CONGRESS' FINGERPRINTS ON U.S. GOING TO WAR

Apocryphal excerpts from a meeting of the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, December 4, 1990. Following is the exchange between the Speaker of the House, Tom Foley and Congressman Joe Courage of anywhere. In this secret Caucus, the Democrats voted 177-37 against the initiation of hostilities against Iraq. There was no recorded roll call.

Foley: Today's Caucus session will be initially devoted to the role of Congress under the Constitution in declaring war or authorizing the president to use force in the Persian Gulf.

Of course, the president has emergency war-making authority to act in self-defense or, like Korea, where time is of the essence.

However, where time is readily available for the House and Senate to debate Vietnam, for example, or in this Persian Gulf instance then the Constitution requires the president to submit the issue to Congress. Let me quote from one of the leading constitutional authorities on this subject, Professor Stephen Carter of Yale Law School.

"Quite apart from its international-law significance, the declaration power was designed to provide a measure of control over the president's ability to launch an offensive war to make America the belligerent who started things. It is the decision to begin a war where none exists that the Congress under the Constitution must share with the president."

Courage: Why then, Mr. Speaker, did you a couple of weeks ago advise the President not to officially ask Congress for authority to conduct military activities in the Persian Gulf?

Foley: Well, there is a big difference between what the president is constitutionally obligated to do and what is the politically wise thing to do both for him and the 535 members of Congress, I should add.

Let me explain by giving an example. Remember President Reagan's fiasco when he sent the Marines to Lebanon in 1983. Lots of us thought it was a mistake, but we didn't want to look like a bunch of yellow-bellied cowards. Frankly, we were happy to let President Reagan do this one on his own without our fingerprints on it. When the 241 marines were blown up by a suicide bomber, Reagan beat a hasty retreat and most of us in Congress were free to express ourselves on the utter folly of the whole undertaking.

Courage: Is it fair to say that on something as politically hot as this war business, it's better for us to stay on the sidelines and see how it plays out?

Foley: Of course, we have our sworn duty to do and we shall, in a fashion, do it. We will have our secret, non-binding Caucus vote in a minute. But I don't think that most of our brethren want to have a public vote on the record on the floor of the House. There's an unwritten rule around here, "You can explain away a stupid speech; you cannot explain away a stupid vote."

If the war goes well that is, quickly and with only a few hundred fatalities then we can say we were standing with the president during our country's hour of need. On the other hand, if the war goes poorly takes a few weeks; thousands of casualties then we say that we had deep misgivings about it all and that the president should have come to Congress for authority to wage war.

I think we've spent enough time on this. Let's discuss the upcoming budget mess.