Congress Shall Have Power to Declare War

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, for the last 2 months, the House has been riven by the process of impeachment. It has been emotional, divisive, and challenging. If you noticed, many of the statements about impeachment started with some version of this: Impeachment is the most serious thing that Congress will do, other than declare war.

Well, here we are. In the next day, in the next month, and in the next year, this body may be called upon to make decisions that will alter history and possibly send young men and women to their deaths or not. I say ``or not'' because, once again, I see Congress at risk of failing to stand up for the clear mandate placed on us by the Constitution, to which each and every one of us took an oath.

There is no argument about our duty here. The language of the Constitution is plain: Congress shall have power to declare war, not Congress shall have power to declare war unless the President wants to retaliate against someone; not Congress shall have power to declare war unless a Syrian airbase needs destruction; not Congress shall have power to declare war unless our forces are attacked in the Tonkin Gulf.

Congress shall have power to declare war. Period, full stop.

Mr. Speaker, in the long run, this has nothing to do with our confidence in a particular President. It has everything to do with whether we take the obligations that Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton asked us to take seriously. In their wisdom, the Founders understood that every American--every American--should have a voice in the decision to go to war because it will be those Americans who offer up their sons and their daughters; because it will be those Americans and their children who will sacrifice not just themselves but the roads, the bridges, the schools, and the scholarships that will get consumed in the costs of war; and because our Founders understood that the true power of our awesome war machine was not in the technology. It lay in the sober assent and careful enthusiasm of millions of Americans, not in the decision of one person in an Oval Office.

So, here we are. Yes, the questions are many and complicated. Was the strike on General Soleimani legal? Was it ethical? Was it smart? These are not easy questions, and I suspect the answers will come only over time and after careful study. But right now, in this there is a question that hangs the lives of our people and potentially trillions of dollars: What comes next?

For those of us who were chanting, cheerleading, and whipping themselves into a belligerent frenzy, reflect on our experience over the last 20 years in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Comments by the Secretary of Defense notwithstanding, that we are not looking to start a war, but we are prepared to end one, the experience of the last 20 years is that we are not prepared to end any war. Some estimates suggest that we have spent $6 trillion on Middle Eastern wars, and more importantly, we have laid down the lives of thousands of our men and women.

While we may have taken some satisfaction from the removal of people like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi, at what cost? One of our most accomplished Middle Eastern diplomats, Philip Gordon, answers that question best. Philip Gordon wrote this years ago: ``In Iraq, the U.S. intervened and occupied, and the result was a costly disaster. In Libya, the U.S. intervened and did not occupy, and the result was a costly disaster. In Syria, the U.S. neither intervened nor occupied, and the result is a costly disaster.''

Mr. Speaker, I close my plea for care, thoughtfulness, and careful consideration by reminding my colleagues of a friend who died almost exactly a year ago, Walter B. Jones, Jr., from North Carolina. Some of us in this Chamber remember his journey.

In 2003, he was an ardent supporter of the Iraq war; and over time and, in particular, when he attended the funeral for a young sergeant in his district, he came to regret his decision. This was the guy who led the charge to rename French fries ``freedom fries,'' and he came to be haunted by what he had done and by what we had done.

I didn't know Walter well, but we celebrated his life when he died. Let's be like Walter. Let's learn the cost of war--but let's not attend funerals to do it--and give this decision the careful consideration it deserves.

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