U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) spoke yesterday to a class at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy about what he called the Bush administration's stonewalling of Congress before the legislature signed its "Declaration of Principles" with the Iraqi government
last November.
Delahunt, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, has called hearings on the declaration, which uses broad language and commits U.S. forces in Iraq to intervene in cases of "external and internal aggression."
"That's like saying, 'Okay, the [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki government is going to determine for the United States which side we're going to end up on in a civil war,'" Delahunt said to Professor Michael Glennon's "Public International Law" class yesterday.
This agreement between Iraq and the United States came about because the U.S. Congress, Delahunt said, has "fallen asleep" in its duty of overseeing the executive branch.
"We have up until recently abrogated our role as a constitutional check on the power of the executive," Delahunt said of Congress.
Delahunt criticized the idea that the "Declaration of Principles" is a status of forces agreement (SOFA). SOFAs are made between governments outlining the types of operations that military forces can conduct in foreign countries and the jurisdiction under which those operations fall.
"This is far beyond that," Delahunt said, saying that no SOFAs that he examined authorize the use of force.
Delahunt called the Bush administration "the most secret administration in the history of mankind ... This is not how to run a democracy," he said.
He endorsed an idea crafted by the National War Powers Commission that calls for a standing committee in Congress that would regularly meet and discuss foreign policy issues with executive branch officials. The body would be fully staffed and would discuss "foreign policy issues of significant concern."
"It's not really about the War Powers [Act]," Delahunt said. "It would be about consultation because it's so critically
important."
Delahunt said that leaving the decision to go to war to a single executive is too risky. "It's simply too important to let the executive make that decision," he said.
Delahunt started yesterday's discussion with the idea that the United States and Iran have common interests in Iraq, and that it should come as no surprise to Americans. He talked about the Supreme Council for the Islamic Resolution in Iraq (SCIRI), now known as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, and how that Shiite political party has negotiated agreements between al-Maliki and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
"They have been anointed, if you will, de facto by the administration as the Americans' Shia allies in Iraq," Delahunt said. "At the same time they still have very positive constructive relationships with the Iranians. So this should come as no surprise that American interests and Iranian interests have intersected at this particular point because of the history of the SCIRI."
"But most Americans, when they hear that we have mutual interest with Iran, they ask, 'Why?' And I think that's a very telling point," Delahunt said.
Delahunt said that this type of deceit is what led to the ill-advised war in Iraq, because many members of Congress were uninformed on the issues regarding Iraq and gave the Bush administration free reign to conduct a war.
"What was remarkable in the run up to the war was the lack of consultation between the United States Congress and the White House," Delahunt said.
Glennon praised Delahunt's work and focus in Washington over the past decade.
"There's an old saying in Washington that there are two kinds of people in D.C.: one kind who come to D.C. to be something and the other kind that come to D.C. to do something," Glennon said. Delahunt "is very emphatically someone who has come to do something and he has been doing something for the last 10 years."
Glennon testified on Feb. 8 before Delahunt's subcommittee to discuss the "Declaration of Principles."
The International Law Society (ILS) co-sponsored yesterday's event, and its members
attended.
Fletcher student and ILS Co-President Sam Feldman told the Daily that he agreed with Delahunt. "The president is playing word games to get around the Constitution,"
he said.
