Does Congress have the constitutional authority to legislate limits on
the conduct of the war in Iraq?
The answer may seem obvious. But to resolve any lingering doubt, the
Congressional Research Service gave the topic a thorough analytic
treatment in a newly updated report and concluded that Congress does
have such authority.
"It has been suggested that the President's role as Commander in Chief
of the Armed Forces provides sufficient authority for his deployment of
troops, and any efforts on the part of Congress to intervene could
represent an unconstitutional violation of separation-of-powers
principles."
"While even proponents of strong executive prerogative in matters of
war appear to concede that it is within Congress's authority to cut off
funding entirely for a military operation, it has been suggested that
spending measures that restrict but do not end financial support for
the war in Iraq would amount to an 'unconstitutional condition'."
To rebut any such suggestion, the newly updated CRS report "provides
historical examples of measures that restrict the use of particular
personnel, and concludes with a brief analysis of arguments that might
be brought to bear on the question of Congress's authority to limit the
availability of troops to serve in Iraq."
Read the full post...
The Congressional Research Service has produced several newly updated
reports on Iraq for congressional consumption. CRS does not make its
publications freely available to the public, but the following reports
were obtained by Secrecy News.
"Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security," updated July 13, 2007:
"Iraq: U.S. Military Operations," updated July 15, 2007:
"Iraq: Reconstruction Assistance," updated June 25, 2007:
"Post-War Iraq: Foreign Contributions to Training, Peacekeeping, and
Reconstruction," updated June 18, 2007:
"Iraq: Summary of U.S. Casualties," updated July 12, 2007:
"U.S. Embassy in Iraq," updated July 13, 2007:
"Iraq: Milestones Since the Ouster of Saddam Hussein," updated June 19,
2007:
"The Kurds in Post-Saddam Iraq," updated June 12, 2007:
"Iraq: Government Formation and Benchmarks," updated July 13, 2007:
"The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror
Operations Since 9/11," updated June 28, 2007:
Visit the full post for links to the reports...
Classification guides are used by government agencies and program
managers to translate top-level national security classification policy
into specific guidance on what information is to be classified and at
what level. There are innumerable such guides, many of which are
themselves classified. One recent (unclassified) example that provides
a notion of the entire class of documents is an Air Force Classification
Guide for the Global Broadcast System, issued in April 2007.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/gbs.pdf
The potential role of nanotechnology for defense and military
applications was assessed in unclassified format in a recent report
issued by the Director, Defense Research and Engineering. See "Defense
Nanotechnology Research and Development Program," April 27, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/nano2007.pdf
"Command and control of air and space power is an Air Force-provided
asymmetric capability that no other Service or nation provides,"
according to a new U.S. Air Force publication on the subject. See
"Command and Control," Air Force Doctrine Document 2-8, June 1, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afdd2-8.pdf
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