The Iraq war vote timing

Washington Post:

Former White House aide Karl Rove said yesterday it was Congress, not President Bush, who wanted to rush a vote on the looming war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, a version of events disputed by leading congressional Democrats and even some former Rove colleagues.

Rove said that the administration did not want lawmakers to vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq that soon because it would "make things move too fast," before Bush could line up international allies, and politicize the issue ahead of midterm elections. But Democrats and some Republicans involved with the issue at the time said yesterday that Bush wanted a quick vote.

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What this report leaves out is an important step before bringing the matter to a vote. Many in the administration thought that no additional vote was needed for attacking Iraq, because the authorization for the use of force in the war on terror after 9-11 was broad enough to cover an attack on Saddam and his forces in Iraq.

It was Democrats who insisted that a new vote was needed. At that point, the administration decided that if the Democrats were going to insist on another vote, it should be before the election so that voters could judge the commitment of their representatives to the use of force. In that sense Rove is right about the Democrats push for a vote, if not about the timing they wanted.

However, the vote was useful as a matter of foreign policy because it put more pressure on Saddam to comply. This is a point many Democrats have made in defending their vote for the war.