Jim Webb demands answers about Bush's authority to attack Iran

Posted by Joshua Holland at 9:29 AM on February 28, 2007.

Waaaay back in January, Jim Webb asked Condi Rice a simple yes or no question about the administration and Iran.

TPM had the blow-by-blow. Webb asked: “Is it the position of this administration that it possesses the authority to take unilateral action against Iran, in the absence of a direct threat, without congressional approval?”

She deferred an answer, saying, "I'm really loathe to get into questions of the president's authorities without a rather more clear understanding of what we are actually talking about. So let me answer you, in fact, in writing. I think that would be the best thing to do."

She, of course, blew him off. So, two weeks after the hearings, he sent her a letter asking how it could take so long to answer a simple question.

While he was awaiting a response, Webb did the media circuit and expressed his deep concerns about the volatile situation in the Gulf (there’s video in that link, if you care):

…if you look at where we are in the Persian Gulf right now, when I was Secretary of the Navy and until very recently, we never operated carrier — aircraft carriers inside the Persian Gulf because, number one, the turning radius is pretty close, and number two, the chance of accidentally bumping into something that would start a diplomatic situation was pretty high. We now have been doing that, and with the tensions as high as they are, I’m very worried that we might accidentally set something off in there and we need, as a Congress, to get ahead of the ballgame here.

According to The Hill, Rice finally got back to Webb, and he’s not happy with the answers she gave:

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) said yesterday that he is not satisfied with the Bush administration’s response to his inquiries on whether the White House believes its signing statement accompanying the 2002 Iraq war authorization gives the president authority to attack Iran.

Webb first wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and newly confirmed deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte last month after a Rice appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During questioning by Webb, Rice did not clearly state whether President Bush believes he can pursue action against Iran under his 2002 signing statement, which interprets the war authorization as a broad mandate to defend “threats to national interests.”

Webb said yesterday that he has heard from Rice and Negroponte, but that their responses were “lengthy and not to the point,” adding that he intends to pursue a clarification of presidential authority to use force in Iran in the near future.

This is what the Congress is supposed to do, and was supposed to be doing for the past six years.

I must say that the junior Senator from Virginia has really grown on me in the past few months.

Tagged as: iran, bush, webb, rice

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.