State Dept: '02 War Vote Means We Can Stay in Iraq Forever

[babylonsister]

State Dept: Authorization for War with Iraq Also Authorizes Protecting Iraq
By Paul Kiel - March 6, 2008, 2:57PM


As we noted yesterday, the administration is determined to strike a longterm security agreement with Iraq while avoiding the Constitutional requirement that the Senate ratify treaties.

To avoid that outcome, the administration has said that any agreement with Iraq will contain no security guarantee -- just an agreement that U.S. forces will remain in Iraq. Voila! no treaty.

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) isn't convinced. And during a hearing Tuesday before a House foreign affairs subcommittee, he grilled the State Department's Iraq coordinator about the deal.

But in a State Department official's written reply to Ackerman's questions (which you can see here), the administration showed that it has another trick up its sleeve.

Congress doesn't have to approve any agreement with Iraq, the official writes, because it already has... sorta. That came in the form of the 2002 Iraq war authorization, which authorized force to neutralize the "continuing threat posed by Iraq." Apparently in the administration view, that was also a blanket authorization for the ensuing occupation of Iraq.

more...

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/state_dept_authorization_for_w.php

[Blue State Bandit]

1. Thanks for that IWR vote Hillary....

how's that diplomacy working out?

:nuke:

[babylonsister]

2. Yep. This could come back to bite her... nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. I don't know if anybody knew that their vote was going for THAT exactly

I didn't support the vote then and I certainly don't now (nor do I think too highly of the persons like Hilary who voted for it considering the absurdity of the whole hysteria surrounding Iraq at the time) but methinks the Bush (mis-)administration is trying to REALLY twist/expand the original intention of that resolution into something that it was NEVER intended to address not unlike they did with AUMF that started the whole "war on terror", torture/detention policies, Gitmo, enemy combatant status, and the Afghanistan invasion/occupation in 2001. I don't think that Hilary or anybody else cast her vote for a seemingly indefinite occupation in Iraq. In fact, I'm not really sure anybody (at the time) believed that we'd STILL be in Iraq by now (and by all rights, we shouldn't be).