A War Without Congress

As American troops battle Al Qaeda forces near the Afghan city of Gardez, the war on terrorism is headed for trouble with Congress. The Republicans are howling about what they see as unpatriotic behavior, but Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) was right to complain this past weekend that the administration failed to honor its constitutional obligation to keep him and other officials in the loop. This war is just, but it is still the responsibility of Congress to fund it--a fact that the White House can’t ignore forever.

The Bush administration’s snubs of Congress have been frequent and in-your-face. On Monday, the White House said Thomas J. Ridge would not respond to a bipartisan request to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee about a $38-billion boost in spending for his homeland defense agency. On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) learned that the White House had failed to inform him of a contingency plan briefing for congressional leaders.

Daschle, John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and other senators are bridling at President Bush’s vast expansion of foreign commitments, made without consulting Congress and, they argue, without a clear game plan. If Bush’s popularity ratings are an indication, the public will have little patience for any politician who seems ready to tiptoe away from an aggressive offensive against the international terrorists who remain so eager to slaughter Americans. The administration may be right to send advisors everywhere from Georgia to Oman. But it does not have license to intervene anywhere, anytime, without congressional permission.

The administration has asked for $4.7 trillion over the next 10 years for the Pentagon, $600 billion more than was anticipated before Sept. 11. The 2003 budget is supposed to be $379 billion, an increase of $48 billion. Many of the administration’s requests are reasonable. It wants to improve housing for military personnel and their families. It wants to up spending on aircraft for reconnaissance and on chemical and biological defense. But the administration has refused to junk such Cold War relics as the M-1 Abrams tank. It also clings to missile defense, asking for $7.8 billion, even though a new study by the Congressional Budget Office pegs the cost for a full-scale system at $68 billion or more.

Daschle has declared in a resolution that the Senate “stands united with the president.” But he’s unwilling to hand the administration a blank check for the war. As Congress asserts itself, the administration will start realizing that this may not be the time to put the military on a Slim-Fast diet but it’s also not a time to start binging. Congressional oversight of the war is not meddling. It is a constitutional duty.