[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 6 (Friday, January 10, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H173-H174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR POWERS DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, throughout the debate yesterday on the 
so-called War Powers Resolution, fundamental misunderstandings surfaced 
that I think need to be addressed.
  The first misunderstanding is that the justification for the attack 
that killed Soleimani was that he was an evil terrorist responsible for 
the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Well, there are a lot of evil 
terrorists out there, and that does not give the President authority to 
launch attacks on foreign countries to kill them.
  But what did give the President authority in this case, was the fact 
that Soleimani was acting as an armed combatant against U.S. forces in 
a war zone in which the Congress had authorized the President to take 
military action through the Authorization for the Use of Military Force 
in Iraq in 2002.
  Now, I hate to shock my woke colleagues, but killing active enemy 
combatants is what war is all about, and it is a war that Congress 
started with that act.
  That act of Congress provides: ``The President is authorized 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.''
  The very nature of this authority includes combating hostile militia 
and armed proxies acting within Iraq against American forces. That is 
exactly what the President did.
  The authorization to use military force did not end with the defeat 
of Saddam Hussein any more than the President's military authority in 
Japan and Germany ended with the defeat of Hirohito and Hitler.
  In those cases, the President's authority didn't terminate until 1952 
and 1955, respectively, and the President's military authority in Iraq 
remains in effect until the President and Congress terminate it.
  Now, the second misunderstanding is that the President's action was 
an attack on Iran. It most certainly was not. It was carried out in the 
theater of war defined by Congress against a combatant who was 
commanding hostile forces against American troops.
  Not only did the President act entirely within his legal authority as 
Commander in Chief, but within his moral responsibility to protect 
American military and diplomatic personnel and American citizens in 
Iraq.
  The third misunderstanding is that the War Powers Act is applicable 
in this circumstance. The War Powers Act governs only those 
circumstances when the President responds without congressional 
authority to an attack upon the United States, its territory or 
possessions, or its Armed Forces. In this case, the President already 
had congressional authority.
  The fourth misunderstanding is that the attack on Soleimani was 
equivalent to President Obama's attack on Libya. The two are entirely 
different matters. The attack on Libya had no congressional 
authorization and the War Powers Act did not apply because Mr. Obama's 
military attack was not in response to an attack on the United States, 
its territory or possessions, or its Armed Forces.
  It was an entirely unprovoked attack, entirely unauthorized and, 
accordingly, it was entirely illegal.
  I think as we go forward, we need to get back to some basic, 
fundamental understandings about the constitutional parameters of war 
powers.
  The American Founders made a sharp distinction between starting a war 
and waging a war for some very good reasons. They understood that this 
most solemn and lethal decision should not be entrusted to one 
individual whose authority would be greatly augmented by it.

  The decision to start a war was given exclusively to Congress to 
assure that every voice in the country was heard, and that Congress, 
once having taken that stand, would be obligated to put the resources 
of the country behind that war and those fighting it.
  But once the war has begun, the Founders wanted a single Commander in 
Chief directing it with clear and unambiguous authority. There is no 
surer path to military disaster than having 535 squabbling prima donnas 
second-guessing every decision being made.
  Thus, the President can wage war but cannot declare it, and the 
Congress can declare war but cannot wage it.
  The Founders debated these principles thoroughly during the 
Constitutional Convention. They recognized that the President did need 
certain residual military power to repel an attack when Congress 
couldn't act. And I believe the War Powers Act faithfully defines these 
circumstances and establishes a framework to contain them.
  But the War Powers Act does not give the President the authority to

[[Page H174]]

launch military attacks except in response to a direct attack on our 
country, nor can it limit the President's authority as Commander in 
Chief once Congress does authorize war.
  I believe the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force in 
Iraq was a colossal mistake. It created a dangerous power vacuum. It 
was never supported with the full resources of the United States, and 
it was without provocation.
  But there should be no rewriting of history here. It might have been 
George W. Bush who advocated for the war and Bush, Obama, and now 
President Trump who have waged it, but it was Congress' adoption of the 
AUMF that formally started it.
  And once started, only the President can wage it. President Trump 
inherited this mess and history will judge how well he handles it. 
Certainly, in this instance, the President not only had clear and 
unambiguous authority to order the attack, he had a moral imperative to 
do so.
  What is crystal clear from the debate yesterday is that if the 
Democrats had had their way, Soleimani would be alive today, and the 
attack on American troops that he was in the final stages of planning 
would have unfolded. We would likely, today, be mourning very many 
American casualties.
  If the President, knowing that this attack was coming and in full 
possession of the opportunity and the authority to stop it, had taken 
the Democrats' advice and done nothing, he would have been deeply 
culpable for the loss of these Americans. It is shocking to me, and 
perhaps to the country as well, that even in hindsight this is the 
course the Democrats have made clear that they prefer.
  That brings me to the nature of the resolution that the House passed 
yesterday. The separation of war powers between the legislative and 
executive branches has been badly blurred in recent decades, and I do 
believe that we need to reestablish not only the constitutional 
principles that separate the declaring of war from the waging of war, 
but also the American tradition that we only go to war when we have 
been attacked.
  When we must go to war, we have the utmost obligation to put the 
entire might and resources and attention of the Nation behind it, and 
to get it over with just as quickly as possible.
  Now, that is a legitimate debate to have, but that is not what the 
House did yesterday. Yesterday, it deliberately and recklessly 
undermined the position of the United States Government and the United 
States Armed Forces that we sent to Iraq, shredding the tradition that 
politics stop at the water's edge.
  In a perilous moment, the House refused to stand behind the war that 
it had authorized in 2002, refused to protect the men and women that it 
placed in harm's way, and it gave a hostile foreign power a major 
propaganda victory.
  That is yet another stain upon the honor of this House, and one which 
should be deplored and condemned through the ages to come.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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