Biden prepares new bill on Bush war powers

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON -

Democratic presidential contender Sen. Joe Biden said this week he’ll propose legislation that would put the Senate on record as telling President Bush he did not have authority to invade Iran or Syria.

But the Biden bill would also tell Bush, “You have authority under international rules to move in ‘hot pursuit’ to respond to direct attack,” Biden said Wednesday.

In recent weeks, members of Congress have fretted about Iranian activities inside Iraq. Members have pondered whether Bush has the authority to order U.S. troops to chase Iranians who are carrying out attacks inside Iraq if they flee across the border back into Iran.

Biden, who is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, signaled his qualified backing to "hot pursuit" in comments last week and the idea got stronger support from Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., a staunch supporter of Bush’s Iraq policy.

The concept of “hot pursuit” is adopted from domestic law enforcement practice in which police chase a suspect across state lines.

“Let’s be careful here,” Lieberman said last week when queried about hot pursuit.  “We’re not talking about a ground invasion or an attack on Iran. I’m saying that if we have reason to believe that, over the border from Iraq into Iran, there are Iranians who are manufacturing the kind of bombs that are killing our soldiers and are training people to use them, then I think it would be irresponsible not to try to knock out that capacity.”

Go after fleeing Iranians?
Lieberman added, “If you have grounds to believe that Iranians are either running from Iraq, or are right over the border training Iraqis or supplying them with devices to kill Americans, I think the commander in chief has the authority of ‘hot pursuit.’ I’m not talking here about a big ground invasion. This is pursuing people responsible for the deaths of American soldiers.”

As opposed to an outright military attack on Iran, an action in hot pursuit of fleeing Iranians “is a much closer call,” said Biden last week.

He said it was “arguably true” that the president could order hot pursuit, but this week seemed prepared to go further by clarifying Bush's hot pursuit authority in legislation.

“But if that hot pursuit means that we end up taking out facilities in Iran, that’s not hot pursuit," Biden explained last week. "Even in our country, state police can move in hot pursuit against someone going across the state line, but once the person is across the line, he (the police officer) is not allowed to go in without a search warrant.”

NBC VIDEO Iran's war games Jan. 22: Iran is in the midst of new military exercises involving short-range rockets, part of a weapons arsenal capable of striking a number of U.S. allies in the region, including Israel. NBC's Tom Aspell reports. MSNBC

Biden said “the same generic principle” applies to U.S. troops chasing Iranians. “The idea of our armed forces literally in hot pursuit of someone who has just done something to damage an American force is one thing, and that literally means hot pursuit, it means immediately in response to the action taken. But if, all of a sudden, you start seeing sorties of aircraft moving across the border into Iran, that’s a fundamentally different issue.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a speech Friday that “The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization,” but he did not address the hot pursuit scenario.

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