by Kerry Thomas
September 7, 2007
Loony liberals are again beating their “hate-Bush” drums,
this time claiming that the war in Iraq is illegal. I could understand if they felt it was immoral. But there is nothing illegal about the Iraq
War.
Article I, Section 8 of the United
States Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war. Article ii, Section 2 makes the President
the Commander-In-chief, the commander of America’s military forces. Once the Congress has declared a war, or
authorized the use of America’s military forces, it is the Constitutional power
of the President to wage that war.
The following is a timeline of the legal authorizations for
the use of American military forces against Iraq.
• August 2, 1990 - Iraq invaded
Kuwait. The United Nations Security
Council called for a full withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
• November 29, 1990 -
the UN ordered Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991 (UNSC Resolution 678).
• January 12, 1991 -
the US Congress passed a joint resolution to authorize the use of United
States armed forces against Iraq pursuant to United Nations Security Council
Resolution 678.
• January 17, 1991 -
the US led an international coalition of military forces in Operation Desert
Storm, with an aerial bombardment of Iraqi forces in Kuwait. On February 24, the ground assault
began. Kuwait was liberated on February
27.
• April 6, 1991 - Iraq
accepted UNSC Resolution 687,
which required destruction of all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and
monitoring by UNSCOM.
By July 1995, Iraq admitted that it again
possessed biological weapons, in violation of UNSC 687, and repeatedly used
them on it’s own people. Between
1990-2002 Iraq violated
at least 16 United Nations Security Council resolutions in addition to
violating numerous other UN resolutions.
Iraq also repeatedly violated the terms of UNSC 687, the
Gulf War cease-fire agreement. These violations are clearly spelled out in H.J.
Res 114, Congress’ “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States
Armed Forces Against Iraq.“
This resolution, signed into law on October 16, 2002, authorized the President “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” and “enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council
Resolutions regarding Iraq.”
On November 8, 2002 UNSC Resolution 1441 warned Iraq that it would
face "serious consequences" if it did not comply with UNSC Resolution
687.
While the United Nations may be a nice little
debating society, it has no legal mechanism for enforcing it’s resolutions.
The United States Constitution governs the use
of US military force. Following the
Constitution, the Congressional “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of
United States Armed Forces Against Iraq” clearly
authorized the President to take military action against Iraq.
Going to war without Congressional authorization
is an impeachable offense. If the
Democrat Congress feels President Bush somehow went to war without Congressional
authorization, they should immediately file articles of impeachment against the
President.
Unless all the Democrat’s rhetoric about an “illegal
war” is just more political gamesmanship on their part.