WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Bill Delahunt, Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, yesterday continued his probe of the Bush administration’s proposed U.S-Iraq security agreement.

“The Administration has argued that Congress need not approve its proposed agreement because it is just a ‘typical’ arrangement for our military forces,” said Delahunt. “Nothing can be further from the truth – our hearing has shown that the agreement that they have in mind must involve congressional approval.”

In recent days, the Administration has indicated that it was backing away from the commitment to defend the Iraqi government from “internal and external threats” that was promised by President Bush in the Declaration of Principles he signed on November 26, 2007.  Delahunt and others on his oversight panel have insisted that such a commitment would have required congressional approval.

The panel heard testimony from Jennifer K. Elsea, Esq, Legislative Attorney for the American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service, R. Chuck Mason, Esq, Legislative Attorney for the Congressional Research Service Michael J. Matheson, Esq., Visiting Research Professor of Law from The George Washington University Law School Laura Dickinson, Esq, Professor of Law from the University of Connecticut School of Law, and Ruth Wedgwood, Esq. from the The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University                       

The most dramatic testimony came from Elsea, CRS’s ranking expert on authorization for the use of force, and Mason, CRS’s authority on Status of Forces Agreements, which are agreements the executive branch typically makes with foreign governments without congressional approval.  Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates argued in a recent Washington Post op-ed that matters covered under a Status of Forces Agreement can range “from the overall scope of their mission to the minutiae of daily life – from authority to fight to rules for delivering mail.”  Mason reviewed the details of more than 70 Status of Forces Agreements, and concluded that “none contain the authority to fight.”

Mason testified that “A SOFA does not authorize specific exercises, activities, or missions. Rather it provides the framework for legal protections and rights while U.S. personnel are present in a country for agreed upon purposes.” He also stated that he had systematically reviewed a large number of SOFAs in preparation for the hearing. He said: “None contain the authority to fight.” 

Delahunt concluded by asking the CRS experts: “Is it true that an agreement containing the authority for U.S. forces to fight would not be a typical SOFA agreement?” Mason and Elsea agreed that this type of agreement would not be a typical SOFA.  Delahunt, noting that the Administration has also used the term “strategic framework agreement” to describe the planned long-term pact, asked if any of the witnesses knew what that expression meant.  Matheson – who served for years as one of the State Department’s top legal experts on international agreements – said, “I don’t know what that means as a technical term” and that there was no clear definition.

“The Administration is misleading Congress when it confuses a status of forces agreement with the authorization to fight,” Delahunt said. “If Americans are going to be committed to combat, Congress must play its constitutional role and approve it.  The executive branch does not go to war alone.”

The witnesses also reached a consensus on a number of points:

• Amidst pressure from the Congress, the Bush Administration has publicly backed off negotiating the goals that they established in the “Declaration of Principles.”
• The most common purpose of a status of forces agreement is in cases of criminal jurisdiction and other regulations such as where U.S. personnel can get their mail, or buy gas.  Status of Forces agreements do not discuss military operations or authorities to fight.

To read Delahunt’s opening statement please click here.

To read the testimony of Jennifer K. Elsea, please click here.

To read the testimony of R. Chuck Mason, please click here.

To read the testimony of Professor Matheson, please click here.

To read the testimony of Laura Dickinson, please click here.

To read the testimony of Professor Wedgwood, please click here.

 

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