Why Congress is not serious about the war powers in the Constitution
By William Smith, opinion contributor — 01/16/20 04:00 PM EST
Both the House and Senate resolutions to prohibit military attacks on Iran have little chance of restricting the ability of the executive branch to do so. While the House resolution is designed to trigger the authority of the decades old War Powers Act, the executive branch will certainly ignore it, while the Senate resolution will certainly be killed by a presidential veto. This is all kabuki theatre. On war powers, the Constitution is now a dead letter, and the United States is no longer a republic but an imperial power.
This sad reality could not have been made more clear when the defense secretary scolded lawmakers for considering a debate on war powers. The Constitution is simply an annoyance to members of the military industrial complex. Archaic documents, we are implicitly told, should not dictate critical national security policy that calls for decisive action and dispatch. The problem is not that the Constitution is vague about war powers. The problem is that the executive branch actively chooses to ignore it because it is inconvenient, while Congress acquiesces because lawmakers want no part of the very tricky business of war or in accepting blame for mistakes.
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/478631-why-congress-is-not-serious-about-the-war-powers-in-the-constitution
