What is the legal authority for keeping the troops in Iraq?

Question

Congress, both the House and Senate passed Public Law 107-243 authorizing Bush to use force against Saddam to make him comply with U.N. Resolutions to disarm his nation of WMD. Since no WMD were found, what is the President's legal authority to keep troops in Iraq?

Answer 1

Public Law 107-243 (authorizing Bush to use force against Saddam to make him comply with U.N. Resolutions to disarm his nation of WMD) is itself a violation of International Law.

The USA never had ANY legal authority to invade either Afghanistan or Iraq.

If Iraq had ALL the WMD the Bush Administration claimed it had, Iraq's failure during the "silent war" (waged between Operation Desert Storm and GW Bush's frivolous invasion of Iraq) to use ANY of those WMD simply proved that Saddam was no longer a threat to anyone outside his borders.

The utter devastation of Iraqi military capability during the first Gulf War (1991) left Iraq without the ability to even defend itself against foreign aggression -- which gave "coalition forces" the superficially-legitimate reason for remaining in the area: they couldn't afford, for instance, to have Iran overrun Iraq.

Iraq's ability to deliver those weapons NEVER went beyond the "theatre" level. Iraq never had any aircraft capable of aerial refueling (obsolete prototypes notwithstanding), and never had any capability of attacking more than a few hundred miles from their military bases.

Even Iraqi missiles could not have reached Ukraine, Romania or Greece -- much less Italy, Spain, France or the UK. I'm not trying to be rude to the many other countries between Turkey and the UK by not mentioning each one by name: I'm just pointing out this rather obvious fact to what I think is a primarily-US audience.

Answer 2

The US constitution says that the President is the commander in chief of the United States armed forces. Not Congress or anyone else. It is true that Congress declares war and makes peace. however they have not put their foot down and exercised those powers since WWII. They did not do it in Korea, Vietnam, they sort of did with Desert Storm, not in Somalia, Kosovo, or in any other of the numerous police actions we have taken. Furthermore absent a declaration of war the President can send the troops wherever he pleases. Whatever happened to politics stops at the waters edge? I heard that countless times when President Clinton was bombing Iraq and Kosovo. killing people for no other reason than to keep his sex life out of the news. It is 7 or 8 years later and I think I am allowed to say that now.

Answer 3

I am just guessing here but I would say that it is to do with terriorism. If we just with draw then they are going to think they can do what they want over there and bring it to our country as well. They have to have a standing armed force of some sort to protect the people before they can just take everyone out of there. They are close to it now being trained by our guys to help protect themselves. Hopefully we will be out of there soon.