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the war powers resolution is this complicated
framework
whereby the president can decide to commit military forces in an emergency but then he
has to go back to congress etcetera etcetera
which has been criticized by many
scholars
as too complicated and unwieldy but the basic premise was
to
reaffirm the constitutional notion which is written into the constitution that the congress
declares war
the president's commander in chief but the congress declares war
and this administration vice president cheney and the lawyers who he
hired to work for him
have long taken the position that
the defense of the nation was a matter to be decided by the president in secret
that %uh it's not a totally new
position because his father for example
in the case of the first
%uh gulf war
when the congress did finally vote to authorize the invasion of kuwait and the repelling
of iraq
told the congress that should the congress disapprove
that military action their view was that they had the constitutional power to commit u_s_
forces anyway
but this this administration
has gone much further in
trying to institutionalize
that view of presidential power
not just in the question of going to war but in lots of
other related questions and certainly since nine eleven
they've taken the position that the united states is in such danger that only the president
can decide these issues and
by the way he is entitled to do so in secret secret from the congress and secret from the public
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