Clinton and the Iraq War Amendment

By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: February 2, 2008

WASHINGTON — During Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Los Angeles, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked to explain why she had voted against an amendment to the 2002 resolution that authorized the use of force in Iraq.

Mrs. Clinton said that she opposed the amendment, sponsored by Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, not because she favored going to war but because it would “subordinate” American national security decision-making to the United Nations Security Council. The vote on the Levin amendment came just hours before the Senate approved the resolution that President Bush later used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Mrs. Clinton voted for that resolution.
Mrs. Clinton has been consistent in her explanations for her opposition to the Levin amendment, from a floor statement she delivered before her vote for the war resolution to her words at the debate Thursday night. In that floor statement, she said the United Nations was often incapable of backing up its words with action, that a single Security Council member could veto any resolution and that the body usually waited to act until it was too late.
In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in January, Mrs. Clinton said: “The Levin amendment, in my view, gave the Security Council of the United Nations a veto over American presidential power. I don’t believe that is an appropriate policy for the United States, no matter who is our president.”
But Mr. Levin and defenders of his amendment assert that her description of the measure is simplistic and misleading.
The amendment was designed to rein in the president, who many believed was embarked on an inexorable march to war. The measure required two steps. First, the United Nations would have to pass a resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it did not permit thorough inspections of its weapons programs. Second, the amendment required the president to return to Congress if his United Nations efforts failed and to secure passage of what Mr. Levin called a “going-it-alone unilateral resolution.”
Former Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, who was in the Senate at the time and supported the Levin amendment, wrote last year that the measure was “unambiguous and compatible with international law.”
“Ceding no rights or sovereignty to an international body, the amendment explicitly avowed America’s right to defend itself if threatened,” Mr. Chafee wrote in The New York Times. He said the demand for thorough inspections in Iraq would succeed only if pushed by a broad coalition, including Arab states.
“Unfortunately,” he concluded, “these arguments fell on deaf ears in that emotionally charged, hawkish, post-9/11 moment, less than four weeks before a midterm election. The Levin amendment was defeated by a 75 to 24 vote. Later that night, the Iraq War Resolution was approved, 77 to 23. It was clear that most senators were immune to persuasion because the two votes were almost mirror images of each other — no to the Levin amendment, aye to war. Their minds were made up.”

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Em destaque: A candidata democrata Hillary Clinton expõe suas razões para ter votado contra a emenda proposta pelo senador Carl Levin, que colocava como condição do uso da força no Iraque pelos Estados Unidos a concordância do Conselho de Segurança da ONU.

Para ler a Levin Amendment: http://clarkiw.wordpress.com/2002/10/09/levin-amendment-text-october-9-2002/

Fonte: The New York Times ( caderno National - Politics)
Publicação: 2 de fevereiro 2008
Autor: John M. Broder
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/us/politics/02check.html?ref=politics