Biden prepares new bill on Bush war powers

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Is it legal?
A House Democrat who is influential on defense and intelligence matters, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., sounded wary about hot pursuit.

“I think we have to check that carefully,” she said Friday. “This right of pursuit has to be explored. We have to know what would be sound, from a legal point of view, on pursuing Iranians should they go back in to Iran.”

“It’s no secret Iran has been meddling in Iraq for years,” Harman added. “The most advanced form of IED’s are now these Iranian missiles which are very dangerous” and can penetrate advanced U.S. armor, she said.

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And she said, “A lot of what the Bush administration has been doing lately has been needlessly provocative” because it prompts the Iranian people to rally around the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Addressing Iranian operatives inside Iraq, Bush’s national security advisor Stephen Hadley said on Jan. 14 that “the priority is what's going on in Iraq. That's the place where the (Iranian) activity is occurring. That's the best place… for us to take this on.”

When ABC News interviewer George Stephanopoulos said, “So you don't believe you have the authority to go into Iran?”

Hadley replied, “I didn't say that. This is another issue. Any time you have questions about crossing international borders, there are legal issues.”

MacArthur fired over 'hot pursuit'
In 1951, during the Korean War, President Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur after he loudly advocated hot pursuit of Chinese fighter planes which were attacking U.S. aircraft operating in Korean airspace.

MacArthur wanted to pursue them across the border into Chinese airspace. But U.S. allies balked at this for fear of triggering a wider war with China and Russia. MacArthur persisted in publicly advocating the policy even after Truman had rejected it, which led Truman to dismiss him.

Concern about what Bush might do about Iranians inside Iraq was ratcheted up by the president’s Jan. 10 speech in which he said, “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

During testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., sounded alarmed by Bush’s warning to Iran and told Gates, “I’m concerned about whether or not this would require U.S. forces to cross the borders into Iran and Syria.”

Gates said “I believe it refers strictly to operations inside the territory of Iraq, not crossing the border.”

Clinton cites Iran and national security
After her return from a recent tour of Iraq and Afghanistan, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said, “We do have vital national security interests in Iraq,” and she made a point of adding, “We have vital national security interests with respect to what Iran is doing in crossing the border.”

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who was on that trip to the region with Clinton, said, “We face the problem of Iranians in Iraq who are actively involved in facilitating the killing of Americans. When we apprehend these Iranians we hear from the Iraqi government that ‘you have to let them go.’ That is not good enough.”

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