The role of President and Congress.

From David Corn's website:



HANDCUFF AWAY. Whenever Congress debates the Iraq war, Bush-backers on and off Capitol Hill argue that Congress does not have the authority to micromanage the commander in chief. Actually, there's a bit of hypocrisy on this point. When House Democrats tried to attach various conditions to funding for the Iraq war earlier this year, their Republican antagonists decried the move as micromanaging. Yet when the Democrats recently pushed a measure calling for withdrawing troops within 120 days, some Republicans slammed the legislation for being too vague. In any event, fans of the Iraq war often cry foul when congressional foes try to infringe upon Bush's prerogatives regarding the war. Now comes the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, to say, Hey, if the House and the Senate want to legislate a president's options during a war, there's nothing wrong--constitutionally speaking--with that.


The new report notes:


It has been suggested that the President's role as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces provides sufficient authority for his deployment of troops, and any efforts on the part of Congress to intervene could represent an unconstitutional violation of separation-of-powers principles. While even proponents of strong executive prerogative in matters of war appear to concede that it is within Congress's authority to cut off funding entirely for a military operation, it has been suggested that spending measures that restrict but do not end financial support for the war in Iraq would amount to an "unconstitutional condition." The question may turn on whether specific proposals involve purely operational decisions committed to the President in his role as Commander in Chief, or whether they are instead valid exercises of Congress's authority to allocate resources using its war powers and power of the purse...


The report provides historical examples of measures that restrict the use of particular personnel, and concludes with a brief analysis of arguments that might be brought to bear on the question of Congress's authority to limit the availability of troops to serve in Iraq. Although not beyond debate, such a restriction appears to be within Congress's authority to allocate resources for military operations.

You can read the full report here.