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December 22, 2005
Tom Daschle on the "Power We Didn't Grant"
Tom Daschle has an opinion piece that will appear in tomorrow's Washington Post (online now) in which he claims that immediately after the 9/11 attack the President asked for power to wage war inside the United States.
On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress authorize the use of military force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States." Believing the scope of this language was too broad and ill defined, Congress chose instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" the attacks of Sept. 11. With this language, Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
But moments before the Senate acted the White House asked that "in the United States and" be added after "appropriate force." The proposal was rejected. And for very good reason.
Here is how Daschle applies this to the current claims of the Administration.
The Bush administration now argues those powers were inherently contained in the resolution adopted by Congress -- but at the time, the administration clearly felt they weren't or it wouldn't have tried to insert the additional language.
This is an excellent piece and deserves to be fully integrated into our current national debate.
The Washington Post also has a journalist article by Staff Writer Barton Gellman on Daschle's piece.
Via Attytood
Posted by Duane Smith at December 22, 2005 8:31 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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