Exercising Wartime Powers: The Need for a Strong Executive‪.‬

The Iraq is beginning to look like a rerun of the Vietnam War, and not just because critics are crying out that the United States has again fallen into a quagmire. War opponents argue that a wartime president has overstepped his constitutional bounds and that if Congress' constitutional role in deciding on war had been respected, the United States could have avoided trouble or at least have entered the war with broader popular support. According to Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, the White House is improperly "abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture, and is spying on American citizens." The terrorists would never have been harshly interrogated and intelligence surveillance never domestically expanded if only President George W. Bush had looked to Congress. These war critics misread the Constitution's allocation of warmaking powers between the executive and legislative branches. Their interpretation is weakest where their case should be its strongest: who gets to decide whether to start a war. For much of the history of the nation, presidents and congresses have understood that the executive branch's constitutional authority includes the power to begin military hostilities abroad.