Take back the shovel
Congress has the responsibility to start, oversee, and end wars conducted by the United States of America. The President is not the "decider" when it comes to war. We the people elect our representatives to govern, and if after seeking wise counsel Congress decides that it is time for Iraq to stand up, and directs our brave men and women to come home, then Mr. Bush must work with Congress to implement that war policy. Congress gave Mr. Bush the shovel but it is time to take it away. This hole is just getting deeper.
Dan Volkema, Columbus, Ohio, USA
What our other readers have said:
Get back to the Constitution
For the past 6 years Congress has been nothing but yes men/women to the president. We, the majority of American citizens, have voted to tell them to "get some backbone!" Bush is a president not a king. America is supposed to be a Democracy, not an empire. Supposedly we invaded Iraq to rid them of a very bad leader and as the result we have killed far more Iraqis than Saddam ever thought of. Add to that we have sacrificed over 3,200 American lives. Strangely enough, none of them were Bushes or Cheneys. I say: impeach Bush and Cheney and bring our troops home, now. Let's get back to the Constitution!
Mildred Burgess, Asbury, Mo., USA
Timetables are better than just cutting funding
Congress can start a war, and Congress can end a war. Setting timetables is not a way of managing the war, it is a way of abandoning the war in a more controlled way than simply cutting off all funding immediately. Would Bush prefer that?
Christopher Alexander, Canoga Park, Calif., USA
The way it was
What if Congress had sent FDR a deadline for ending the war with Japan in May of 1945? It is a valid comparison. Germany and Italy were defeated. Japan was no longer a military threat. Military planners expected one to two million American lives to be lost before Japan was subdued. People were tired of war.
But as weary as they were, no one would have put up with the imposition of an artificial deadline. People allowed their elected leaders run the war and put their country ahead of their politics. That's how it was... then.
William Morrow, Birmingham, Ala., USA
Hold president to a performance standard
Like most other major issues Congress is trying to politicize the war issue regardless of the viewpoint of it's constituency. Regardless the president should be held to a performance standard in the conduct of the war. Removing Saddam can probably be justified, but policing the aftermath forever is not. Both Congress and the President need to insist that Iraq assume total responsibility for itself. If they will not, then we either withdraw or impose extreme martial law controls.
Robert E. Leedy, East Moline, Ill., USA
Congress can start and end wars
Congress can start a war, and Congress can end a war. Setting timetables is not a way of managing the war, it is a way of abandoning the war in a more controlled way than simply cutting off all funding immediately. Would Bush prefer that?
Christopher Alexander, Canoga Park, Calif., USA
The responsibility of Congress
It is a constitutional right of Congress to state when a war is to end, just as it is to declare war. In this case, President Bush has shown complete insensitivity to the views of our citizenry, and to the true situation in Iraq: his failing performance has given Congress a special responsibility to end a war that Bush seems incapable of ending.
Emmett J Murphy, Bradenton, Fla., USA
Congress has not only the right but the responsibility to legislate in accordance with the wishes of the American public. Voters are overwhelmingly in favor of a timetable for withdrawal, but the president is incapable or unwilling to listen. I'm grateful to see Congress using the power given them by the constitution!
Daniel Enemark, La Jolla, Calif., USA
Iraq is nation building, not war
In Iraq, we are no longer in a war on terror, we are in nation building. Congress should be involved and listened to. Democracy exactly as we know it may or may not be the best solution for Iraq. We have given them a wonderful opportunity to set their own course. A timeline that everyone knows needs to be set. Then the Iraqi people can move toward self-government in what ever form it ultimately manifests.
Pat Brooks, Chickasha, Okla., USA
Congress should demand improvement
Ten thousand Americans have lost their lives. Many more Iraqis – civilian or otherwise – have died as a result of a failed effort to democratize a region without a clear strategy for doing so. Congress not only has a right to demand improvement in Iraq, it needs to.
Nate Currey, Ellensburg, Wash., USA
Permission is not a mandate
As far as I understand it, the president has a duty to conduct the war in the interests of the American people and must, therefore, have the support of Congress to go to war. However, having received permission to go to war is not the same as a mandate to continue it against the will of the electorate. Is it not the duty of Congress to undo that commitment when the constituency concludes that the facts no longer support that policy? Only kings and tyrants dictate the terms and conditions of waging war without regard to the people they allegedly serve. The commander-in-chief is only, after all, the implementer of the policy, not the maker of it.
I fail to see the logic that once a war is started it is like a doomsday machine and that one person, regardless of office, can over ride the will of the electorate. In the same way that President Truman relieved General MacArthur of command in Korea, the Congress should have the authority to remand the "commander" when foreign policy ceases to reflect the will of the people.
Steve Terry, Campbell, Calif., USA
War demands a single voice
With all wars there are very complex dynamics that need to be considered and managed. The Iraq war is the most complex of any that the US has ever been engaged in. There are issues of oil, stemming the terrorist movement, and the issue of having made a commitment to the people of Iraq that could have brutal effects if abandoned. Debating whether we should have entered the war is past, how we manage the war is now the issue.
Any issue as complex as this war cannot be managed by consensus. The commander-in-chief has the responsibility to execute the war once the commitment is made. And a single voice is needed to keep our troops in Iraq confident that they are supported and committed.
Ron Strout, Nahant, Mass., USA
'We the people' have a say
The words "we the people" to me mean we have a say ourselves and through our legislators anywhere, anytime for any reason on any subject. Then we vote.
If one trusts what our president says and does, and then after some period of time we discover what he says may not be truthful and what he does creates more problems, then I would say "we the people" have a voice and the commander-in-chief should listen and adjust actions to match the will of the people.
Everyone in government should be accountable to the will of the people. The president is not captain of a ship at sea.
Bob Schaner, Winston-Salem, N.C., USA
Checks and balances at work
Congress is performing its constitutional prerogative by deciding how money is spent. It just happens that in this case a budgetary concern crosses with a closely held political concern of the president. Congress is completely within its rights to allocate money as it sees fit, and the president is completely within his rights to oppose it. This is the beauty of checks and balances in action.
Jake McPherson, Hilo, Hawaii, USA
Of course Congress has authority to conduct oversight of this or any war. The president has the power to conduct the war as he or she sees fit, and Congress has the authority to investigate that conduct and deny funding if they see fit. That is the separation of powers which our founding fathers envisioned and enshrined in the Constitution, whether it be for a war, or domestic policy, or official appointments. And like any war there will always be controversy about it, but denial of these obligations flies in the face of not only our history and our traditions but our values as well.
Tony Lucio, Los Angeles, Calif., USA
The American people gave their answer last November
I believe that Congress must set deadlines and guidelines for ending our involvement in Iraq. My belief is that after four years of Bush (Cheney, Rice, Rove, et. al.) running the war, only death and more death and trillions of dollars spent with little to show and no end in sight. The American people stated their thoughts last November; was anyone listening? Congress is our only hope in putting a stop to a war that should never have started in the first place. Our president and his staff lied outright to the American people in order to invade Iraq. Why ... should we or would we trust anything that comes out of this administration? Let Congress do their job.
Marion Hamilton, Yorkville, Ill., USA
Congress made their decision at war's start
I feel that Congress made its commitment at the beginning when they voted to go or not to go to war. Once the commitment was made, their position should be a supportive one. Past history has shown us that too many fingers in the pie spoils the entire result. We should finish the committed job, then let our achievements or our mistakes guide us in the future.
Al O'Sada, Dearborn, Mich., USA
Democrats in Congress need to rein in President Bush
I believe Congress gave Mr. Bush more power than he should have in the Patriot Act, their quick agreement to go to war, and their continued rubber-stamping of his policies and budgets. I hope the Democrats can rein in his rampant spending, his apparent blind leaps into conflicts he is unequipped to deal with, and close this shameful chapter of American history. Thankfully, [Bush] is not going to remain in office, but we now have to repair the damage done.
Benchmarks and timelines that objectify what success in Iraq means (apart from gaining control of the oil wells and whether they are producing or not, or obeying Saudi Arabia's and OPEC'S quotas and caps on production) can only help end the conflict there. An Iraqi government that is going to be responsible for the future needs to be given the freedom to create the alliances and structures that work for them. Not for American corporations.
Rae Lee Lester, South Bend, Ind., USA
Congress is overreaching
In war, you need a single leader, not a debating society, and in this sense Congress is overreaching and in the process undermining the troops in the field. Our opponents don't understand the freedom and dialogue of democracy, but they do understand what a democracy's weak points are. Saying the war is lost and pushing for a withdrawal of troops plays into our enemies hands by putting doubts in our soldiers minds and encouraging the enemy to step up the pace. Osama bin Laden commented in an interview with ABC News around 1998 that he had no fear of America or the American military because all he had to do was kill a few Americans and America would run away, as we had in Beirut and Somalia. We made some mistakes at the beginning of the war in not committing to a long war. All insurgencies are long and messy. Malaya, which is often pointed to as the example of a successful defeat of an insurgency, took 10 years, and three years into it the British were expecting to lose the war, before a couple good leaders stepped in and took charge.
Bob Shaw, New Orleans, La., USA
