Senator Kennedy also posted on Dailykos with the text of his bill to block further troop deployment to Iraq unless the President first outlines the mission and it's goals.
In contrast we've seen Joe Biden and Steny Hoyer both state that they don't think the Congress has the Constitutional Power to block the President's "Surge" even though Congress has done exactly that many times in the past.
Via Think Progress.
December 1970. P.L. 91-652 — Supplemental Foreign Assistance Law. The Church-Cooper amendment prohibited the use of any funds for the introduction of U.S. troops to Cambodia or provide military advisors to Cambodian forces.
December 1974. P.L. 93-559 — Foreign Assistance Act of 1974. The Congress established a personnel ceiling of 4000 Americans in Vietnam within six months of enactment and 3000 Americans within one year.
June 1983. P.L. 98-43 — The Lebanon Emergency Assistance Act of 1983. The Congress required the president to return to seek statutory authorization if he sought to expand the size of the U.S. contingent of the Multinational Force in Lebanon.
June 1984. P.L. 98-525 — The Defense Authorization Act. The Congress capped the end strength level of United States forces assigned to permanent duty in European NATO countries at 324,400.
November 1993. P.L. 103-139. The Congress limited the use of funding in Somalia for operations of U.S. military personnel only until March 31, 1994, permitting expenditure of funds for the mission thereafter only if the president sought and Congress provided specific authorization.
The main problem with a "Surge" is that it's just doesn't include enough troops to get the job done.
Counter-insurgency operations require at least 20 combat troops per 1000 people in a given area. And look closely. That's not just military personnel, but combat troops.... [Yo]u'd need 120,000 combat troops to mount real counter-insurgency operations just in Baghdad. We currently have 70,000 combat troops in the whole country. So concentrate all US combat personnel in Iraq into Baghdad. Then add 20,000 more 'surge' combat troops. That leaves you 30,000 short of the number the Army thinks you'd need just in Baghdad.
And it's certainly clear we don't have 120,000 combat ready troops to spare, not right now. This "Super-Surge" idea which is essentially what Gen. Shinseki argued we needed at the very start of the Iraq War - has now been embraced not just by John McCain, but also Lindsey Graham and even Dick Morris.
If 120,000 is what we need and we don't have it - we'll need to get those troops elsewhere. If we hadn't completely fubar'd the training of Iraqi Troops, and could trust them not to engage in sectarian internecine warefare we'd have more than enough of what we need.
But we don't.
If we could trust the Saudi's to come in a create a bulwark to protect the Sunni's - we possibly have enough if the presence of even more foreign troops wouldn't drive the Iraqi even further over the edge.
But we can't.
The one option left to us - is Diplomacy. We need to sit down and start having some serious talks with al-Maliki, and the Sadr Sect of the Iraqi government. We need to talk about Insurgent Amnesty. We may need to talk about Partitioning the Country (and the Iraqi Security forces) and establishing a Senate with equal reqpresentation from each the three major factions, Kurd, Sunni and Shia. We may need to include the Saudis, Iranians, Turkish and Syrians in these talks.
We need to put al-Qaeda in Iraq on the back burner. Zarqawi is long dead. Saddam is dead. It's time to look toward the future and it won't be easy, especially since this is the very last thing anyone expects President Bush to recommend tonight.
He's heard from everyone, he's heard from the Iraq Survey Group and most of the Congres and almost no-one supports this "Surge" as insufficent and pointless in the midst of a growing Civil War.
But he's going to do it anyway and warn the Congress not to try and stop him.
They will debate the issue and ultimately they probably will generate a resolution of some type denying and/or objecting to escalation - and then he'll just do it anyway and punctuate his action with a Signing Statement.
Where we go from there is anyones guess. Does Congress sue the President in order to get him to abide by an anti-escalation resolution? How long will that take to go through the courts? What court has jurisdiction? What if the court sides with the President, or worse yet - what if the Court sides with the Congress?
Would not such a blatant disregard for the will of the people, the will of Congress and the rule of law - knowingly sending more of our troops into a hopeless "No win" situation - not be a highly Impeachable Offense?
If this is the path the Bush intends to pursue tonight will be the first day of the end of his Presidency. May it be remembered long in infamy.
Vyan
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