There is no collective Commander in Chief

Brian Bresnahan:

In voting for a firm date to surrender in Iraq and dictating how the war should be fought, the House of Representatives overstepped the boundaries of its Constitutional powers. The Senate’s mandates for fighting the war did so as well, while their “recommended” date of March ’08 for the President to have raised the white flag came close.

In trying to provide constitutionally required oversight, they wrongly and intentionally stepped into the arena of Congressional overreach.

Not only “wrong-headed” in its effect on both short and long term national security, as well as overreaching, setting these dates violates a multitude of lessons learned by many generations of American leadership.

One of the most significant, as historians have pointed out, came from George Washington and his push to have the Constitution grant sole power to a single individual, the President, to serve as the Commander in Chief for the armed forces. Our nation’s struggle for independence showed the harm and futility of having numerous individuals trying to direct the army and the war effort.

Congress trying to step in as a collective commander in chief also violates one of the most steadfast principles of war fighting and leadership, unity of command. Having one person in charge at every level from fire team to the Commander in Chief is a lesson learned and reaffirmed many times through history.

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A General won’t surrender when he still has the capacity to fight and would most certainly not plan for or forecast to the enemy the day of his own demise. Although disappointed with Senator Ben Nelson changing his vote, he was wise to say he’d vote against a bill coming out of conference if it included a hard, fast date for withdrawal. The same can’t be said of Senator Hagel.

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A General and a Commander in Chief would both have benchmarks for success, as Senator Nelson rightly proposed, but would never tell the enemy what they were, thereby allowing the enemy the advantage of focusing his limited resources on preventing those benchmarks from ever being reached.

A General would never intentionally short his troops of the funds for the equipment and training they need. John Murtha proposed legislation which gave the appearance of trying to take care of the troops and insure they were combat ready. But he slipped up and let his true intentions for our troops be known. He admitted that his legislation was intended to guarantee “They won’t have the equipment, they don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work.” A true military leader cares so much for his troops that he would never put them in that situation. Others in Congress caught on to his intentions, and his proposal faded.

But now, Chuck Hagel and Jim Webb have submitted a very similar amendment in the Senate. One that looks hauntingly familiar to the Murtha proposal. One that gives the appearance of trying to take care of the troops, but in detail and implementation would be as harmful as the Murtha proposal. Are their intentions the same, to guarantee our troops won’t have the equipment and training they need, and thus by default, force us out of Iraq while endangering our troops in the process?

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There is more.

Sen. * and Sen. Webb gear are apparently attempting to tie the military down and prevent them from winning a war that those two senators want to lose. Not only are they trying to usurp the authority of the President they are trying to usurp the role of the commanders in the military who have considerable training in knowing when their men are equipped and prepared for their mission. It is up to them to say whether or not they are. They are perfectly capable and responsible to come to Congress when they think they are not.

When I was going through OCS training for Vietnam we were given World War II web gear made for M-1 clips instead of the M-14 we were issued, which were to be replaced by M-16's by the time I got to Vietnam. Under the *-Webb gear standard we would never have been permitted to go. That is not to mention the North African campaign in Word War II where also sorts of screw ups hampered the effectiveness of the operation before better leaders took charge.

* = Hagel.