Don't let Bush-Cheney circumvent the Constitution again! Tell your Congressmen to do their constitutional duty and oversee the Executive branch.
Bush is trying to negotiate a treaty with the Iraqi government, without calling it a treaty, so that the Senate does not have to ratify it with a two-thirds vote.
Bush is pressuring the Iraqi government now to ratify a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq, since the UN Security Council's mandate for the U.S. occupation expires in 11 months. Bush is calling it a "status-of-forces agreement," not a treaty. But this agreement could obligate the U.S. to step in to ensure Iraq's internal and external security, i.e. it would bind America to defend Iraq. If that's not a treaty, what is?
U.S. Asking Iraq for Wide Rights on War
By Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers
January 25, 2008 | New York Times
[...]
Democratic critics have complained that the initial announcement about the administration's intention to negotiate an agreement, made Nov. 26, included an American pledge to support Iraq "in defending its democratic system against internal and external threats."
Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that what the administration was negotiating amounted to a treaty and should be subjected to Congressional oversight and ultimately ratification.
"Where have we ever had an agreement to defend a foreign country from external attack and internal attack that was not a treaty?" he said Wednesday at a hearing of a foreign affairs subcommittee held to review the matter. "This could very well implicate our military forces in a full-blown civil war in Iraq. If a commitment of this magnitude does not rise to the level of a treaty, then it is difficult to imagine what could."
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