In its long Sunday editorial, the New York Times says:
If Mr. Bush refuses to deliver this ultimatum to Mr. Maliki, Congress will have to do so in his stead. That’s not the usual division of labor between the executive and legislative branches, but it is one that Mr. Bush has made necessary by his refusal to face realities. The potential consequences of his failed leadership are so serious that neither the new Democratic majorities in Congress, nor the public at large, can afford the luxury of merely criticizing from the sidelines.
So what can Congress do? Let's discuss on the flip.
The Times writes:
So far, Congress is off to an encouraging start, holding substantive oversight hearings and asking probing questions of administration officials for the first time in too many years. Similarly encouraging has been the bipartisan character of this reinvigorated oversight. The Congress should continue asking hard questions. And it must insist on real answers before acting on any new requests for money to support Mr. Bush’s plans to send more troops to Baghdad. Congress has the authority to attach conditions to that money, imposing benchmarks and timetables on Mr. Bush, who then would be forced to impose them on the Iraqi government.
. . . It’s now up to Congress to force the president to live up to his constitutional responsibilities and rescue this country from the consequences of one of its worst strategic blunders in modern times.
History will surely blame Mr. Bush for leading America into Iraq, but it will blame Congress if it does not act to push him onto a more realistic path.
Can the Congress "attach conditions to [funding], imposing benchmarks and timetables on Mr. Bush?" Well, it depends. It can do so in de facto fashion, but it can not do so by EXPRESSLY telling President Bush how many troops to have in Iraq or for how long.
Senator Russ Feingold has hinted at the manner in which this could be done, while I think Senator Kennedy has gone down the wrong path.
Senator Feingold wrote:
Congress will continue to give our troops the resources and support they need, but by, for example, specifying a time after which funding for the war would end, it can give the president the time needed to redeploy troops safely from Iraq.
The Congress clearly has the power to do this and this makes good political sense as well. Tell the President and the American People that the Congress says that after x date, it is over. No more money. Mr. President you will have to get the troops out by then, or it will be you who endangers the troops. This is sound constitutionally; the Congress will not be impinging on the President's power to conduct the war. It will be a pure exercise of the Congressional power of the purse.
By contrast, what Senator Kennedy and the New York Times propose is in fact not sound constitutionally as both proposals involve the Congress engaged in managing the conduct of the war. Nor are they real solutions, practically or politically. Senator Kennedy proposes to regulate the Commander in Chief's ability to determine the number of troops in Iraq. The New York Times proposes conditions and contingencies on Congressional funding. But that is simply not the design of the Constitution. It is funding, not C-i-C conduct, that Congress can regulate. As I wrote in this diary:
The bottom line is clear. WHETHER the United States enters war or CONTINUES at war is the exclusive decision of the Congress. But the CONDUCT of that specific war, subject to Congress' power of military rulemaking (on torture, the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions, etc.), belongs exclusively to the President.
The Congress' power here seems clear to me. It can END the Iraq war. But it can not dictate how it is conducted on military questions. That power belongs to the President.
Senator Feingold has the right idea.