By Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois’ Congressional delegation is sounding off on the president’s powers under the decades-old War Powers Act after President Donald Trump used a drone strike to kill an Iranian general.
U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, supported last week’s strike on Qasem Soleimani.
“The president made the right decision to take out a terrorist leader like General Soleimani,” Davis said. “I think it was a good decision to do so.”
On the U.S. Senate floor Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, said Soleimani was a terrorist who killed Americans. However, Durbin said previous presidents had their sights on Soleimani, but didn’t act.
“The question that’s been raised now is why this president at this moment made the decision to execute the general,” Durbin said.
On Twitter, U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Channahon, reacted to that sentiment.
“True, however, there has been 12 years since Bush, and a civil war in Syria and Yemen with hundreds of thousands killed, courtesy of this evil General, [additional] Americans killed and escalating attacks on US and Allies,” he wrote in a tweet.
Durbin said it was Congress’s role to declare war on Iran or any other country.
“Let us make certain that if we were going to move forward with hostilities against Iran we do it under our constitutional requirement to have a fulsome debate for the American people and an official declaration of war before we move forward,” Durbin said. “We owe the American people nothing less.”
U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Schaumburg, said on MSNBC that war with Iran shouldn’t be an option.
“This has got to be a nonpartisan issue – the idea that we cannot go to war with Iran, we can’t blunder our way into a war with Iran,” he said. “We can’t have another endless war in the Middle East.”
Members of Congress are expected to get a briefing about the justification for the strike from the Trump administration on Wednesday.
Under the War Powers Act, approved over then-President Richard Nixon’s veto in 1973, the president can conduct military activity anywhere in the world, but must notify Congress. The act also limits how long military units can be engaged in activities to 60 days without congressional approval.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is reportedly preparing a vote to rein in the president’s powers under the decades-old act. Davis said he expected that will just be a show vote to provide Democrats with political cover.
“If the speaker is serious about wanting to make sure Congress has a say on foreign intervention or activities then she would be serious enough to put an authorization for the use of military force up for debate in one of our committees of jurisdiction,” Davis said. “She’s not doing that.”
Pelosi told members of Congress in a letter this week the resolution would mandate that if no further Congressional action is taken, the administration’s military hostilities toward Iran cease within 30 days.
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