War Powers

WASHINGTON -- The air campaign in Yugoslavia has reignited debate in Congress over the War Powers Resolution -- the Vietnam-era legislation that gives lawmakers the power to halt a move by any president to launch military operations on his own.The issue will face a test today, when a key House committee is slated to vote on a pair of proposals -- filed under the War Powers Resolution -- to force a choice between a declaration of war by Congress and a...

ANYONE WHO STILL believes partisan politics stops at the water's edge should consult three roll calls inscribed in the Congressional Record.The first occurred in mid-July 1973 when Congress was in the process of passing the War Powers Resolution over the veto of President Nixon. A reaction to Vietnam, the resolution was a legislative attempt to limit a president's authority to deploy U.S. forces overseas without congressional approval. No president since has considered the resolution constitutional.

London -- The United Nations is in the former Yugoslavia, for better or worse, to try to keep the peace, which means attempting, however difficult, to stand equidistant between the hostile parties, negotiating, cajoling, policing mini-truces as they occur, and facilitating the transit of humanitarian relief. It is not there to make war, to roll back aggression, to bring freedom to a victimized people.But it has that right. The U.N. Charter, 50 years old this month, says so. Article 42: ''The Security Council . . . may take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.

WASHINGTON -- A Republican-led effort to repeal the 1973 War Powers Act was narrowly defeated in the House yesterday, victim of what its once-confident sponsors conceded was "bad timing" in the midst of congressional anxiety over a possible U.S. role in Bosnia-Herzegovina.Despite an impassioned appeal by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., a number of GOP freshmen bolted party ranks and sided with Democrats to defeat a repeal of the Vietnam War-Era act by a 217-201 vote.[In the Maryland delegation, Republicans Connie Morrella and Wayne Gilchrest joined their Democratic colleagues to oppose the measure.

Could it be that the ill-conceived War Powers Resolution passed in 1973 is going to get the burial it has long deserved? The prospects are propitious. Senate Republican leader Bob Dole now admits he was wrong in voting for the resolution during the emotions of the Vietnam War. He has sponsored a measure that would repeal the most noxious features of this congressional attempt to restrict presidential authority and has every right to expect strong support from President Clinton.Like Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, President Clinton has never accepted the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution.

President Clinton, in his address to the nation last night on the Haiti crisis, never once mentioned the Congress or acknowledged a legislative role in sending U.S. troops into peril.We recognize that this president -- any president -- is obliged to protect executive authority from legislative encroachment in the exercise of his duties as commander in chief. But what if he acts unwisely, what if he over-reaches, what if he pursues a course of action overwhelmingly opposed by the public and the Congress as seems to be the case in commiting the U.S. to an invasion of Haiti?

Washington. -- Haiti has been threatened with a U.S. military invasion. The United Nations has given the United States its approval. The Marines are doing maneuvers in the Caribbean. President Clinton has discussed America's obligations in a post-invasion Haiti.All of this has happened, and yet Mr. Clinton still hasn't asked permission of Congress, and, through it, the American people.Recent history is rife with examples of presidents committing troops abroad without congressional approval -- or even prior knowledge.

So now it's the Republicans who are talking peace and the Democrats who are peddling bogus constitutional law.Bob Dole, the Senate Republican leader, introduced a bill to prevent President Clinton from committing American forces to Haiti except for reasons of national security. Eventually, the president and Mr. Dole compromised on a non-binding resolution. But before that agreement, the administration's lawyers argued the bill was unconstitutional because it interferes with "the right of the president to make foreign policy."

MOST OF WHAT President Bush and Secretary of State Baker have been saying in public has been designed for the ears of Saddam Hussein.Those generals who say the war would last three days are probably following the psychological-warfare script, working on the mind of Mr. Hussein. Those generals who said the war would last long, with high casualties, and that they lacked resources probably represented the mainstream of Pentagon advice.Members of Congress who talked about war powers and the Constitution were thinking about their own relation to the American people.