Published: Tuesday August 1, 2006
A piece of legislation sponsored by Democrats in the House of Representatives seeks to withdraw authorization for President George W. Bush to make war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
The Iraq War Powers Repeal Act of 2006, H.R. 5875, was introduced on July 25 by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat of California. The bill employs the rationale that since President Bush declared "mission accomplished" in May 2003, the US has been engaged in an occupation, not a war, which Congress never authorized.
Woolsey's bill has garnered 22 co-sponsors, but appears to have little momentum. The Congresswoman expressed her hope that two Republicans, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, and Rep. Walter Jones, Jr., of North Carolina would sign on to the bill. But key members of the House Democratic Leadership are backing other resolutions to end the Iraq War, such as the phased withdrawal proposal RAW STORY reported on yesterday.
An excerpt of the subscribers-only story is available below.
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So far, 22 House Members — all of them Democrats who have been leading figures in the out-of-Iraq movement — have signed on to the Iraq War Powers Repeal Act of 2006, introduced July 25 by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (Calif.).
Woolsey’s bill, H.R. 5875, would declare that the United States has been engaged in an occupation of Iraq for more than three years — since President Bush’s May 1, 2003, pronouncement that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” — that has weakened America militarily and economically, diminished its role in the world and provoked a bloody and ongoing civil war in Iraq.
In stating that it is U.S. policy to end the occupation, the bill would rescind the resolution, pushed through Congress in the run-up to the 2002 midterm elections, that originally authorized Bush to commit American forces to Iraq.
“It’s become very clear that we’re not in war,” Woolsey explained last week. “We’re occupying Iraq and the president never came to us and asked us for permission.”
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