The nation rolled closer to war yesterday, as both houses of Congress voted in favor of a resolution authorizing military action in Iraq. The House of Representatives voted 296-133, and the Senate joined them early this morning, 77-23.
The joint resolution authorizes President Bush to “use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.”
While the language reads that the U.S. is acting to “defend,” it is the first time the United States Congress has formally enabled the president to make a pre-emptive first strike on another country.
Bush said he was pleased.
“Today’s vote also sends a clear message to the Iraqi regime,” Bush said Thursday. “It must disarm and comply with all existing U.N. resolutions or it will be forced to comply. There are no other options for the Iraqi regime. There can be no negotiations.”
“The United States is committed to helping make the world more peaceful and more just,” he continued. “We are committed to freedom for all. We’re also committed to protecting human dignity, and today’s vote is an important step toward fulfilling those great American commitments.”
A fractured Democratic Party was split on the measure. In the House, 81 voted in favor and 126 against; in the Senate, 29 Democrats gave their approval, while 21 did not. Republicans overwhelmingly supported the measure, 215-6 in the House and 48-1 in the Senate.
Both of Ohio’s Republican senators voted to support the joint resolution. Eleven Ohio Republicans joined them in the House. All six Ohio Democrats in the House voted against the measure.
Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio expressed his dissent on the House floor.
“It is fear which leads us to war,” he said. “It is fear which leads us to believe that we must kill or be killed. Fear which leads us to attack those who have not attacked us. Fear which leads us to ring our nation in the very heavens with weapons of mass destruction.”
Representative Dick Armey (R), the House Majority Leader, who had initially been skeptical of Bush’s Iraq policy, closed the House debate in tears, speaking of troops who might be sent to war.
“Mr. President,” he said, “we trust to you the best we have to give. Use them well so they can come home and say to our grandchildren, ‘Sleep soundly, my baby.’” Tears flowed from his eyes he strode out of the House chamber.
Not since Congress passed the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which allowed military action in Vietnam, has a president won such broad and flexible authority to carry out an undefined military operation, historians said in the Washington Post. The House vote yesterday echoed a similar vote in 1991 for the Gulf War, where 86 Democrats voted in favor, 179 against.
Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) of North Dakota expressed his unbridled support
yesterday.
“For me, the deciding factor is my belief that a united Congress will help the president unite the world,” Daschle said. “And by uniting the world we can increase the world’s chances of succeeding in this effort and reduce both the risks and the costs that America may have to bear.”
Some prominent Democrats remain opposed.
“The power to declare war is the most solemn responsibility given to Congress by the Constitution,” Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy (D) said. “We must not delegate that responsibility to the President in advance.”
Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia (D), a former majority leader, called the pending Senate resolution “a blank check that we’re giving the president.”
The resolution encourages that all diplomatic means be exhausted before force is used, and requires Congress be updated every 60 days once action is taken.
Many students disapprove of any unilateral altercation in Iraq.
“With elections less than a month away, to vote against this would be perceived as a vote against the war on terrorism,” senior Austin Owenby remarked.
The national debate is over, he asserted.
“It’s been over for a while,” he added. “We’re going to go in, the question is about what we’re going to do and when.”
Others are less pleased.
“I don’t even want to talk about it,” senior Lauren Burgeen said. “We didn’t even elect this fucking guy.”
Yet some students support striking Iraq, and suggest that a pre-emptive strike may ameliorate worse problems down the road.
“Should Churchill have done a pre-emptive strike against Germany in 1931?” senior Miguel Villafana asked. “We can ignore history or we can grudingly follow history’s example.
“Students should be pushing the U.S. to go multilateral,” he added, “which is happening right now as we speak.”
On Monday night, Bush outlined his reasons for a pre-emptive strike on a country he included in his State of the Union address as part of the “axis of evil.”
“Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,” Bush said. “Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.
“America must not ignore the threat gathering against us,” he continued. “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
Bush’s Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, has said that Bush has not made a decision yet as to whether he will deploy American troops in the region. He was grilled yesterday afternoon by reporters at his press briefing.
“The president has made no decisions about what the next step would be,” Fleischer said.
When queried whether the President might go to war immediately, Fleischer said, “Well, under the Constitution … the President, of course, does have the authority.”
Reporters also inquired as to what government might replace Saddam Hussein’s.
“The fact of the matter is that after a military operation, the United States has been a marvelous, wonderful force for democracy around the world,” Fleischer replied. “That is the case with Japan, that is the case with Germany, that was the case with Afghanistan.”
Marine General Anthony Zinni, former head of U.S. Central Command stated at a recent foreign policy forum that Hussein was “deterrable and containable.”
“I’m not convinced we need to do this now,” he said.