Reply #17: Well, Not Quite. Let's Get History Right Here. [View All]

[tsipple]

The Biden-Lugar language would have required Bush to brief Congress on efforts to convince the United Nations before Bush exercised war-making authority, and so it gave Congress one more shot at stopping the invasion. It didn't require U.N. sanction, but it did give Congress a chance to block a non-U.N. effort before the bullets flew.

Biden-Lugar also restricted Bush's war-making authority to disarming Saddam, not also removing him from power. As a practical matter, it's hard to see how one is accomplished without the other, but that's what the language said.

Bush, at the time, said Biden-Lugar "ties my hands." It was defeated. Dean, Braun, Sharpton, Kucinich, and Graham opposed the final bill, with the latter two voting against it. Kerry, Lieberman, Gephardt, and Edwards voted for the final resolution. Clark, to be fair, was ambiguous on his position with respect to the final resolution. (There are conflicting quotes, both contemporaneously and subsequently.)

It's difficult to re-run history hypothetically, but the general effect of Biden-Lugar would likely have been to make the U.N. the deciding forum on the question, and also to organize U.N. resources (such as international troops) in the effort. But it was necessarily written a little differently than that, because Congress is loathe to legally cede American war-making power to the U.N. So it didn't say, "U.N. approval is required," but it likely would have had that effect. It would have put some pressure on the Bush Administration to play nice with the U.N. (and vice versa), and it would have given Congress the ability to review the Bush Administration's diplomatic performance at the U.N. before invasion. That's why the Bush team rejected Biden-Lugar.

Dean was not opposed to an Iraq campaign with U.N. sanction and support. (He viewed U.N. participation as vital to the campaign's ultimate success, and he was no fan of the Iraqi regime.) Dean is not a dove, nor a hawk, but what's called an eagle: a national security centrist.