a war."

Finally, Professor Walter Dellinger of the Duke University School of Law testified. Dellinger, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department under President Clinton, and also acting Solicitor General from 1996 to 1997 (during which time he argued nine cases before the High Court) is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former law clerk for Associate Justice Hugo Black

"In the absence of any congressional legislation on point," Dellinger said in his prepared statement, "I would be ready to conclude that a president can act on his own authority and pursuant to his own judgment in matters of national security. Once Congress has acted, however, the issue is fundamentally different. The question then becomes whether the Act of Congress is itself unconstitutional."

In short, all the experts on this politically diverse but balanced panel agreed - in the abstract - that the Congress has the power to control a warrior president. But, as Walter Dellinger noted, the action itself must be constitutional.

Senator Kennedy thus, during the questioning, properly moved the discussion from the abstract to the specific.

Can Congress Prevent the President from Going to War In Iran?

In condensed form, with a few annotations, here is the text of the exchanges that occurred. They require no commentary:

SEN. KENNEDY: "Question just quickly through the panel. Is the President required to seek authorization from Congress before using the military force against Iran?"

DR. FISHER: "I think if there's some action that's a threat to U.S. soldiers I think a president has the power to repel sudden attacks, protect U.S. troops. Otherwise, if it goes beyond isolated incidents like that I think you're running into the preface of the Iraq Resolution, which …Congress amended … to make sure it applied only to Iraq. So I think by statute, by legislative policy, you can confine the President to Iraq." (Emphasis added.)

SEN. KENNEDY: "I'm interested in … what actions can Congress take now to ensure the President doesn't take us into war in Iran without congressional authorization."

PROF. BARRON: "The question of whether the President could right now initiate any actions against the Iran -- I think the proper way to think about it is what authority does he have under the current Iraq Authorization Statute, which would require some close consideration. . . . William Rehnquist … thought that a statutory limitation on the exercise of such authority would be constitutionally valid. So I think the legal question then comes to . . . no doubt Congress could restrict him from going and widening the war, not just in terms of the amount of troops used, but in the geographic area covered, and the only issue is whether Congress has in effect already done so by virtue of the limitations and bounds of the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq that's already enacted." (Emphasis added.)

SEN. KENNEDY: "Yes, Professor Turner."

PROF. TURNER: "Senator, let me just make nuanced point on this. John Hart Ely in his War and Responsibility made the point that after Congress declared war against Germany, FDR did not need a new declaration of war to go into North Africa after the German forces. Going into Cambodia I think was perfectly legal because the North Vietnamese had taken over the whole side of Cambodia. . . . I could see a situation in which Iran became involved in the Iraq War where the President would be able to use force. . . . I think in terms of launching a major war against Iran he should get and would need an official for Iran. But there's some area in there where I think he could act." (Emphasis added.)

SEN. KENNEDY: "If Congress passed legislation requiring the President to seek authorization from Congress before using military force against Iran would the President be obliged to seek such authorization before launching military action?"

MR. BERENSON: "Senator Kennedy, I think the questions that you're posing falls into the sphere . . . of shared powers, and it's important to recognize that for very important institutional reasons the President is the first mover and the prime mover in this area of shared powers. That has to do with the fact that unlike Congress which needs to go through an often time consuming and difficult legislative process, a process that can sometimes be stymied, the President has the ability to receive information in real time to act to protect the national security. So the President through the , through his executive authority in the absence of legislation to the contrary by the Congress, I think unquestionably would have authority to engage Iran in hostilities, whether in defense of our forces inside the borders of Iraq or if he decided that we needed to do something to address Iran's nuclear facilities. I do not think he would be acting outside the scope of his constitutional authority. That said, for major military actions most presidents have recognized the importance of coming to Congress as a political and practical matter. It is certainly unwise, if not unconstitutional, to try to engage in large scale hostilities or engage a new enemy in warfare without public support. And the best way to ensure that at the outset is, of course, to come to Congress." (Emphasis added.)

SEN. KENNEDY: "My time, Mr. Chairman, is up. Mr. Dellinger -"

PROF. DELLINGER: "Briefly, I agree with Mr. Berenson's statement. I believe that the President does have the authority to introduce U.S. troops into situations of hostilities, including in Iran, in the absence of congressional limitation as long as the anticipated scope and duration does not amount to a war. I don't believe he has the authority to send 500,000 troops into Iran, but he does have the authority to deploy U.S. forces in hostilities…. That said, it is also clear that Congress can impose limits either before or after the fact on the size, scope, and duration of that. But I do believe there's a consensus in the Executive Branch position that the President has the authority to deploy U.S. forces into hostilities when Congress has not spoken to the question." (Emphasis added.)

* * *

In sum, as I read both the general statements of these experts, and their specific answers to Senator Kennedy's question about Iran, everyone agrees that Congress has the power to prevent a president from going to war.

The only question that is doubtful, then, is whether the members of Congress actually have the will to do so. This, I suspect, is what James Fallows concluded, when he said that, at best, they might draw a line.

Of course, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney know this too, so they will do whatever they wish to do - and Congress may or may not catch up. But there is no real question as to whether Congress could legally stop Bush and Cheney from going to war in Iran without coming to Congress to fully explain what they are doing and why. Congress has that power; the only question is whether it will dare to use it.

Read the entire article here:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070209.html

Look, did Clinton get Congressional approval for bombing Iraq or the Sudan? No, because under the War Powers Act, the President doesn't need to get Congressional approval to bomb a country for a few days. If said bombing were still going on two months later, said President would indeed have to get Congressional approval to continue.

of PL 102-1, which "stated that it constituted specific statutory authorization within the meaning of the War Powers Resolution":

A war powers issue has been whether the use of U.S. force in Iraq in the period after the early 1991 Desert Storm conflict has been authorized by Congress. P.L. 102-1 authorized the President to use U.S. armed forces pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 678 to achieve implementation of previous Security Council Resolutions; Security Council Resolution 687 was adopted after this. On August 2, 1991, the Senate adopted an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill supporting the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of Resolution 687. Senator Dole said the amendment was not intended to authorize the use of force by the President, and that in his view in the current circumstances the President required no specific authorization from Congress. As enacted, Section 1095 of P.L. 102-190 states the sense of Congress that it supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution. The bill also included an amendment by Senator Pell supporting the use of all necessary means to protect Iraq's Kurdish minority, consistent with relevant U.N. resolutions and authorities contained in P.L. 102-1 (Section 1096 of P.L. 102-190.)
http://www.fas.org/man/crs/IB81050.html
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/ib81050.htm

The link is informative. There were, of course, during the Clinton era, disputes between Congress and the President. Congress insisted at least once (in the case of Somalia) that troops (originally committed for peace-keeping purposes but increasingly engaged in combat) be removed, and in this case the President removed the troops. In other cases, such attempts to override the President by legislation simply failed to obtain enough votes. In the case of the limited attacks on Sudanese sites, there seems to have been no Congressional oppositon. The message sent by the House and Senate with respect to Kosovo seems unclear.

lust, we will pay.

requires 'clear' (truthful) 'situations' and 'circumstances' prior to committing US troops to harm's way.

The 'at his determination' language, even if Congress allowed for it in the AUMFs, doesn't change Congress's powers under the Constitution.

This is why Sen Warner wanted to return to review the AUMF of Oct 2002.

Sept 18, 2001 AUMF - 'War on Terror'

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/sjres23_eb.htm

"SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

Oct 2002 AUMF - 'War in Iraq'

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

"SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."


The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is embedded within each of tha AUMFs,

http://www.policyalmanac.org/world/archive/war_powers_resolution.shtml

requires the clear, truthful, situations and circumstances,

" SEC. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicate by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations"

along with collective judgement of BOTH Congress and the President, NOT a complete 'hand off' of decisionmaking, as Congress has allowed to take place.

Someone needs to read this to Congress and the Democrats especially cali who started this thread. Again, I ask, under what legal authority does Bush have this power to attack Iran ?

... I've said that the Road Out of Iraq (and away from Iran) goes through Impeachment Gulch.

Read ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/418