Editor’s Note: Today, Yoo and Ackerman discuss the wrangling between Congress and the president over wartime authority. Previously, they debated the hypocrisy of the left and the right on the issue of war powers, the ongoing use-of-force resolution, the war powers language of the Constitution, and the presidential practice of unilaterally going to war.

Visiting Fellow John Yoo

We are still waiting to see whether the latest strategy in Iraq will work, but there is no doubt that the postwar reconstruction is edging toward disaster.

For what it is worth, I argued in the Los Angeles Times in 2005 that the United States should divide Iraq, like Gaul, into three parts, and then leave. (For fans of the Rome miniseries, Julius Caesar began his Commentary on the Gallic Wars with "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"). We are spending blood and treasure to preserve a country that does not make sense as a state and to keep together people who do not wish to live together. Keeping Iraq together runs counter to modern history's wave of decentralization. Today there are 193 nations; at the end of World War II there were 74. All of this is made possible thanks to American guarantees of international peace and free trade, which reduce the need for large, multi-ethnic nations.

But it is premature, to say the least, for armchair generals (ourselves included) to enter a verdict on General David Petraeus' plans to secure Baghdad and enable a political settlement in Iraq. Claims that President Bush's leadership of our foreign policy is so unpopular or mismanaged that his command ought to be taken away are utterly far-fetched. Uncertainty, unpredictability, and setbacks are part of the nature of war. As soldiers often say, battle plans never survive first contact with the enemy.

We do not always win our wars. We have suffered terrible losses in battle. We have been led at times by incompetent generals and presidents. In the War of 1812, the United States took on the world's naval superpower, our capital was captured and burned, and our invasion of Canada was easily repulsed. (Yes, it is true: For some obscure reason we wanted to annex Canada.) Many forget today the losses and mistakes, beginning with Pearl Harbor and the fall of the Philippines, that occurred during World War II. Vietnam, of course, remains a more recent example of American military failure, although the reasons are still hotly debated.

In all of these crises, a President has never lost his command for the single reason that Congress cannot interfere with the president's control over the generals and the armed forces. The Constitution gives the president the authority to direct the military and to fire any inferior officers who refuse to follow his policies. Allowing Congress to strip presidents of their military powers would set up Congress as their equal in command. You could not do more to ruin the power and discipline of our world-class armed forces than to give it two masters rather than one.

If you want to remove the President's command, you have to remove the President. There is only one way for Congress to do it--impeachment. On this, Bruce, you and I agree (and I provide more details of this argument in my 2005 book, The Powers of War and Peace).

During the Clinton impeachment circus, some argued that this allowed Congress to remove the President for any violation of federal law, like perjury. Clinton's defenders responded that Congress could only impeach for a serious crime that involved his performance in office. Impeachment is not just limited to crimes, but includes serious policy mistakes in affairs of state. When the Constitution was written, impeachment was understood to allow the removal of executive officials for failed war policies.

We all want the President and Congress to agree on the conduct of war. In the best of worlds we would never have to contemplate funding cut-offs, ceilings (I think your proposal is perfectly constitutional), or impeachment. Wartime is not the best time to have crippling breakdowns in government, as the Andrew Johnson and Vietnam examples show. Despite its setbacks and mistakes, the Iraq war continues to receive bipartisan support. We should let politics, not the laws, determine whether that cooperation will continue.

John Yoo is a visiting scholar at AEI.