[Pages S3448-S3451]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise at a late hour with few folks on the 
floor to talk about the most serious issue we could ever talk about on 
the floor of the U.S. Senate: the prospect that America may soon be in 
a war.
  There is no part of the Constitution that is more important than the 
article I provisions making claim that the United States should not be 
at war without a vote of Congress. Yet the news of the day suggests 
that we are potentially on the verge of a war with Iran.
  When I was elected to the Senate in 2012, having served as a Governor 
from 2006 to 2010 during a tremendous upsurge in the two wars in Iraq 
and Afghanistan, I visited our troops multiple times in the Green Zone 
in Baghdad and in Afghanistan. I went to the deployments and the 
homecomings; I went to the wakes and funerals, and I told myself when I 
came to the Senate that, if I ever had the chance to stop this Nation 
from getting into an unnecessary war, I would do everything I could to 
stop us from getting into an unnecessary war. I happen to believe that 
the United States engaging in a war against Iran--a third war in the 
Middle East since 2001--would be a catastrophic blunder for this 
country.

  I think there are some in this body who have a different point of 
view than I on this point, but I think we should all be able to agree 
in the fundamental constitutional principle that says we shouldn't be 
in a war if Congress doesn't have the guts to debate it and vote on it; 
that we should all, in having taken an oath to the Constitution, at 
least support the principle that war is something that should be for 
Congress to declare.
  Just recently--right before I walked on the floor--the New York Times 
published this article, and I am just going to read this to demonstrate 
the imminence of the threat that this country faces.
  The article from the New York Times, dated today, reads ``Iran is 
Preparing Missiles for Possible Retaliatory Strikes on U.S. Bases, 
Officials Say,'' and I will just read the first few paragraphs.

       Iran has prepared missiles and other military equipment for 
     strikes on U.S. bases in the Middle East should the United 
     States join Israel's war against the country, according to 
     American officials who have reviewed intelligence reports.
       Fears of a wider war are growing among American officials 
     as Israel presses the White House to intervene in its 
     conflict with Iran. If the United States joins the Israeli 
     campaign and strikes Fordo, a key Iranian nuclear facility, 
     the Iranian-backed Houthi militia will almost certainly 
     resume striking ships in the Red Sea, the officials said. 
     They added that pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria would 
     probably try to attack U.S. bases there.
       Other officials said that in the event of an attack, Iran 
     could begin to mine the Strait of Hormuz, a tactic meant to 
     pin American warships in the Persian Gulf. Commanders put 
     American troops on high alert at military bases throughout 
     the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and 
     Saudi Arabia. The United States has more than 40,000 troops 
     deployed in the Middle East.

  I met the father of an Apache helicopter pilot currently deployed in 
Syria yesterday.
  Finally, from the article:

       Two Iranian officials have acknowledged that the country 
     would attack U.S. bases in the Middle East, starting with 
     those in Iraq, if the United States joined Israel's war.

  We stand tonight as close to the potential initiation of a third war 
in the Middle East--the United States against Iran--as we have been 
during my time in the Senate. So, yesterday morning, when the Senate 
came into session, I announced and then I followed up with a filing of 
a War Powers Resolution in this body--a privileged resolution--that, by 
my clock, will mature and be subject to a vote on this floor because of 
its privileged status a week from Thursday. Ten days from the filing of 
such a motion, even by a single Senator, the Senate is required to take 
this matter up for an up-or-down floor vote about whether or not war 
should happen without a vote of Congress.
  A little bit about the Constitution. Many in here have heard me speak 
about this over the years about the Constitution. The Framers of the 
Constitution grappled with the question about how wars should begin, 
and they grappled with the question in a most unusual way.
  In the Constitution of 1787, the article I power is the 
congressional, the legislative power, and the article II power is the 
executive power. The Framers of the Constitution split war powers into 
a legislative responsibility and an executive responsibility. The 
legislative responsibility is clear: Congress declares war. It is in 
article I. The executive responsibility is to be the Commander in 
Chief. Once Congress--535 people--has declared war, you don't need 535 
Commanders in Chief. That would lead to chaos. So a war once declared 
by a debate and vote by the people's elected body then gets handed to 
the President, who as Commander in Chief is responsible for executing 
on that declaration.
  The Framers of the Constitution did understand one thing about the 
President's power, which is the President as Commander in Chief should 
defend the Nation. The President always has the ability to defend the 
United States without asking Congress's permission.
  Back in 1787, Congress might adjourn and ride horseback back to 
Vermont. What if the United States were attacked? You couldn't wait for 
all of Congress to come back to enable the United States to defend 
itself. So a President has the inherent power under article II to 
defend the United States without asking for permission. But it has been 
the understanding since the very beginning of this Republic that, if it 
is more than defending the United States--if it is going on offense in 
any

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way--congressional authorization is needed.
  It is so rare. In other countries and at other times, war has been 
for the Executive. It has been for the King. It has been for the 
Emperor. It has been for the Monarch. It has been for the Czar. It has 
been for the Sultan. But in the United States, we made a very careful 
choice to do it differently, and that choice was described most 
eloquently in a letter from the main drafter of the Constitution James 
Madison to President Thomas Jefferson. Actually, he was not yet 
President. This letter was dated April 2, 1798, and James Madison 
described what were they getting at when they vested the power to 
declare war with Congress.
  Here is what James Madison wrote:

       The constitution supposes, what the History of all 
     Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of 
     power most interested in war, and most prone to it. [Our 
     Constitution] has accordingly with studied care, vested the 
     question of war in the Legislature.

  Other countries don't do this, but the Framers of our Constitution in 
1787 decided we are going to be different. Before we send troops into 
harm's way where they could be killed, where they could be injured, 
where they could see people they love and their colleagues killed and 
injured--before we are going to send troops in harm's way in war, we 
want to see the people's elected bodies--both Houses--have a debate 
about what the stakes are and whether we should force our troops into 
harm's way and potentially lose their lives, and that debate will be in 
full view of the American public so the American public can understand 
what is at stake, and then they can call their Representatives or write 
them a letter and tell them what they think about whether war is 
necessary and whether the sacrifice we ask of our troops should be the 
ultimate sacrifice that we are often asking of them in war.
  That has been the Constitution since 1787. The Constitution has been 
amended, probably, in 25 or 26 amendments now. That has never been 
amended. That has never been amended.
  In 1974, Congress grappled with a challenging problem and passed the 
War Powers Resolution of 1974. What was the problem?
  The problem in 1974 was this: A President began war without telling 
Congress. In 1974, we were in the midst of the Vietnam war. Congress 
did know that, and Congress had passed some legislation at least 
appropriating funds for it and somewhat authorizing it during the 
Johnson administration. Congress knew about the war in Vietnam.
  Obviously, there was a draft, and 56,000 Americans were killed in 
that war. But President Nixon, without informing Congress, extended the 
war and started bombing Cambodia--it was called the secret bombing of 
Cambodia--a new country that had not been covered by war 
authorizations. So Congress stepped up and acted and passed the War 
Powers Resolution of 1974.
  That resolution did a number of things. It established some protocols 
for when the President initiates military action, providing notice to 
Congress so that there can't be a secret war; giving Congress some 
ability, once notice is provided, to try to withdraw notice if it 
thinks that the war is ill-advised.
  But the War Powers Resolution also did something else: It gave the 
power to even one Member of Congress, one Senator or one House Member, 
if a President initiates war or is on the verge of initiating war--the 
War Powers Resolution gave to one Senator, one Congressman, the ability 
to file a resolution to stop a war before it starts or to stop a war 
once it started.
  The War Powers Resolution over time has made that a privileged 
motion, meaning it can bypass committee and be brought up on the floor 
of the Senate for a vote within an expeditious period of time.
  A privileged motion is one that sort of elbows everything else out of 
the way because Congress has judged that the matter is so important 
that it should take precedence over normal committee proceedings and it 
should be considered in a prompt fashion. It is a simple majority vote, 
not subject to filibuster and cloture. It can't be buried in a 
committee. It has to be debated on the floor. It is amendable. It can 
be amended.
  But as long as you meet the criteria, the privileged criteria, under 
the War Powers Resolution of 1974, you are entitled to try to stop a 
war before it starts. The criteria that you have to meet to have the 
privilege are two:
  One, hostilities between the United States and another actor nation--
Iran in this case--have to either be underway or they have to be 
imminent. That has to be the case. You can't just say: I want to stop a 
war that no one has contemplated and nothing is happening. So you have 
to demonstrate imminence. You also have to show that there is no 
existing congressional authorization authorizing the United States to 
be at war--in this case, with Iran. That second criteria has been met.
  We had a similar resolution on the floor a few years ago following 
the U.S strike that killed the Iranian military leader Soleimani, and 
the ruling of the Parliamentarian and really the acknowledgement of the 
body was that there was no current congressional authorization 
authorizing war against Iran.
  So the question is, Is the imminence standard met? I would argue that 
it clearly is. The United States is already using U.S. weaponry to 
knock down Iranian missiles. That is more than imminence; that is 
actual kinetic hostility.
  The United States is being urged to enter the war. The United States 
is moving military assets into the region and withdrawing diplomats 
from the region.
  The Iranians are acknowledging that: If the United States enters the 
war, we have plans to go after U.S. troops, the 40,000 U.S. troops in 
the area.
  Since Congress clearly wanted a Member to be able to file such a 
motion to be heard before a war begins, I believe the imminence 
standard is clearly met in this case with actual kinetic activity 
between U.S. weaponry and Iranians.
  So over the course of the next few days, you will likely hear me talk 
more than once about the need for Congress to stand up and say there 
shall not be a war against Iran without a congressional vote. It is a 
pretty simple proposition: No U.S. war against Iran without a 
congressional vote.
  Let me answer a couple of questions that colleagues of mine have 
asked about the resolution that I filed yesterday.
  First, what about self-defense? What about if Iran does take action 
against the United States, the homeland, or at a U.S. base in the 
Middle East or at a U.S. consulate in Erbil in the Kurdish area of 
Iraq? What if Iran takes action against the United States?
  The answer is pretty straightforward: Under the Constitution, the 
President can defend the United States, and the President doesn't need 
Congress to do that. So if there is an Iranian attack on the United 
States, the President can and has said he will--and I would strongly 
support him, as I know everyone in this body would--defend U.S. 
interests against an Iranian attack.
  So the self-defense question is mentioned in the resolution. The 
resolution says: Nothing in this resolution will block the ability of 
the United States to take legal action to defend itself, and that is 
clearly contemplated by article II.
  The second question I am asked is, What about the United States 
helping Israel defend itself?
  I have been here since January of 2013. I have voted for every Israel 
defense package that has ever been before this body, and there have 
been many. Israel receives more defense aid from the United States than 
any other nation year after year after year with my support. And I have 
done more than vote for Israel defense aid; on a couple of instances, I 
have whipped votes to make sure that we found enough aid for Israel.
  In April of last year, we passed a supplemental bill in this body 
that had billions of dollars of aid for Israel in the aftermath of the 
horrific attacks on Israel by Hamas on October 7. It was shortly after 
that vote that Iran launched a set of attacks against Israel.
  The defense aid that the United States provided enabled us to knock 
down and assist Israel in knocking down Iranian drones and missiles. 
That was a good thing. Had those drones and

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missiles landed in Israel, they would have not only killed and wounded 
tons of civilians, but they would have led to escalation in the region 
that would have been unhelpful for all countries in the region.
  So I stand strong for Israel's right to defend itself, and I stand 
strong for the United States in providing Israel support so that they 
can defend themselves, but that is a different question. That is a 
different question than whether the United States should go to war with 
Iran.
  In my view, there is no compelling security reason for the United 
States to go to war with Iran.
  The last question that I want to ask and sort of reflect upon before 
concluding is this: What about diplomacy? What about diplomacy?
  The pages are here. You have a lot of time on the floor. Sometimes 
there are speeches, and sometimes there aren't, and I imagine you have 
looked a lot in this room and what is in the room. One of the things 
you have noticed is that in the panels--all around the room, the blue 
panels--at the top of the panel is the seal of the United States. That 
seal of the United States was designed and embraced by the United 
States in 1782. The seal of the United States is also in the skylight 
in the ceiling of the Senate Chamber, and that seal has essentially 
been constant since 1782. There is a seal of the President of the 
United States that has changed a little bit, but the seal of the United 
States that Congress has used has been constant since 1782.
  One thing that is very notable about the seal is the eagle and two 
claws holding the arrows of war and the olive branches of peace. But 
since the very beginning of this Republic, the eagle's face has been 
turned to the olive branches of peace. It was designed that way to send 
a symbol that the United States always prefers peace, always prefers 
diplomacy, and only uses war as a last resort when diplomacy fails.
  We had a diplomatic deal with Iran that was entered into in 2015 that 
was limiting their nuclear program--peacefully, without having to bomb 
them, without having to kill civilians, without having to assassinate 
scientists.
  The United States, together with other nations, used the power of 
congressional sanctions--Congress did this well--to leverage an 
agreement whereby Iran agreed--in the first sentence of the first 
paragraph of the first page of the agreement, Iran reaffirmed that it 
would ``never seek to purchase, acquire, or develop nuclear weapons.''
  In the body of that agreement, Iran agreed to a whole series of 
limitations upon nuclear research, nuclear activity, centrifuge 
construction, and the percentage of enriched uranium it was allowed to 
have. Also, Iran agreed to the most comprehensive inspection regime of 
any nation on the planet, overseen by the International Atomic Energy 
Agency, to ensure that they were meeting their requirements that they 
would never seek to purchase, acquire, and develop nuclear weapons and 
that they would abide by their limits on centrifuges and the limits on 
enriched uranium and other activities.
  The agreement was working. Don't take it from Senator Kaine; the 
International Atomic Energy Association said the agreement was working. 
The allies and adversaries--Russia and China--were part of this deal, 
as were the UK and France and Germany. Those who worked on the deal 
said the agreement was working. It wasn't turning Iran from a bad actor 
to a good actor. It wasn't stopping all of Iran's bellicose behavior. 
But it was limiting the very nuclear program that is now trying to be 
bombed out of existence. We had an agreement that was working.
  President Trump became President in January of 2017, and he said: I 
don't like the agreement that President Obama did. I want to get out of 
it.
  President Trump's own Cabinet--his Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis 
said: Don't get out of this agreement. It is working.
  His Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: Don't get out of this 
agreement. It is working.
  His National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, a former general, said: 
Don't get out of this agreement. It is working.
  For God's sake, we have used diplomacy just as we are supposed to--by 
preferring peace and diplomacy first--to deprive Iran of a path to a 
nuclear weapon. Shouldn't we prefer diplomacy rather than putting at 
risk the lives of American troops, the 40,000 troops who are in the 
Middle East?
  So what happened to the diplomatic agreement? President Trump started 
to talk about abandoning it.
  I wrote a piece in Time magazine in 2017, and I said: If you abandon 
this agreement when it is working, what will Iran do? They will go back 
to developing nuclear weapons, because if the United States backs out 
of it, they will as well.
  If you abandon this agreement, North Korea will never do a nuclear 
deal with the United States because why do a deal with the United 
States if the United States is going to abandon the deal even when it 
is working?
  President Trump didn't listen to me. He didn't listen to his 
Secretary of State. He didn't listen to his Secretary of Defense. He 
didn't listen to a lot of people in his administration. He tore the 
deal up. What a tragedy.
  You have Israeli civilians who have been killed in the Iranian 
missile attacks who have nothing to do with the military and Iranian 
civilians who have been killed in missile attacks who have nothing to 
do with the military. They would be alive today and 40,000 U.S. troops 
in the region would be safe today if we had decided to act in accord 
with our values and put diplomacy first and put peace over war.
  That is water under the bridge. But the question for this body that 
we will grapple with over the course of the next couple of weeks is 
whether the United States should be in another war in the Middle East--
in particular, whether we should allow a war to start without us, 
whether we should hide in the tall grass rather than exercise our 
constitutional responsibility under article I.
  This is fundamentally a debate about Congress being true to its oath 
of office and actually also being true to the obligations we have to 
our public.
  The Framers put this in the Constitution so that we wouldn't be at 
war without a debate in front of the public. They had a view about the 
morality of war, and I think their view was basically this: There would 
be nothing more publicly immoral, in the public space, than to send 
troops into harm's way, risking death, if Congress was too chicken to 
have a debate and vote about whether the war was in the national 
interest.
  If we had that debate and we decide that war is in the national 
interest, then the troops go into war knowing that the civilian 
leadership of this country have had the hard debate in view of the 
American public and decided that the stakes are sufficient to ask 
people to make the ultimate sacrifice.
  But how dare we--how dare we--and I say this as the father of a U.S. 
marine: How dare we ask people to make the ultimate sacrifice if we 
don't have the guts to have a debate and decide whether a war is in the 
interest of this country?
  I know what the American public thinks about this. There was a poll 
that was released today, and this is completely consistent with what I 
have heard from Virginians. And Virginia is one of the most pro-
military States in this country. I am on the Armed Services Committee. 
One out of every eight Virginians is a veteran. That is not one out of 
every eight adults; that is one out of every eight Virginians is a 
veteran--and you add Active Duty, you add the Guard, you add the 
Reserve, and you add the civilian DOD and the military contractors and 
their families. We train all the Marine officers in the world. We have 
the biggest shipbuilding enterprise in the world. We have the Pentagon, 
the largest military office in the world. We have been the site of more 
battles on U.S. soil than any State in this country, in Virginia: the 
Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the attack on 9/11 at the Pentagon.
  We are as pro-military a State as there is, but I can tell you this: 
Virginians do not believe the United States should be in another war in 
the Middle East. Neither do Americans.
  A poll today suggests 16 percent of Americans think the U.S. military 
should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran--one-sixth, 
16 percent--60 percent say we should not; 24 percent are not sure.
  We need to have this debate in front of the American public and let 
them

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watch us debate the stakes of this. And it might be that colleagues in 
this body or in the House think a war with Iran is a good idea. Let 
them put a war authorization on the table. Let's debate that. Let's 
debate that in front of Virginians and Kansans and Californians and 
hear what our constituents have to say. Let's debate that in the full 
view of people whose spouses are in the military or whose kids are in 
the military. Let's have that debate in front of them and hear what 
they think before we cast a vote that would be one of the most serious 
votes that you ever cast on the floor of a body like this.
  But we should not allow a war of the magnitude of this to begin with 
Congress hiding from the responsibility that was put on Congress's 
shoulders in 1787.
  I will be asking my colleagues to support my simple resolution as 
early as next week: No war without a vote of Congress. I will be asking 
my colleagues to support it and uphold the oath we have all taken to 
support the Constitution that established that most unusual principle, 
most unique principle, that is part of what makes this Nation special.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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