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At the act authorizing Bush to go to war with Iraq, the authorization largely hinged on either exhausting all peaceful and diplomatic measures, or proving that Iraq posed some sort of immediate threat to the United States in order to go to war without exhausting diplomatic peaceful measures (the authorization section, Section 3 a,b,and c of the act give the conditions for congressional authorization of use of military force, and they pretty much simply state that all diplomatic measure and peaceful means had to be exhausted, but the U.S. retained the right to protect itself from immediate danger from Iraq. The president was required to show the evidence of this threat no prior to using military force if possible, but no later than 48 hours after the use of military force began if it was not possible to give prior notification.
The justification that the president gave to Congress within 48 hours of attacking Iraq was the bad intelligence about the so called mobile WMD laboratores, all of the sites that they stated that WMD's would be found out, and even more significantly, the bogus intelligence about the attempts to get yellowcake from Niger, which the president already knew was false when he presented it to Congress as part of his justification for deeming Iraq to be an imminent threat.
In every way, the president essentially violated the requirements established in the act authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.
First, all diplomatic effort had not been exhausted and in fact, the U.N Inspectors had not been allowed to finish the standard six month inspection regime that are set up in the rules which established UNMOVIC.
Secondly, the president walked out on diplomatic efforts in the Security Council, claiming that the U.N. was at an impass and unwilling to enforce its own resolutions (another condition set in the authorization act which would have given COngressional support for the use of force)
Thirdly, evidence that Saddam constituted a threat to the U.S. that could not be ignored, nor required the United States to go to the United Nations in order to get approval to go to war, as the U.N. Charter permits any nations to defend itself from a real, imminent threat to its security. Which the president is seen to have not provided, as the intelligent used was faulty, and in at least on instance, known to be faulty when it was presented.
Jesse Jackson ,and a number of other well know activists and even members of Congress attempted to use the act itself in order to get an injuntion to prevent the president from using military force, but their timning was used as a reason for throwing the case out, as at the time the case was filed with the First Federal District Court, the president and his administration was still in negotiation with the United Nations and had not yet walked out on attempts to pass furtther resolutions after resolution 1441. Even though he did not sign the act, Dennis Kucinich was one of the parties to the attempt to get an injunction to prevent the president from using force or sending troops into Iraq based on the act itself. Had they actually waited until the president walked out on the security council, failing to submit the joint U.S./Great Britain resolution just days before beginning the use of force, it is more probable that the case would not have been thrown out of the court.
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