[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H19-H20]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                CONGRESS SHALL HAVE POWER TO DECLARE WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Himes) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, for the last 2 months, the House has been 
riven by the process of impeachment. It has been emotional, divisive, 
and challenging. If you noticed, many of the statements about 
impeachment started with some version of this: Impeachment is the most 
serious thing that Congress will do, other than declare war.
  Well, here we are. In the next day, in the next month, and in the 
next year, this body may be called upon to make decisions that will 
alter history and possibly send young men and women to their deaths or 
not. I say ``or not'' because, once again, I see Congress at risk of 
failing to stand up for the clear mandate placed on us by the 
Constitution, to which each and every one of us took an oath.
  There is no argument about our duty here. The language of the 
Constitution is plain: Congress shall have power to declare war, not 
Congress shall have power to declare war unless the President wants to 
retaliate against someone; not Congress shall have power to declare war 
unless a Syrian airbase needs destruction; not Congress shall have 
power to declare war unless our forces are attacked in the Tonkin Gulf.

  Congress shall have power to declare war. Period, full stop.
  Mr. Speaker, in the long run, this has nothing to do with our 
confidence in a particular President. It has everything to do with 
whether we take the obligations that Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton asked 
us to take seriously. In their wisdom, the Founders understood that 
every American--every American--should have a voice in the decision to 
go to war because it will be those Americans who offer up their

[[Page H20]]

sons and their daughters; because it will be those Americans and their 
children who will sacrifice not just themselves but the roads, the 
bridges, the schools, and the scholarships that will get consumed in 
the costs of war; and because our Founders understood that the true 
power of our awesome war machine was not in the technology. It lay in 
the sober assent and careful enthusiasm of millions of Americans, not 
in the decision of one person in an Oval Office.
  So, here we are. Yes, the questions are many and complicated. Was the 
strike on General Soleimani legal? Was it ethical? Was it smart? These 
are not easy questions, and I suspect the answers will come only over 
time and after careful study. But right now, in this there is a 
question that hangs the lives of our people and potentially trillions 
of dollars: What comes next?
  For those of us who were chanting, cheerleading, and whipping 
themselves into a belligerent frenzy, reflect on our experience over 
the last 20 years in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Comments 
by the Secretary of Defense notwithstanding, that we are not looking to 
start a war, but we are prepared to end one, the experience of the last 
20 years is that we are not prepared to end any war. Some estimates 
suggest that we have spent $6 trillion on Middle Eastern wars, and more 
importantly, we have laid down the lives of thousands of our men and 
women.
  While we may have taken some satisfaction from the removal of people 
like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi, at what cost? One of our most 
accomplished Middle Eastern diplomats, Philip Gordon, answers that 
question best. Philip Gordon wrote this years ago: ``In Iraq, the U.S. 
intervened and occupied, and the result was a costly disaster. In 
Libya, the U.S. intervened and did not occupy, and the result was a 
costly disaster. In Syria, the U.S. neither intervened nor occupied, 
and the result is a costly disaster.''
  Mr. Speaker, I close my plea for care, thoughtfulness, and careful 
consideration by reminding my colleagues of a friend who died almost 
exactly a year ago, Walter B. Jones, Jr., from North Carolina. Some of 
us in this Chamber remember his journey.

                              {time}  1045

  In 2003, he was an ardent supporter of the Iraq war; and over time 
and, in particular, when he attended the funeral for a young sergeant 
in his district, he came to regret his decision. This was the guy who 
led the charge to rename French fries ``freedom fries,'' and he came to 
be haunted by what he had done and by what we had done.
  I didn't know Walter well, but we celebrated his life when he died. 
Let's be like Walter. Let's learn the cost of war--but let's not attend 
funerals to do it--and give this decision the careful consideration it 
deserves.

                          ____________________