Iraq War: What did Congress really authorize?

In responding to some comments in a previous post about Kerry and the 2002 war resolution, I recalled that John Dean in his Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush (2004) makes an argument that we don't hear much, even from antiwar bloggers.  (I'm not at all surprised we don't hear it from the mainstream press.)

Leaving aside the more-or-less interesting politics of why it's not likely to be part of the election debate this year, Dean argues that Bush actually violated the war resolution in the way he went to war in Iraq.

The war resolution (Public Law 107-243, 10/16/02, Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002) included some specific conditions.  It didn't just give Bush an open-ended choice to go to war at his own discretion.  As Dean summarizes it:

To avoid having to return to Congress for more debate on Iraq, Bush had pushed for and received authority to launch a war without further advance notice to Congress.  Never before had Congress so trusted a president with this authority.  But in granting this unprecedented authorization, Congress insisted that certain conditions be established as existing and that the president submit a formal determination, assuring the Congress that, in fact, these conditions were present.  Specifically (and here I am summarizing technical wording; the actual language [is in section 3(b) (1) and (2) of PL 107-243]), Congress wanted a formal determination submitted to it either before using force or within forty-eight hours of having done so, stating that the president had found that (1) further diplomatic means alone would not resolve the "continuing threat" (meaning WMD) and (2) the military action was part of the overall response to terrorism, including dealing wtih those involved in "the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."  In short, Congress insisted that there be evidence of two points that were the centerpirce of Bush's argument for the war.

We now know, of course, that there were no nuclear weapons program and no WMDs in Iraq.  And that the claimed connections of Saddam to al-Qaeda were bogus, and the notion that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks even more so.  And,of course, UN weapons inspections were under way in Iraq in 2003, but they were halted by Bush's decision to go to war anyway.

It may seem to be no more than an historical footnote at this point, though these things can come back to bite the unsuspecting in surprising ways.

Dean takes a close look at the documentation Bush submitted to Congress to comply with their requirements for going to war.  And he finds it badly deficient:

Bush, in essence, gave Congress only one purported fact to meet the requirement of making a congressional determination.  He cited the information offered by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations.  [Powell has since publicly acknowledged that his presentation contained inaccurate information, which damaged his international reputation badly.] Bush merely reminded Congress that Powell's report "revealed a terrorist training area in northeastern Iraq with ties to Iraqi intelligence and activities of [al Qaeda] affiliates in Baghdad."  Bush added that "public reports indicate that Iraq is currently harboring senior members of a terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a close [al Qaeda] associate," and that in the past Iraq had "provided training in document forgery and explosives to [al Qaeda]."  He offered no governmental confirmation of this "public report."

... If there is a precedent for Bush's slick trick to involve America in a bloody commitment, where the Congress requires as a condition for action that the president make a determination, and the president in turn relies on a whereas clause (which he provided to Congress as suggested introductory language) and a dubious public report (which fails to address the substance of the conditions for war set by Congress), I am not aware of it and could not find anything even close.

But the Bush administration has been precedent-setting in more ways than one.