Washington, Aug 26: Lawyers working for President George W. Bush have concluded he does not need additional congressional approval to order military action against Iraq, White House officials said.
According to the officials, the legal experts based their conclusion on three basic factors.
Under the US constitution, the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the officials said.
They also cited a 1991 congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in the 1991 war and the Sept 14, 2001, resolution which gives the government authority to use force against perpetrators of terrorist acts.
“Any decision the president may make on a hypothetical congressional vote will be guided by more than one factor,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan saidon Sunday.
“The president will consider a variety of legal, policy, and historical issues if this becomes a relevant matter,” he added. “He will confer with Congress, and Congress has an important role to play.”
The legal finding comes amid intensifying debate among prominent Republicans over whether the United States should attack Iraq.
Former secretary of state James Baker, who served in the administration of the current president’s father, George Bush, urged the White House to seek approval from allies before using military force to depose Saddam.
“Although the United States could certainly succeed, we should try our best not to have to go it alone, and the president should reject the advice of those who counsel doing so,” Baker wrote in the New York Times.
He underlined that the costs of such a war would be “much greater”, as would political risks both at home and abroad “if we end up going it alone or with only one or two other countries”.
Arguing that the only realistic way to oust Saddam was through massive use of military force, including the occupation of Baghdad and installation of a new government, Baker also said more casualties than in the 1991 invasion would be likely as a result of such action.
Baker also said the United States should seek a new UN Security Council resolution requiring Iraq to submit to intrusive inspections anytime, anywhere, with no exceptions and authorizing all necessary means to enforce it.
Cheney: Vice President Dick Cheney made a powerful case here on Monday for pre-emptive military action to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, reaffirming the US government’s position on the issue in the face of a growing chorus of domestic criticism.
Cheney said the world could not wait for Iraq to become a more potent threat in the speech in which he painted the alternative option as a kind of wishful thinking.
“The risk (sic) of inaction are far greater than the risk of action,” he told a gathering of military veterans.
“The elected leaders of this country have a responsibility to consider all of the available options, and we are doing so,” Cheney told the national convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars. “What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness. We will not simply look away, hope for the best and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve.”
“The imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combine to produce an imperative for preemptive action,” he said, quoting former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
While emphasizing that Washington would continue to work closely with its allies, Cheney underlined the administration’s view that it had a moral obligation to neutralize what it saw as the Iraqi threat, and in a timely manner.— AFP