PERHAPS WISE, BUT SURELY NOT REQUIRED :

An Invasion of Iraq Requires the Approval of Congress: The Constitution is often ambiguous, but not on the issue of who has the power to declare war (Stuart Taylor Jr., September 4, 2002 , Atlantic Monthly)

As for the reported claims by White House lawyers that Congress has already authorized an invasion of Iraq-by voting last year for a military response to the September 11 attacks and in 1991 to approve the plan to expel Iraq from Kuwait-they rest on such unpersuasive technicalities as to signal intellectual desperation. [...]

An even weaker reed is the 1991 congressional vote authorizing the first President Bush to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions by expelling Iraq from Kuwait. The argument here is that Congress intended in 1991 to authorize a full-scale invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam if, after he was expelled from Kuwait, his conduct within Iraq's own borders violated the terms of his surrender.

Does anyone, anywhere, really believe this? The first President Bush obtained the U.N. resolutions and the congressional authorization alike only by promising that he would not go beyond liberating Kuwait. The House underscored the point by voting overwhelmingly the same day that any invasion of Iraq proper must be explicitly approved in advance by Congress.

Despite having the greatest respect for Mr. Taylor and a personal preference for the administration seeking a declaration of war, this seems to dismissive of the legal argument that the 1991 authorization is sufficient. If, as manifestly seems to be the case, Iraq is in violation of the 1991 cease-fire agreements then why would a renewal of hostilities not be consistent with the original Congressional resolution? Mr. Taylor seems to be saying that the agreement bringing a halt to the conflict in '91 was binding upon our Executive Branch but not upon our enemy--can this really be what our own Constitution requires? If, after the Japanese surrender on board the Missouri, remnants of their armed forces had mounted an attack, would it really have been necessary to get a new declaration of war from Congress in order for our response to have been legal? This seems absurd. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 5, 2002 9:02 PM