[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 137 (Thursday, October 17, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10642-S10645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                PRESIDENTIAL ABILITY TO LAUNCH AN ATTACK

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to 
submit for the Record two very thoughtful and well-researched documents 
submitted to me by renowned constitutional scholars with respect to the 
President's ability to launch an unprovoked military attack against a 
sovereign state.
  Earlier this year, I wrote to a number of constitutional scholars 
advising them that I was concerned about reports that our Nation was 
coming closer to war with Iraq. I asked a number of esteemed academics 
their opinion as to whether they believed that the Bush Administration 
had the authority, consistent with the U.S. Constitution, to introduce 
U.S. Armed Forces into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
  All of the scholars I consulted responded by stating that, under 
current circumstances, the President did not have such authority. I 
have previously submitted for the Record the responses of professors 
Michael Glennon of Tufts, and Jane Stromseth of Georgetown University 
Law Center.
  Now, I would like to submit two additional responses I received on 
this same subject from professors Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School 
and William Van Alstyne of the Duke University School of Law. I found 
the depth and breadth of their scholarship on this subject to be 
extremely impressive and, for this reason, I ask unanimous consent that 
their responses to me be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                                                  Duke University,


                                                School of Law,

                                      Durham, NC., August 7, 2002.
     Senator Robert C. Byrd,
     Chairman, U.S. Senate
     Committee on Appropriations,
     Washington, DC
       Dear Senator Byrd: I am writing in response to your letter 
     of July 22 inquiring whether in my opinion, ``the Bush 
     Administration currently has authority, consistent with the 
     U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, to introduce 
     U.S. Armed Forces into imminent or actual hostilities in Iraq 
     for the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein from Power.'' You 
     raise the question because, as you say, in your letter, you 
     are ``deeply concerned about comments by the Bush 
     Administration and recent press reports that our nation is 
     coming closer to war with Iraq.''
       I was away from my office at Duke University During the 
     week when your inquiry arrived. Because you understandably 
     asked for a very prompt response, I am foregoing a fuller, 
     more detailed, statement to you just now, the day just 
     following my reading of your letter, on August 6. I shall, 
     however, be pleased to furnish that more elaborate statement 
     on request. Briefly, these are my views:
       A. The President may not engage our armed forces in ``war 
     with Iraq,'' except in such measure as Congress, by joint or 
     concurrent resolutions duly passed in both Houses of 
     Congress, declares shall be undertaken by the President as 
     Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. As Commander in 
     Chief, i.e., in fulfilling that role, the President is solely 
     responsible for the conduct of whatever measures of war 
     Congress shall authorize. It is not for the President, 
     however, to presume to ``authorize himself'' to embark on 
     war.
       Whether the President deems it essential to the National 
     interest to use the armed forces of the United States to make 
     war against one of our neighbors, or to make war against 
     nations yet more distant from our shores, it is all the same. 
     The Constitution requires that he not presumed to do so 
     merely on his own assessment and unilateral order. Rather, 
     any armed invasions of or actual attack on another nation by 
     the armed forces of the United States as an act of war 
     requires decision by Congress before it proceeds, not after 
     the President would presume to engage in war (and, having 
     unilaterally commenced hostilities, then would merely 
     confront Congress with a ``take-it-or-leave it'' fait 
     accomplis). The framers of the Constitution understood the 
     difference vividly--and made provision against vesting any 
     war-initiating power in the Executive.\1\
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     \1\ It is today, even as it was when Thomas Jefferson wrote 
     to James Madison from Paris, in September, 1789, referring 
     then to the constitutional clauses putting the responsibility 
     and power to embark on war in Congress rather than in the 
     Executive. And thus Jefferson observed: ``We have given, in 
     example, one effectual check to the dog of war, by 
     transferring the power of letting him loose from the 
     Executive to the Legislative body, from those who are to 
     spend to those who are to pay.'' C. Warren, The Making of the 
     Constitution 481 n. 1 (1928). (See also Chief Justice Johnson 
     Marshall's Opinion for the Supreme Court in Talbot v. Seeman, 
     5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 1,28 (1803) (``The whole powers of war 
     being, by the constitution of the United States, vested in 
     congress, the acts of that body can alone be resorted to as 
     our guides.'')
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       B. Nor does the form of government of--or any policy 
     currently pursued by--an identified foreign nation affect 
     this matter, although either its form of government or the 
     policies it pursues may of course bear substantially on the 
     decision as shall be made by Congress. Whether, for example, 
     the current form of government of Iraq is so dangerous that 
     no recourse to measures short of direct United States 
     military assault to ``remove'' that government (a clear act 
     of war) now seem sufficient to meet the security needs either 
     of the United States or of other states with which we 
     associate our vital interests, may well be a fair question. 
     That is a fair question, however, is merely what therefore 
     also makes it right for Congress to debate that question.
       Indeed, it appears even now that Congress is engaged in 
     that debate. And far from feeling it must labor under any 
     sense of apology

[[Page S10643]]

     in conducting that debate--whether or not some in the 
     executive department of elsewhere express irritation over 
     what they regard as presumptuous by Congress, it is not 
     presumptuous but entirely proper. It is what the Constitution 
     assigned to Congress the responsibility to do.
       C. And first, with respect to that debate, suppose it were 
     the case of the President believed that measures of war were 
     not now necessary and ought not be passed by Congress, at 
     least not at this time. I put the point this way the better 
     to clear the air to make a neutral observation of the 
     respective roles.--Were he of that view, without doubt he 
     shall so advise Congress. And equally without doubt, Congress 
     should desire and welcome him to do so, not merely from 
     respect for his office, rather, at least equally because both 
     his information and his views would be among the most 
     important considerations Congress should itself take into 
     account.
       D. But the same is true in the reverse circumstance as 
     well. It is altogether the right prerogative of the President 
     to lay before Congress every consideration which, in the 
     President's judgment, requires that measures of direct 
     military intervention in Iraq now be approved by Congress, 
     lest the security of the nation be even more compromised than 
     it already is.\2\ If the President believes we cannot any 
     longer, by measures short of war, now avoid the unacceptable 
     risk of weapons of mass destruction from developing under a 
     repressive Iraq regime already defiant of various earlier 
     resolutions by the United Nations Security Council, it is by 
     all means his prerogative and his responsibility as President 
     candidly, even bluntly, to say so--to Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \2\ Exactly as President Jefferson did in reporting to 
     Congress in equivalent circumstances, in 1801. Thus, his 
     urgent message to Congress reviewed attacks recently made 
     against American commercial vessels in the Mediterranean, 
     reported defensive steps already taken in repelling those 
     attacks, and then declared the following. ``The Legislature 
     will doubtless consider whether by authorizing measures of 
     offense also, they will place our force on an equal footing 
     with that of its adversaries. I communicate all material 
     information on this subject, that in the exercise of this 
     important function confided by the Constitution to the 
     Legislature exclusively, their judgment may form itself on a 
     knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of 
     weight.'' 22 Annals of Cong. 11 (1801), reprinted inn 1 
     Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ata 326-27 
     (J. Richardson ed. 1898) (emphasis added.)
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       And he may as part of that address, accordingly request 
     from Congress that he now be appropriately authorized, as 
     President and as Commander in Chief, ``to deploy and engage 
     the armed forces of the United States in such manner and 
     degree as the President determines to be necessary 
     in affecting such change of government in Iraq'' . . . as 
     will remove that peril, or accomplish such other 
     objectives (if any) as Congress may specify in its 
     authorizing resolution. Supposing Congress agrees, the 
     resolution will be approved, and the authority of the 
     President to proceed, consistent with that resolution, 
     will be at once both established and clear.
       E. Equally, however, in the event that Congress does not 
     agree. That is, insofar as, despite whatever presentation the 
     President shall make (or shall have made), Congress is 
     unpersuaded that such military intervention under the 
     direction of the President as he may propose is now 
     appropriate to authorize and approve, it may assuredly 
     decline to do so. In that circumstance, and until Congress 
     shall decide otherwise, matters also settled and equally 
     clear. The President may not then proceed to embark upon a 
     deliberate course of war against the government or people of 
     Iraq.
       F. And correspondingly, however, the President is not to be 
     faulted in that circumstance, insofar as authorization by 
     Congress for military intervention or other measures of war 
     is withheld. For the responsibility (and any fault--if fault 
     it be) then will rest with Congress, even as the Constitution 
     contemplates that it should.
       In short, the President acquits himself well by making full 
     report to Congress of information, and of his reasons, and of 
     his judgment, as to what the circumstances now require of the 
     nation, in his own view. That Congress may disagree is no 
     reflection upon the President nor, necessarily, upon itself. 
     Rather, it but reminds us of which department of our national 
     government is charged by the Constitution to decide whether 
     and when we shall move from a position of peace, however 
     strained, to one of war. By constitutional designation, that 
     department is assuredly the legislative department, not the 
     executive.
       G. I do not here presume to address the limited 
     circumstance in which the country comes under attack, in 
     which event the President may assuredly take whatever 
     emergency measures to resist and repel it are reasonably 
     required to that end. Likewise, in respect to exigent 
     circumstances of U.S. forces or American citizens lawfully 
     stationed, or temporarily resident, in areas outside the 
     United States in which local hostilities may unexpectedly 
     occur, with respect to which intervention to effectuate safe 
     rescue will not be regarded as an act of war. Neither these 
     nor other variant possibilities were raised by your letter, 
     however, so I leave them for another day.
       You also asked for comments respecting three previous Joint 
     Resolutions by Congress, i.e., whether any of these, or some 
     combination, constitute a sufficient basis for the President 
     to proceed to engage whatever magnitude of invasive forces 
     would be necessary to overthrow Iraq's current government 
     and/or seek out and destroy or remove such weapons of mass 
     destruction, as well as the means of their production, as 
     that invading force would be authorized to accomplish. 
     Specifically, you adverted to The War Powers Resolution of 
     1973 (Pub. L. No. 93-148, Nov. 7, 1973); The Authorization 
     for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 1991 
     (Pub. L. No. 102-1, Jan. 14, 1991); and The Authorization for 
     Use Military Force Resolution of 2001 (Pub. L. No. 107-40, 
     Sept. 18, 2002).
       As to the first of these, the ``War Powers Resolution of 
     1973'' (or War Powers Act as it is sometimes informally 
     called), I am very clear that it is certainly not a 
     Resolution authorizing or directing the President now to 
     engage the armed forces of the United States in acts of war 
     within or against Iraq. As to the second and third, I do not 
     believe they can serve that function either, though there is 
     some more reasonable margin for disagreement--one which 
     Congress itself, however, is frankly far between situated to 
     attempt to resolve than I do anyone else so removed from a 
     fuller record one would need to be of more than marginal 
     help.
       The reasons for my uncertainty regarding the Joint 
     Resolution of 1991 (specifically captioned by Congress as 
     ``The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq 
     Resolution'') will take but a few sentences to share. That 
     this Resolution did authorize what became ``Operation Desert 
     Storm'' as a major use of the war power, against Iraq 
     specifically, under the direction of the President (with 
     collaborative forces of other nations), and the use of 
     massive force, including bombardment and invasion of Iraq, is 
     unequivocal. A declared objective sought to be achieved (and 
     thus part of the described scope of the authorized use of 
     force) was . . . to ``achieve implementation of'' . . . 
     eleven United Nations Security Council Resolutions, each 
     identified by specific number. The Resolution also required 
     (i.e., ``the President shall submit'') the President ``at 
     least once every 60 days'' to submit to Congress a summary on 
     the status ``of efforts to obtain compliance by Iraq'' with 
     those resolutions.
       Foremost among the stated objectives of that authorized use 
     of war power was to force the unconditional withdrawal of 
     Iraq forces from Kuwait and restoration of that country's 
     ``independence and legitimate government.'' As much as that 
     has surely been accomplished--was well accomplished fully a 
     decade ago.
       However, the Resolution also recited that ``Iraq's 
     conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and 
     ballistic missile programs and its demonstrated willingness 
     to use weapons of mass destruction pose a grave threat to 
     world peace.'' Thus, it was also in contemplation of that 
     ``grave threat'' the United States was willing to make the 
     commitment as it did. And we have the President's report (as 
     I must assume Congress has received it) that that threat has 
     not yet abated, indeed, may have been renewed.
       Moreover, it is additionally true that in a significant 
     sense, our ``invasion'' of Iraq, proper as it was immediately 
     following this authorization by Congress (and still may be), 
     continues to this very day. It does so, as the Congress is 
     well aware in a variety of ways, but most notably by the 
     continuing armed overflights through large swaths of Iraq air 
     space, and the continuing forcible interdiction of Iraqi 
     installations in large areas of Iraq (north and south) by 
     direct military force. So, in one reasonable perspective, 
     there has simply been a continuing, albeit immensely reduced 
     and attenuated ``war'' with Iraq, under the direction of the 
     President, and within the boundaries of that original 
     Resolution of 1991.
       Still, it is far from certain that these elements are 
     enough insofar as the President may now propose to ``re-
     escalate'' the conflict in enormous magnitude: (a) to 
     overthrow the government of Iraq and (b) insert whatever 
     invading force as he would deem required to locate and 
     destroy any existing stores of weapons of ``mass 
     destruction,'' and the means of their production. The 
     principal basis for that uncertainty (at least my own 
     uncertainty) is twofold. First, that the express 
     authorization made by Congress in 1991 was, as noted above, 
     to use all necessary military force ``to achieve 
     implementation of'' certain specifically numbered UN Security 
     Council Resolutions, none of which I have had the opportunity 
     to read or study, and therefore cannot resolve for suitable 
     fit today. It is my impression that with the exception of 
     ourselves (and perhaps the British), however, that members of 
     the Security Council may not now regard those decade-old 
     resolutions as adequate for the United States to use as an 
     adequate sanction to ``reignite'' a virtual full-scale war, 
     as distinct from the continuing overflights, but I am in no 
     position to speak to that question as well as others. 
     Similarly, I should think it best for Congress itself, to 
     resolve whether the decade-old Resolution enacted by Congress 
     in 1991 can cover the present case as well though, in my own 
     view, it probably does not.
       Third, and most recent among the resolutions you enclosed, 
     is the express ``Authorization for Use of United States Armed 
     Forces'' by Congress, adopted on September 18, 2001, 
     following the cataclysmic events of September 11. The 
     authorization is quite current and it calls expressly for the 
     use of U.S. Armed Forces ``against those responsible for the 
     recent attacks launched against the United States.'' It is 
     also framed in the following quite inclusive terms, in 
     Sec. 2(a), that:
       [T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and 
     appropriate force against

[[Page S10644]]

     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.
       I nonetheless think it doubtful that this will ``stretch'' 
     to cover a proposal to use military force to overthrow the 
     government of Iraq as is currently being considered, without 
     authorization by Congress, absent quite responsible evidence 
     that Iraq was involved in ``the terrorist attacks that 
     occurred on Sept. 11, 2001''--evidence that may exist but not 
     that I have seen reported in the press or elsewhere. I note, 
     respectfully, that the authorization is not an ``open-ended'' 
     one to authorize the use of military power against any 
     nations, organizations, or persons whom the President 
     identifies as proper targets insofar as it would merely help 
     in some general sense to ``prevent'' future terroristic 
     attacks by such nations, organizations, or persons. Rather, 
     it is to permit such uses of military power only with 
     reference to those identified as having contributed in some 
     substantial manner to the September 11th attacks, or known 
     now to be harboring such persons.
       But in this effort not to neglect your several requests, I 
     have (more than?) reached my limit to try to be of immediate 
     assistance to you and your committee. The portions of this 
     letter I would emphasize are in its first half, the portions 
     dealing with the constitutional questions reviewed in letter 
     sections A. through F. I wish you well with your 
     deliberations.
           Sincerely,
     William Van Alstyne.
                                  ____

                                               Harvard University,


                                                   Law School,

                                     Cambridge, MA, July 31, 2002.
     Hon. Robert C. Byrd
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Byrd: I share the concern expressed in your 
     letter of July 22, 2002, about recent reports that our nation 
     is approaching war with Iraq. I wish I had the time to give 
     your questions regarding those reports the detailed and 
     thoroughly documented reply they deserve. Unfortunately, I 
     will have to be content with a brief statement of my 
     conclusions and of the basic reasons for them.
       My study of the United States Constitution and its history, 
     as a scholar and teacher of American constitutional law over 
     the past thirty years, has suggested to me no authority for 
     the President, acting as the Commander in Chief, to wage a 
     purely preemptive war against another nation without at least 
     consulting with Congress first, and without obtaining from 
     Congress a formal authorization, whether in the form of a 
     declaration of war or, at the least, a joint resolution 
     expressing the assent of both the House and the Senate--with 
     the exception of so exigent an emergency as to admit of no 
     time for such consultation and authorization without mortal 
     and imminent peril to our nation.
       Of course, if the President were to learn, for example, 
     that another nation was about to launch a massive 
     thermonuclear attack on the United States, and if there 
     genuinely appeared to be no possibility of deterring such an 
     attack by threatening a fatal counterstrike or by pursuing 
     diplomatic alternatives consistent with our national 
     security, then presumably the U.S. Constitution would not tie 
     the President's hands by committing the Executive Branch to a 
     course that would spell our virtually certain destruction as 
     a nation. As many have famously observed, our Constitution is 
     not a suicide pact. But that exception for cases of self-
     defense cannot be treated so elastically that the exception 
     threatens to swallow the rule.
       In circumstances when the President takes the position that 
     delaying a mobilization and deployment of our armed forces to 
     attack another sovereign state while Congress debates the 
     matter, although not necessarily threatening our nation's 
     imminent destruction, would nonetheless expose us to grave 
     and unacceptable danger by letting the optimal moment for a 
     preventive attack pass as that hostile state proceeds to 
     accumulate rapidly deployable weapons of mass destruction and 
     moves inexorably toward unleashing those weapons on us or on 
     our allies, either directly or through proxies, it would be 
     difficult to defend a completely doctrinaire response to the 
     questions your letter addressed to me. In so ambiguous a 
     situation, the allocation of power between the President and 
     Congress is not a matter that admits of absolutely confident 
     and unambiguous assertions, for the Constitution's framers 
     wisely left considerable areas of gray between the black 
     and white that often characterize the views of advocates 
     on both sides of the invariably heated controversies that 
     attend instances of warmaking.
       That said, it remains my view, as I wrote in volume one of 
     the 2000 edition of my treatise, ``American Constitutional 
     Law,'' Sec. 4-6, at page 665, ``although the Constitution 
     does not explicitly say that the President cannot initiate 
     hostilities without first consulting with and gaining the 
     authentic approval of Congress, that conclusion flows 
     naturally, if not quite inescapably, from the array of 
     congressional powers over military affairs and especially the 
     provisions in Article I, Sec. 8, clause 11, vesting in 
     Congress the power to declare war. To permit the President 
     unilaterally to commit the Nation to war would read out of 
     the Constitution the clause granting to the Congress, and to 
     it alone, the authority `to declare war.' '' (Footnotes 
     omitted.) Whether with the aid of the War Powers Resolution 
     of 1973--a resolution that some have regarded as a quasi-
     constitutional articulation of the boundaries between the 
     Presidency and the Congress--or without regard to that much 
     mooted (and arguably question-begging) assertion of 
     congressional power to draw those boundary lines for itself--
     one would be hard-pressed to defend the proposition that, 
     simply because the President thinks it inconvenient to bring 
     Congress into his deliberations and to await Congress's 
     assent, he may suddenly proceed, like the kings and emperors 
     of old, unilaterally to unleash the dogs of war.
       I put to one side the profound lesson of our ill-fated 
     involvement in Vietnam--the lesson, as I see it, that a 
     President who wages war without first assuring himself of the 
     deep national consensus and commitment that can come only 
     from a thorough national ventilation of the arguments pro and 
     con plunges the nation into a perilous and probably doomed 
     course. Purely from the perspective of wise policy, that is a 
     lesson one hopes is not lost on our President, or at least on 
     his closest advisors, many of whom would seem to be astute 
     students of American history. But it is probably for the 
     best, in the long run, that the Constitution does not 
     invariably enjoin wisdom upon those who wield power in its 
     name. It leaves each of the three great branches of the 
     national government free to make serious, even tragic, 
     blunders--a fate from which not one of the three branches of 
     government is immune. In any event, I reach the 
     constitutional conclusions expressed in this letter not by 
     virtue of any firm convictions one way or the other about the 
     path of wisdom in the difficult circumstances we face when 
     dealing with as malevolent and dangerous a leader as Iraq's 
     Saddam Hussein. I lack the hubris to pretend that I know 
     better than the President and his Administration just what 
     the path of wisdom is in this matter. My very substantial 
     doubt that the President has constitutional authority to 
     launch a preemptive or preventive strike against Iraq 
     therefore represents as detached a reading as I am capable of 
     giving the relevant constitutional text, structure, and 
     history.
       It seems quite clear that S.J. Res. 23 (Pub. L. No. 107-
     40), the joint resolution authorizing the use of U.S. 
     military force against those responsible for the attacks of 
     September 11, 2001, would not furnish the requisite 
     congressional assent to any such strike against Iraq, or even 
     to the introduction of U.S. armed forces into imminent or 
     actual military hostilities in Iraq for the purpose of 
     removing Saddam Hussein from power. Unless convincing 
     evidence of Iraq's involvement in the terrorist attacks of 
     September 11 were to emerge, that joint resolution could not 
     be said to offer even a fig leaf of cover for such a military 
     campaign. To its credit, the Bush Administration does not 
     appear to have suggested the contrary.
       Nor could anyone argue that Pub. L. 102-1, enacted in 1991 
     to authorize the use of military force by President George 
     H.W. Bush against Iraq to repel its invasion of Kuwait, 
     offers any basis for a current military campaign to topple 
     the Hussein government. To be sure, that enactment, 
     promulgated pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 678 
     to achieve the implementation of previous Security Council 
     resolutions, may well have authorized U.S. armed forces to 
     proceed to Baghdad at the time of Operation Desert Storm had 
     the first President Bush decided to take that course. But he 
     did not, and the time to complete that military thrust--a 
     thrust that was abruptly ended a decade ago--has long since 
     passed, the causus beli of that occasion now long behind us.
       The circumstances that Saddam Hussein's government is 
     undoubtedly in violation of numerous commitments that 
     government made to the United Nations as a condition of the 
     termination of Operation Desert Storm--commitments regarding 
     access for U.N. inspectors to confirm that Iraq is not in 
     fact developing and secretly storing lethal materials related 
     to weapons of mass destruction--cannot by itself eliminate 
     the constitutional requirement of congressional authorization 
     for the waging of war by our armed forces.
       One might, finally, imagine someone arguing that the 
     absence of congressional debate and authorization should not 
     be deemed fatal to the constitutionality of a preemptive 
     military strike on Iraq for the pragmatic reason that such a 
     debate would disclose too much to the enemy, depriving our 
     plans of the shield of secrecy and our troops of the safety 
     such a shield might provide. But any such argument--whatever 
     constitutional standing it might have in other 
     circumstances--would, of course, be unavailing on this 
     occasion, if only because whatever shield secrecy might 
     otherwise have provided has been rendered moot by the Bush 
     Administration's repeated floating of trail balloons on the 
     subject. Not to put too fine a point on it, whatever cover a 
     secret military attack on Iraq might have enjoyed has by now 
     been thoroughly blown.
       I am therefore constrained to conclude that, on the basis 
     of the facts as I understand them, the Bush Administration 
     does not currently have sufficient constitutional and/or 
     legislative authority to introduce U.S. armed forces into 
     Iraq in order to wage war on that nation's government--even 
     for the overwhelmingly salutary purpose of toppling

[[Page S10645]]

     an authoritarian regime that has deployed weapons of mass 
     destruction against its own people, that is overtly and 
     overwhelmingly hostile to our nation, that threatens the 
     security and stability of some of our closest friends and 
     allies, and that besmirches the very idea of human rights.
       If the President would use military force against the 
     government in Baghdad, he must first consult with and obtain 
     the consent of the Congress.
       With best regards, I am
           Sincerely,
     Laurence H. Tribe.

                          ____________________