Clearly the War Powers Act has been violated

[EVDebs]

Clearly, under the situation and circumstances presented to Congress

"SEC. 3.
The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations."

from War Powers Act of 1973
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/warpow.html

"Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated..."

from Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/2002100...

Some 'discovery'. According to Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq by Alan Friedman
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/17/161...

the Reagan and GHW Bush administrations would have been responsible for the WMD war materiel. The current war is more about covering up for those mistakes ...

Which may be what is really behind the current 'Plamegate' scandal.

[texpatriot2004]

1. I do believe that under Plamegate/Treasongate there is a

major WMD scandal.

[texpatriot2004]

2. FYI Democracy Now (the 3rd) link isn't working. nm

[EVDebs]

6. Google this: democracy now spiders web friedman

Google 'democracy now spiders web friedman'

if that doesnt' work Democracy Now's article on web was dated and titled

Thursday, November 14th, 2002
"Spider's Web": The Secret History of How the United States Illegally Armed Saddam Hussein; a Conversation with the Journalist Who Broke the Iraqgate Scandal That Involved President George Bush, James Baker and Donald Rumsfeld

[Metta]

3. They only care because this caught up with them.

They'd have never given it a second thought otherwise and would have gone on to do more of the same and worse.

[texpatriot2004]

4. kick nm

[adwon]

5. I'm confused

The act only requires consultation, or notice, to Congress. Where's the violation there? It's not as though Congress could complain, as I do recall them voting overwhelmingly in favor of the IWR.

[EVDebs]

7. Regarding immenent hostilites under CLEAR and obviously

unambiguous situations and circumstances OF A TRUTHFUL NATURE.

If Saddam had WMD materiel it was via the US's condoning his acquiring that materiel. Even the recent explosives scandal that emerged just before the election (380 TONS of HMX and RDX, I believe etc.) was from the US; that could have been used to trigger nukes apparently that the US shipped to Iraq.

www.csmonitor.com/2004/1026/dailyUpdate.html

The book Spider's Web shows how only the US's arming of Saddam could have resulted in WMDs. And the administration is now deflecting 'blame' for this errant policy that is, what, around thirty years old ?

[adwon]

8. Nonetheless

Consultation is all that is required. If Congress neglected to check the admin's facts, that's a failure of their duty, not a violation of law. And, just for the record, this is one law the courts are unlikely to ever touch, so this is really just a mental exercise.

[EVDebs]

9. Oh, yes, I agree. And arguing ad absurdum the bigger the lies the better

This is indeed the crazy aunt in the basement that the Congress and Republican administration gladly keep the lid on.

But not really just mental masturbation, adwon, since it exposes the powers that be to ridicule. Don't shoot the messenger.

[adwon]

10. No bullets coming your way :P

I just don't think attacking the admin on the war, in an effort to get impeachment rolling, is a worthwhile effort. For example, when Nixon was in the frying pan, an article was proposed for the Cambodian incursion. It was overwhelmingly defeated. Congress is really wary of attacking the foreign policy powers too directly.

I think the whole Plame deal is a wonderful opportunity. If the last 4 years hasn't shown the utter ineptitude of GOP foreign policymaking, then hanging the albatross of treason around their necks is a welcome gift. Perhaps Democrats should begin referring to 'Benedict Libby' in order to set the tone for the next couple of years.

[EVDebs]

11. Get real, the WashPost was proVietNamWar

They went after Nixon because Dr K and Dick screwed up the SALT talks and allowed a whole new class of Soviet delta subs, in addition Richard Helms didn't want the CIA reorganized as with the 'Huston Plan' Nixon was pushing. Helms was a good friend of Ben Bradlee. Woodward was Naval Intelligence to boot. (Now Sen., R-UT) Robert F. Bennett was head of the Mullen & Co. CIA front that hired the burglars...The conservatives WANTED Nixon and Dr K outta there.

The proNeoConWar NYTimes wanted this war. Now they're seeing the price is too steep. Street cred is dogcrap today. They're too Op Mockingbird'ed up.

Judy Miller is CIA and shouldn't have even heard about fellow agent Plame, but since politicization of the agency is what Bush needed to get the war in Iraq done, hey, they'd do anything to get the trigger pulled.

Now we know and now they know we know, ya know ?

[newscott]

12. Without burying myself in the entire language of the act

does this act require that these conditions be met ONCE WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED BY CONGRESS?

I'm willing to bet that if the conditions only need to be met with an official declaration then that's why * didn't ask for a formal declaration. So he could Lyndon Johnson the whole operation.

Just my .02.

Please correct me if I'm off base on this.

[adwon]

13. Not exactly

Once the president commits forces, then the language of the act is triggered. The fact that W had an enabling resolution in the form of the IWR should trump War Powers because Congress had specifically delegated powers to him.

Just as an aside, for some at least, resolutions like Tonkin Gulf represent legitimate declarations from Congress. For me, there are two kinds of declarations: conditional and general. Tonkin Gulf was a conditional declaration, which left a lot of discretion with the president as to how and when force should be used. Congress gave him the authority to conduct the war in the specified region (which, going by the comments of Senator Fulbright during hearings on the resolution, included of all Asia). The general declaration was used during both World Wars and is what people commonly think of as a declaration of war.

About 'Lyndon Johnson the whole operation'...

The Tonkin Gulf Congress knew the incident was a pretext and was rather calm about that fact. Check out Fulbright's comments during hearings where he talked about the fact that the language of the resolution would allow for a war with China if that was necessary to fulfill the terms of the resolution. Congress was well informed about the situation and only chose to claim that it wasn't when Westmoreland began to show his peculiar breed of incompetence. Vietnam was as much Congress' war as it was Johnson's.