Ronald Dellums: “I took President Bush to court in order to preserve the prerogative of Congress when many of my colleagues did not have…”

“I took President Bush to court in order to preserve the prerogative of Congress when many of my colleagues did not have the heart to do it. This is not what this debate is about. This is not Congress' war-making power. This is about command and control once a decision is made to deploy. So I would hope that in the context of the few meager moments we have to debate this bill that we stay relevant to what the substantive nature of the bill is. I would go further and quote from this administration's policy on reforming multilateral, multinational peace operations dated May 1994: The President retains and will never relinquish command authority over U.S. forces. On a case-by-case basis, the President will consider placing appropriate U.S. forces under the operational control of a competent U.N. commander for specific operations authorized by the Security Council. The greater the U.S. military role, the less likely it will be that the United States will agree to have a U.N. commander exercise overall operational control over U.S. forces.”