Congress Role in War Making

Congress Role in War Making

War has become a part of the human world. When we understand the events from the past to the present, for the purpose of dealing with conflicts, human beings have been pampered with weapons. Even though war has become an element of human custom, it has always been seen that efforts have always been made to control the outcome of war and the techniques employed in carrying forward the war. These efforts made to control the outcome of war has resulted in deciding the factors in the western civilization as to what should be the methods to be adopted to conduct the war and the proper time for carrying forward the war. In the case of America, the decision of which wing of government should make war has been a matter of dispute. There are several experts who are of the opinion that the president of USA occupies powers, which have exceeded their limits, and overrides the Congress than what was actually expected of the role of the office of the President by the framers of the Constitution.

Have we allowed the president to exceed his bounds for war making? If so, have those excesses now become institutionalized?

There are several who have opinions that the excessive role of the U.S. presidents over the years would threaten the stability and integrity of democracy intended in the U.S. The President is authorized to safeguard, shield and protect the Constitution of the United States and his responsibilities include implementing the laws passed by the Congress, acting as Commander-in-Chief to suppress disorder or curb revolt, appointing federal judges and settling foreign agreements. Presidents have always been under intimate public assessment even before radio and television made a president's every move the subjects of international attention. They have confronted violent partisan attacks by opposing politicians, citizens and journalists exercising the American traditions of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Thomas Jefferson's description of the president's office as a splendid misery shows the meaning of being president.

Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution states that the all the powers to make all kinds of laws, which includes both the powers of making laws for itself, but also for the other departments rests with the Congress. 1 The Congress is also vested with the power of carrying out the laws into effect by the Constitution. The U.S. constitution also states that the President, who is the Commander-in-Chief has the right being conferred to introduce the U.S. forces into situations of war or to situations of hostility depends upon the particular circumstances namely, in the event of a war, when particular statues are to be authorized, or in the event of emergency of national importance declared by the U.S. As a result of being attacked by another country. Sec. 1542 states further that the President of United States shall in all circumstances have consultations with the Congress where the question at hand is to promote the Armed forces of U.S. into environments where hostility exists or in those environments where hostility is supposed to happen. The section further advises the President to seek consultations from the Congress when the armed forces of U.S. are to be brought back or in situations where they no longer need to be engaged in situations of hostility. 2

1.Erwin C. Hargrove and Roy Hoopes. "The Presidency: A Question of Power." Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975, p.32

2. Mary Mostert. "Making Sense In a Senseless World of Bombing Friends and Protecting Enemy Spies: A Military Target to Bill Clinton, Like the Word 'Sex' and 'Is' Has Been Redefined," Original Sources, May 25, 1999, p.7

But Alexander Hamilton, who was President Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, was of the opinion that the office of the President held powers, which were inherent, even though these powers had not been granted by or written down in the Constitution by its framers. The later Presidents started to indulge in expanding their powers and during the beginning of the twentieth century President Roosevelt had increased his powers to a great extent. According to Roosevelt his opinion was that the office of the President was such that it had a direct connection with the people of America. So he used his office of the President to the extent of gaining support for his actions from the people of America. 3

With the help of the powerful medium of the media, Roosevelt tried to gain public attention as well as by way of publications, he tried to influence the public opinion. But it should be understood that it was Woodrow Wilson, who had greatly influenced the office of the President and changed the face of the President's office from that which was completely devoid of public opinion to one, which tried to seek the approval and attention of the public. Woodrow Wilson was again the first President of USA to have press conferences on a regular basis to promote his opinion to the people via the media. Wilson was not only the President who understood what the public wanted, but was also in a position to convey them to his people. The conducting of press conferences was seen by Wilson as a way to attain the confidence of the public for his policies. 4

3.Forrest, McDonald. The American Presidency: An Intellectual History. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994, p. 45

4. Richard Neustadt, Presidential power: The politics of leadership, New York: Wiley, 1960, p.23

Although he was in support of the parliamentary system of government Woodrow Wilson had to leave his motive for amending the Constitution to adopt a system similar to the British model. Wilson on the other hand favored for providing greater powers to the U.S. president by means of re-analyzing and re-interpreting the U.S. constitution. According to him the Constitution should be a means of reflecting the ideas of the future public of America. According to him, his actions were not intended at bringing about the concept of direct form of democracy. What he opted for was to bring about coordination between the people, the president and the legislature. His most striking contribution was of his intention that it should be the President who should hold the leadership of the party of the President in the Congress. 5

Thus one could witness an increase in the powers of the office of the President during the period of Wilson. There are several people who are of the opinion that the U.S. President holds the most powerful office in the world. The powerful positions held by the office of the U.S. President can also be witnessed in the case of Kennedy and Johnson who had dispatched the U.S. Armed forces to Vietnam without the permission of the Congress and without the Congress declaring war. 6

5. Victoria A. Farrar-Myers, "Transference of Authority: The Institutional Struggle Over the Control of the War Power," Congress & the Presidency, Vol. 25, No. 2, Autumn 1998, p. 192.

6. Thomas M. Franck, "Rethinking War Powers: By Law or by 'Thaumaturgic Invocation'?" The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 83, Issue 4, October 1989, p. 768

In 1933 when Roosevelt came to office, the foreign policy was also influenced, with his support and cooperation being granted during World War II to the Allied powers. During the World War Roosevelt engaged in entering into several agreements with the Allied powers without the support of the Congress. Like Roosevelt during World War II, Lyndon B. Johnson got hit under the Tonkin Gulf resolution. Again it was President Nixon who had initiated the pattern that without the approval of the Congress the President had the powers to allot Armed forces and weapons in any part of the world. 7

Today the U.S. president occupies considerable dominance in matters of foreign policy, and the trend started by these presidents have continued to this day. Without seeking the support of the Congress, President Bill Clinton had launched the war on Yugoslavia during his period. This was considered to be a war of little importance. Though splendid in nature, since the war was being called off after a few days, it had greatly extended the powers of the President. We have seen how the earlier Presidents have used the media as a means of translating their policies into public approval, and they had used the press conferences to spread messages which were decent, and which were clear in translating the ideas of the government to the people.

7. Richard Neustadt, "Presidential power: The politics of leadership," New York: Wiley, 1960, p.52

We can see that recent Presidents like Clinton used public opinion in a variety of cases as a means of overriding the Congress and by trying to get the public support decisions made by the legislative wing was sought to be ignored. The Founders were of the opinion that a president who would be strong would pose as a danger to the system if the public or the electorate would constitute the power in the president. The fear of the Founding Fathers over demagoguery was becoming true in Clinton's thrust on public approval and his oft-repeated calls for public opinion.

Most Federalists considered the concepts of popular leader and demagogue almost synonymously and an excess of passionate appeals constituting the key characteristic of demagoguery. The separation of powers in the American political system may be destroyed if these appeals resulted in the president encroaching the responsibilities of the other branches of the government. By making the presidency a factor in a balanced system of sharing of powers, the Founders wanted to avoid demagoguery. 8. Demagoguery was a threat to the ability of the executive in resisting bad policies and executing the good ones, they felt. There are some experts who are of the opinion that Clinton while in office had tried to divest powers from the other departments of the government and caused a threat to the ability of the government to propose and enact good policy.

8. David, Broyles. "Fundamentals of Intelligence: Prudential Reason and the Founders' Executive." Teaching Political Science 16 (Spring 1989): p.103.

Again while analyzing the Bush administration we find that they efficaciously accelerated a push at the Afghan-war and September 11 terrorist attacks to strengthen the presidential powers, giving President Bush dominance over American government, surpassing that other post-Watergate presidents had, rivaling even the command of Franklin D. Roosevelt. On different fronts, the administration has grown its powers gigantically that it shared with other branches of government. Bush announced huge cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, in foreign policy, but averted a Senate ratification vote, by resisting cuts in a treaty. And the Bush administration also proposed reorganizing the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in domestic policy, without seeking lawmaker's action of the Congress. 9

The office of the President seized the power of the judiciary, in legal policy, as Bush signed an order, which allowed the trial of terrorists in military tribunals. These actions including initiatives to limit intelligence briefings to members of Congress and expanding the executive authority of monitoring and detaining those suspected of terrorism, add to the earlier efforts of the Bush administration to increase the power of the White House. The already abounding presidential powers are heightened out of necessity during times of war as the need for a unifying figure in the government arises.

9. Michael, Powell. "Appeals Court Weighs Bush's War Powers: Act of Congress Needed for Iraq Invasion, Suit Says." Washington Post, March 12, 2003, p.5

Many scholars are of the opinion that Bush has now restored the concept of Imperial Presidency, what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. used to identify Richard M. Nizon's office in 1973 with. Presidents have despised the War Powers Act as an unconstitutional infringement of executive power, ever since President Richard M. Nixon vetoed it. But, however, every president dispatching troops has issued reports as against the War Powers Act. Recent conflicts mostly are over well before the 60 days limit as in the Clinton's strikes against the Sudan and Afghanistan or invasions of Grenada Panama.10 In a few other cases the president either worked out a compromise with Congress providing an air of authority as in the agreement with President Ronald Reagan to keep troops in Lebanon, which proved disastrous, or got approval from Congress as President George Bush got in the Gulf War.

The power President Bush today enjoys is an awe causing one. A single individual deciding whether the war is expanded to Iraq or on how much privacy the American citizens can continue to enjoy is really troublesome. Increasing the power of the President is the right answer, says White House. Power during wartime rest fundamentally in the hands of the executive branch, as per the way the constitution is written, and as per the nation is set up. In the time of war it is common the entire nation focus its eyes on the executive branch and the speed and strength at which they conduct the war. 11

10. Victoria A. Farrar-Myers, "Transference of Authority: The Institutional Struggle Over the Control of the War Power," Congress & the Presidency, Vol. 25, No. 2, Autumn 1998, p. 195

11. Erwin C. Hargrove and Roy Hoopes. The Presidency: A Question of Power. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975, p.37

It seems that the public - and Congress - are happy about Bush assuming as much power as he wishes. He had about 90% votes even before the Afghanistan Campaign progressed and the congressional leaders could not resist the motive of the administration to expand its powers for the purpose of the safety of the nation. The office of President Bush was making efforts to expand the powers of the President, especially in its relationship to Congress-which according to some was already very powerful as grew during the first Bush administration and that of Reagan and Clinton. Practically every administration is resetting its relationship to the Congress with change in time. And it is when the executive branch faces some trouble that the role of Congress grows, particularly on the investigative side 12.

This type of consolidating on presidential authority has expanded to other areas of governance. Undermining a law congress passed on some records, Bush issued an executive order allowing a sitting president to block release of the records of a predecessor. The group split into two that the law would not apply, when an open meeting law prevented a private meeting of Bush's Social Security commission. Rejecting recently amendments to the Biological Weapons Convention, in favor of actions that would not require approval of the legislature, the administration, in foreign affairs, has shown distaste for international treaties that required congressional ratification. The events of September 11, have promoted the trend making the administration go for a new range of powers to support domestic security and fight terrorism. 13

12. Dana, Milbank. Going Backwards: In War, It's Power to the President, Washington Post, November 20, 2001, p.3

13. Dana, Milbank. p.4

Congress granted statutory authority to Tom Ridge, Homeland Security Director, which allowed him to refuse congressional requests for him to testify, which Bush opposed. Without waiting for the usual public comment, Bush's Justice department decided, that if Attorney General John D. Ashcroft believed it necessary to prevent terrorism, he could hear lawyer-client conversations, even if people were not charged, or even in the absence of court order. This was in agreement with the congressional approval of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to monitor, detain, search or deport suspects, and gave the Justice Department more power to detain immigrants without charges. And then the government stopped giving detail of the number of people detained in connection with the September 11 attacks. 14

In the campaign to counter terrorism overseas, Bush ordered that sensitive intelligence briefings as limited to selected eight of the 535 members of the Congress, which lead lawmakers to complain that Bush had violated the 1947 National Security Act. While doing this he also put a notice telling the world of his distrust in the Congress. The president gave up after the lawmakers promised of no leakage of information. The administration had mixed success in its pursuit for more power over fiscal policy. After consulting with the speaker of the House, Bush demanded more power to extend government funding, as the Congress could not convene because of a crisis, the Congress came in the way. After the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, when the administration demanded something like a blank check from Congress the lawmakers objected again. 15

14. Dana, Milbank. Going Backwards: In War, It's Power to the President, Washington Post, November 20, 2001, p.4

15. Dana, Milbank, p.5

The Congress gave the administration $40 Billion to respond to the attacks, but with a few strings attached to it. Yet the lawmakers complained that the Bush administration did not provide the required information on how it was spending it. Some in the legislative branch, especially in the opposition party, feel a striking departure in public policy. Unlike as experienced in the last 30 years, philosophy in the Bush administration today seems to be that the public doesn't have a right to know. What they justify with national security is for the sake of convenience. History offers enough scope for a wartime expansion of presidential power, say the scholars who follow Washington. And the question is whether the White house is ready to accept it and use it properly. Those with this view also are considerable in number. In comparison to free hand the judiciary and Congress gave Roosevelt to fight World War II, the growth in presidential power during the first year of the Bush administration is far beyond what presidents got in recent wars. 16

As for the war on Iraq, the New York Bar Association has stated that there was no hold for the U.S. president to wage war against Iraq in the current situation, without first getting authorization from Congress. The president would be violating the Constitution of the United States if he went to war on his own, stated the Committee on International Security Affairs of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Such a war based only on the president's orders would deny Congress of its Constitutionally granted powers, and could be justified only by an expansive notion of presidential authority, going ahead of what is there in the plain text of the U.S. Constitution.

16. Dana, Milbank. Going Backwards: In War, It's Power to the President, Washington Post, November 20, 2001, p.5

In its effort to cover all areas, the legality of a president-initiated war on Iraq, in three steps: an examination of the reason the Administration gave for undertaking a war on Iraq; an analysis of the U.S. Constitution, and other relevant laws related to authority of the president and that of Congress to initiate such a war, and based on the foregoing analysis, the committee declared that such an invasion of Iraq required authority from the Congress in advance. 17

The committee also made it clear that the president has powers only to defend the U.S. from any imminent military threat, where as the war against Iraq does not appear to the Committee to be something of that type which is within the exclusive authority of the president to carry out. The committee noted, quoting the War Powers Clause (WPR) that under Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, proved that it was only the Congress, which had the power to declare war. The War Powers Act was being framed for satisfying the motives of the founders of the U.S. Constitution.18

According to the Act, it was intended that the U.S. President and Congress would provide the use of collective effort in arriving at decisions for the purpose of engaging the U.S. forces in situations of war or in any other situations of disputes, or for the purpose of extending the use of force in the areas of dispute or where hostility is to continue. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the president must report, and frequently consult with the Congress after the deployment of troops, and if the Congress does not authorize the action, the president must withdraw the military, within 60 days of the deployment. 19

17. Michael, Powell. "Appeals Court Weighs Bush's War Powers: Act of Congress Needed for Iraq Invasion, Suit Says." Washington Post, March 12, 2003, p.5

18. "United States: War Powers Resolution," The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 68, Issue 2, April 1974, p. 373.

19. Ibid, p.374

It may be noted that the WPR was introduced to curb the powers of the president after experiencing excesses, by presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson in initiating and expanding the war in South-East Asia. The report also noted that even president Johnson sought approval of the Congress, for the Vietnam War, and thus affirmed the legitimacy of the War Powers clause. The committee also stated that no text gives the president the authority to deploy U.S. forces without prior approval of Congress except for a sudden danger to the security of the nation, and it holds good even it the cases of the moral reasons or concerns of emerging threats the Administration has cited.

The president has the obligation of enforcing of legislation and swift action in defense of the nation, while determining America's long-term security and decision making from reasoned deliberation is vested in Congress, the report specifies, accepting at the same time that there may be differences of opinion on this. This is particularly true if there is enough time to deliberate that the president is not to decide on his own; but has to convince Congress of the justness of the cause and also of the legitimacy of the means and get its approval. 20

20. Richard D. Hooker, Jr. "Presidential Decision-making and Use of Force: Case Study Grenada." Parameters XXI (Sum 1991): p.64.

Initiatives from the executive, is at the cost of the control of Congress and violate the constitution. The political climate after the World War II has certainly promoted actions beyond the level of the constitution by presidents who are eager to redefine terms like emergency powers and defensive war. Flashpoints like Bosnia, Haiti, the Persian Gulf and Panama come as predictable manifestations of a presidency that is stretching its hands beyond limits. Constitutionally Congress is empowered to declare and authorize war. Congress often being docile and judiciary negligent, president had to virtually confiscate the power to make war. 21

The War Powers Resolution (1973), the more recent expression of authority of Congress, could never curb this process. And hence, Presidents Clinton (in Haiti and Bosnia) and Bush (in the Persian Gulf) have tried to keep aside the approval of congress, by asserting United Nations authority for military actions beyond borders of this country. U.S. forces have fought about a 100 times, without a declaration of war by the Congress. Militarily interventions by United States in Korea, Haiti, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and the Persian Gulf region are examples of this, after World War II. 22

21. Forrest, McDonald. "The American Presidency: An Intellectual History." Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994, p. 52

22. Victoria A. Farrar-Myers, "Transference of Authority: The Institutional Struggle Over the Control of the War Power," Congress & the Presidency, Vol. 25, No. 2, Autumn 1998, p. 194

It was the desire of the Founding Fathers that there has to be a limit to the war-making powers of the President. This is the reason for their vesting the power to declare the war in the Congress only. By declaring that any appropriation of money beyond two years for wars was not to be made, they vested the control over war spending also in the Congress. Hence the President has to come again and again to the Congress to get his quota sanctioned. But American Presidents, after the World War II were, to a great extent free to decide on the deployment of the military assets as to the time and place.

The Congress these days do not have enough time to debate as the time required for military reaction is very short. So they gave the President the War Powers Act, for an immediate response to protect the interests of the Americans, while acting as the Commander in Chief. This is supported by the Article 1, Section 8, which says the Congress could make all necessary laws that are befitting to carrying out the execution of the foregoing powers, as also all other powers, vested in them by the constitution in any department or officer or in the government of the United States. 23

The informal powers created by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson which have arisen throughout the middle end of the 20th century and the powers granted by the constitution has created problems for the U.S. presidents to balance the powers. The presidential powers though sharply restricted, have blown out enormously from its constitutional origins, and these have changed Founder's original structure of the separation of powers. After two centuries of presidential establishment, the powers and the tasks of the office have grown ahead of the ability of any one individual to manage.

23. "United States: War Powers Resolution," The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 68, Issue 2, April 1974, pp. 375.

The role of congress in deciding whether to take U.S. military forces into combat

The Founding Fathers have vested war-making powers in the most representative wing of government, by giving Congress the right to declare war," the plaintiffs argue. 24. They gave Congress the power to declare war for good reasons only. They wanted the decisions, of moving from peace to war, of putting lives and fortune at risk, to be made with care and deliberation and not in haste. James Madison along with the help of James Wilson, who were the outstanding figures of constitutional authority wrote that the constitutional provision 'wouldn't jump us into war; instead it was formulated in such a way to fight against it, and power is not to be in the hands of a single individual, or group of individuals, which would end us in troubles'. The founders had the doubt that the presidents could make war for their own interests.

Madison while writing to Thomas Jefferson stated, the Constitution has taken lessons from the history of all governments, that the Executive is that branch of power most interested in war and most inclined to it. So, it is, accordingly, with studied care that it vested the question of war in the Legislative. 25 There is rarely any war that better illustrates the knowledge of the framers of the Constitution than the war on Yugoslavia. If only there was a full debate in Congress before the war, it is very likely that the wide gulf between its moral purpose of saving the Kosovos, and its utterly divergent means of bombing Yugoslavia would have survived voice of the public.

24. Powell, Michael. "Appeals Court Weighs Bush's War Powers: Act of Congress Needed for Iraq Invasion, Suit Says." Washington Post, March 12, 2003, p.6

25. Forrest, McDonald. The American Presidency: An Intellectual History. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994, p. 72

The doubts of the military and the intelligence community, about the air strategy would have become clear. Commitment from the nation would have been taken before committing the pilots. But the White House expected Congress wouldn't be interested in. Still it was very likely that either choice, of a national commitment to intervene, or the demand of Congress that the president stick to diplomacy and sanctions-authorization- before war, would have been better than a war started almost casually, in the mistaken belief that it would be over in days.

Since December 1998, there is a repeated bombing campaign going on aggressively against the Iraq by the United States. The British and American pilots, during the initial eight months of 1999, fired about 1100 missiles against nearly 360 destinations in the 'intense but little known fight' against Iraq. Differences of opinions in the Congress over the deployment of U.S. ground troops in Yugoslavia is also indicative of the same among the people of America. This difference of opinion could be the reason for the Congress not surpassing the decision of the president on Yugoslavia conflict, and this would explain why the lawmakers left the decision making over the use of the American military force to the chief executive. Not to be-little the Commander in Chief or the military field force the Congress usually do not make much criticism after the conflict starts. Like that took place in the case of the Vietnam War, the Congress intervenes only if the President deviates too much away from the expectations.26

26.Milbank, Dana. Going Backwards: In War, It's Power to the President, Washington Post, November 20, 2001, p.5

Two-third of the damage done by NATO while attacking Yugoslavia has already taken place in the Iraq bombing. But the Iraq war went almost as if unnoticed by the politicians, where as in the case of the war at Yugoslavia the Congress had spirited debate, deputed fact-finding missions of a high profile nature, alerted of cutting the funds, and the U.S. House members tried to assert the restrictions in the War Powers Act. This was evident when the incident of two people getting killed and a number of others getting injured while bombing attacks on Ba'shequa, a northern town of Baghdad about 280 miles off, went without a mention in the Congress, even when the Iraqi officials had shown ample proof. 27

The Congress did not declare any war on Yugoslavia when the American military personnel were given order to attack. The question of rescuing any Americans abroad from unexpected dangers also didn't arise, nor was there any pressure on the President to counter an unexpected sudden attack on America by any foreign invader. Unlike the case in the order for attack in Korea and Vietnam, there was no commitment for the nation to contain any foreign war through unilateral action of the President, when the order to attack Yugoslavia was issued. Instead Javier Solana, a Spanish Marxist, who was the then NATO Secretary-General, gave the order to an American general.28

27. Milbank, Dana. "Going Backwards: In War, It's Power to the President," Washington Post, November 20, 2001, p.5

28. Ibid, p.5

There is a debate going on among politicians and scholars on the role of the President and that of the Congress in war making. Some lawmakers are of the opinion that the Congress breaking all traditions should play an active role in making decisions as far as the U.S. military interventions abroad is concerned. Campbell, a clerk in the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1970s, who himself was a constitutional scholar, and later taught law at Stanford, played a key role in the congressional debate over the war-making powers of the President. While the bombing in Yugoslavia was still going he announced on that Clinton's war was then illegal, he sued over the President's War Powers Act. He held that only Congress could declare a war as per the Constitution. He emphasized that the War Powers Act was meant to check the war-making powers of the President and to give greater powers to the Congress. According to him, the President is the Commander in Chief where as the Congress had the authority to declare a war, under the United States Constitution. The framers vested in Congress, though inefficient and unwieldy, the power to declare a war as it is that branch which pays for all military action, monetarily and in loss of lives among the constituents as well.29

The Congress introduced the War Powers Act in order to make the White House accountable for its actions. There was a clear need for the Congress to assert its authority, with the Cambodia bombings, the Vietnam, Watergate and Chile with Pinochet in the background. But in fact it had an adverse effect. In the balanced government as established in the constitution the Presidency all of a sudden went too powerful. So far the War Powers Act could not curb the war-making powers of the President. It should have done, but failed.

29. Mary, Mostert. "Making Sense In a Senseless World of Bombing Friends and Protecting Enemy Spies: A 'Military Target' to Bill Clinton, Like the Word 'Sex' and 'Is' Has Been Redefined, Original Sources, May 25, 1999, p.8

President Ronald Reagan spent billions of tax dollars in the undeclared wars in the Caribbean and in Central America. Don Edwards, U.S. Representative and Democrat of California called for Reagan's impeachment condemning Presidential war making with cream puff restraints. Then the U.S. Representatives Ted Weiss, Democrat of New York and Henry B. Gonzalez, democrat of Texas also sought impeachment of Reagan for his failure to seek approval from the Congress before he unilaterally launched war on Grenada. To probe into the energy task force of Vice President Cheney by the General Accounting Office, the Clinton administration denied cooperation, and it was only after that a threat had been posed that it had agreed to coordinate with the Senate, which had asked for information on the regulations relating to the environmental policies, which were newly initiated. 30

The Clinton administration refused to hand over to the Congress, with a view to restore the executive privilege, many executive papers, including some from the Clinton administration. There were experts who felt that there was a need to redraw the line marking the separation of powers, at a different spot than the one drawn earlier- with the power of President increased. With the challenges President Bill Clinton had, and learning from Watergate, nowadays the legislative wing of the government, the Congress tend to involve in several arenas, which we see do not come within their sphere of power.

But none of these powers could reach close to dethroning a President for violating provisions vested in him by the Constitution in matters of war making. 31

30. Mary, Mostert. "Making Sense In a Senseless World of Bombing Friends and Protecting Enemy Spies: A 'Military Target' to Bill Clinton, Like the Word 'Sex' and 'Is' Has Been Redefined, Original Sources, May 25, 1999, p.8

31.Ibid, p.9

But they took to national debate the issue of adventure with military, and also served notice that the Congress that controlled monitory aspects of the military only should declare war. However it seems that the Congress ignores its duty, despite the War Powers Act being a good law and in spite of the Constitution saying that it is the Congress that should declare war. It is seen that the Congress surrendered its authority willingly in front of the ever-increasing powers of the White House. It suits them both. The Congress tries to shirk its responsibility of deciding whether the country should go beyond its territory for wars, and the Administration trying to set itself free from being questioned on what is at around the world. 32