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Stardate
20020819.1050 (Captain's log): Alisa writes:
By the way, Steve, I do not remember if you addressed the issue of a possible congressional debate on the invasion of Iraq. I am wondering what are your thoughts on this.
I have commented on this peripherally in the past, but it's worth commenting on.
I've said that I think that further Congressional authorization would be required for an attack on Iraq. I still think that. It is extremely dangerous to let the Executive Branch to unilaterally get us into a major war. That's too big a decision and too much power to give to the President alone.
On the other hand, it has to be recognized that there is enormous military value in surprise. I think that a formal session in Congress, to debate the issue publicly, with speeches and argument and press conferences ending, inevitably, in passage of a formal authorization for hostilities under the terms of the War Powers Act, would cause more harm than good. It would telegraph our blow to the government of Iraq and remove all chance of surprise, and we'd pay for that a stiff price in lives of our young men and women in the services. That way of getting headlines is too expensive.
What we want here is a way to stay with the (wise) Constitutional requirement for Congressional authorization while at the same time maximizing our chance to win, and minimizing loss of American military lives by preserving secrecy. I think that can be done.
What I would prefer, and what in fact I think has already happened, is that there actually be a debate, and be consultation with Congress by the Executive, but informally, quietly. The debate in Congress shouldn't happen in formal session, it should happen in small, quiet, direct meetings between individual members of both chambers in hallways, and private offices, and on the phone, and an informal headcount on the issue taken by the leaders who would then quietly inform the President that he's good to go. Which, since two thirds of Americans approve of this war, is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Under the War Powers Act, an actual formal authorization for hostilities only needs to be passed by Congress sometime in the first sixty days after hostilities begin. So they can wait until we've already have gotten all the benefits secrecy can bring. Then Congress can have its grand loud formal session, and pass pro forma the authorization which confirms the informal permission they already granted privately and quietly ahead of time.
In fact, I suspect that we'll discover once this is all over that this is indeed exactly what has happened. I think Congress has already talked it over quietly, and has already given the President permission, by promising to actually pass the required formal authorization under the War Powers Act once the time comes.
Update: Matthew Yglesias asks:
Couldn't the surprise issue more or less be resolved by having the congress (at the president's request) vote to give the president the authority to launch an invasion some time before the invasion actually begins. After all, the talk and debate that's going on already means that we're not going to have any profound strategic element of surprise on our side, and it seems to me that tactical surprise could be maintained by as little as what I've suggested.
The upside of a real vote, I think, is that if we wind up hitting snags on the road it's good to have legislators on record as supporters.
As soon as there is formal Congressional authorization granted to Bush for a war in Iraq, international diplomatic efforts to prevent it will hit white heat. Those nations don't have the ability to stop us, but they do have the ability to rather severely inconvenience us. It's better to let them all think that the approaches they're currently using still have a chance of stopping us without turning up the voltage.
For instance, a Congressional announcement that "We give you permission now for an attack in six months" gives surreptitious enemies plenty of time to ship important spare parts or arms or munitions into Iraq to help them oppose us.
I can't think of any advantage to a public announcement before the last minute that would compensate for the disadvantages it would involve.
One possibility is that the whole thing happens at lightning speed at the last minute, in a carefully controlled public exhibition by the President and Congress, where Bush makes a speech, Congress holds an emergency session and approves hostilities, and the shells start dropping the next morning. On a political level that would be good, for obvious reasons, but that all assumes a formal "start time" like in 1991. This war may not be like that; it may be something that just sort of gradually grows, and the longer that growth process can continue unpublicized, the better. Some think that the slow growth of operations in Iraq has already begun.
Note that the US says it bombed an Iraqi command center which was not in either no-fly zone. You may be seeing the beginning of a slow ramp of pre-attack air preparation, carefully calibrated to grow without fuss.
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