policy and i first hearing in march we took testimony from current and former members of congress in our second hearing earlier this month we heard from a panel of preeminent constitutional scholars issue experience at both ends of pennsylvania avenue before i introduce today's witnesses i will take a moment pause and take stock of where the subcommittee is  its consideration of the walk and why where we are right in the middle of a careful review of the status of the current land a law whose intent was to establish a regular process for making the decision about going to walk which is reflected in the  as those contained in the so called constitutional law powers act by our colleague congressman walter jones of north carolina  final wrap up hearing and plan return to the full foreign affairs committee with a revised version of the jones bill that takes full advantage of what we have learned as a result of these hearings so that is where the why can't be explained with two words jones the considerable public controversy about the decision to go to war in two thousand and two and to continue that was today and that's generated an additional recent thing of the proper roles of both branches of government in the decision to go to war ought to stay and watch for that matter and the individual who is to this point in time this rethinking if you will is a member of the house who was among the most respected across party lines for honesty and dedication to the well being of american troops and for political courage and that's our friend walter jones of north carolina and once more thank him for his dedication to the issue as witnessed by his drafting of house joint resolution of receiving testimony and hearing no objection it is so watered at the hearing i asked that we need a change in the congressional culture so that more members become convinced of crucial of all national decisions why do we need a change in the process by which we ensure that congress meets its constitutional responsibilities and for today's hearing i would  phrase that question slightly do we need a change in the executive branch culture so that presidents become convinced of a constitutional obligation to be partners with the congress again in the most crucial of all national decisions for the solution to go to war do we need a change in the process by which we ensure that the president meets his or her constitutional responsibilities and does not encroach on congressional prerogatives as i said in the last hearing the answer doesn't have to be one or the other i do believe we need a predictable credible process of consultation and approval so that the collective of judgment of the peoples directly elected representatives can be brought to bear on these crucial decisions as demanded by the constitution but above all i believe that we need a political culture in which the executive and legislative branches can communicate and can make their spot in a ship viable and workable  congress has to take its constitutional responsibilities seriously and for its part the executive branch has to stop seeing dialogue and consultation as a sign of weakness as a ceding of its constitutional prerogatives my friend and ranking member mr rob aka shared with us in a previous hearing the instructions he received while working for president reagan don't be afraid to talk to anybody for him really believe that op foreign policy process will be strengthened not weakened by the executive branch talking on a continuing far i've listened to and i've felt that we've had some very fine witnesses and some very fine discussions but it is not a lead me to believe anything other than the fact that our founding  fathers had in mind something that was the right kind of approach and that is that congress was to play second fiddle to the executive branch in times of war not that there aren't congressional prerogatives there are not that we don't have certain rights and certain authority within our hands which we can exercise not that there shouldn't be a viable discussion but that in times of war especially in the exercise of the war powers our founding fathers meant that to be in the hands of the executive branch that is because our founding fathers experienced war by committee first read a history of the american revolution and what happened our country during the articles of confederation there you have an executive and executive branch not dealing with the congress certainly has every right to step in and investigate things like that but for  committee gets to see those triplets so what i'm going to do is introduce witnesses and ask them to make their statements and then i'll go to mr rubb rocca for any questions he might have and then we will can we will proceed in the normal course so let me introduce our witnesses brian atwood is a welcome sight at the  development he's moved on to become the dean of the humphrey institute for public affairs at the university of minnesota for our purposes today he has two particularly relevant listings on his rather lengthy requirements tracked closely with the legislation authored by congressman jones second he then served as assistant secretary of state for congressional relations under president carter so put the two jobs together and we have someone who knows what the word consultation means for the water policy and how it from the word notification brian thank you for coming all this way  although i presume it's cold still in minnesota and i'm delighted that stephen ray to make who testified at a previous hearing from his perspective as a former   holdings and serves as the u s representative on the united nations advisory board and thank you steve for assisting us once more a third witness is dr  me and others multiple times and i asked him to come here today not to try to improve on his report with a prepared statement but to answer questions and help clarify matters during the thank you very much mr chairman and i congratulate you and the other members of the subcommittee for getting into this really important issue and particular mr jones for the initiative that he's taken it won't come as much surprise given what you said about  the eagleton senate version of the bill that i would strongly support what mr jones is suggesting here basically there is a constitutional flaw in my judgment in the war powers resolution as it's currently written in that it concedes that presidents are going to enter into war pro without prior authority and what i think your bill does mr jones is to bring great clarity to the kinds of emergencies that a president could be expected in the modern age to to take the country into war to repel a sudden attack basically the phrase that was used at the constitutional convention and it would be interesting certainly as we look at a presidential election that's going on and on and on to ask each of the three candidates what they think whether those delegation of power is adequate to repel sudden attack upon the united states to repel an attack on america forces stationed abroad to rescue under certain conditions americans that are that are in trouble in a country where the government doesn't protect them it seems to me that the that's a logical delegation of the congress to the president of the united states and it's hard to imagine what more a president could want and of course the controversial aspect of cutting off the authority or basically asking the president come back for authority if there if there is a need to extend that engagement beyond thirty days so i strongly support this approach i think that the current war powers resolution could be effective if the consultation provisions were affective and my concern is that congress has not accepted the invitation of the executive branch starting back when president nixon issued his veto message he basically said he welcomed the consultation provision he urged congress to create the machinery that would make it easier to discuss these kinds of issues across a broad range of circumstances those are the words he used in the veto message the carter administration repeated that invitation and yet the congress really hasn't organized for those kinds of consultations now the committee structure here is interesting but it gives you only a piece of the puzzle committee's jurisdiction applies to the state department and to other departments that you oversee the armed services committee oversees the defense department and the intelligence committees the intelligence community the problem in my view is that never know where do you get the whole picture in a way that would  make consultations with the executive branch what i say as i use the phrase voidable secure and meaningful so what i have recommended is what others have recommended including former chairman of this lee hamilton and that is that a joint consultation committee be established so that there can be no doubt downtown what the congress wants with respect to consultations and i agree with mr arar bachar that in times of war congress really can't become five hundred thirty five commanders in the real issue here is influencing the decision before the decision is made and it seems to me the sixteen members including the leadership of this committee the com the services the intelligence committees and the leadership of the house and senate are very experienced people many of been in the military many of our experts on constitutional law many of whom understand obviously the politics of the issue and it seems to me that if the congress were to organize itself that way and have periodic hearings run by a staff that was made up of military and intelligence and diplomats who understood these you could have a lot more influence than you have over the way in which the decision is taken mr goldsmith who was the president bush's head of the office of legal counsel has urged genuinely engaging congress in these decisions in an era of terrorism and his assumption is that congress would better understand the kinds of options the president has before him in dealing with terrorism it may well be that the president would be persuasive i know that there are people who are concerned that a committee like that would be co opted but i can tell you from my own experience in dealing with one of the subcommittees of this committee during mr hamilton's era when he chaired the subcommittee on  middle eastern europe every other month he would have a closed door session with the middle east and the european bureaus and ask them very specific questions about policy matters there was a great deal of trust that emerged the committee members were informed and i will tell you that the executive branch had to consider questions that they might not have considered had it not been for the fact that that bipartisan committee was putting forth those questions that's the kind of relationship i see this joint council committee having with the executive branch it has been said that by edward corwin that the constitution is an invitation to struggle but it is also an invitation to cooperate in the national interest and it is vitally important that congress get involved in these decisions and have some influence over the decisions prior to the balloon going up people worry about being co opted much more easily co opted if the president decides not to consult and simply to go to the public with a call to arms in that case it's almost impossible for the congress the press everyone else to resist and so what i'm urging is that there be some  discussion about a joint consultation committee somewhat similar to the joint economic committee except for the fact that it would obviously operate behind closed doors finally i i don't exactly have an answer for this but the current national security strategy is in essence a permanent declaration of war it basically says that the president can take action because of the terrorism threat even when there isn't convincing evidence in essence that there is such a threat it seems to me that the executive branch needs at least to be challenged on this ground because otherwise there's no sense talking about the jones buil sense talking about anything in essence we're in a permanent state of war and the congress no longer has any role to play i don't know that that is something that you would accept so i've obviously submitted written testimony mr chairman i ask that be made part of the record as well as an article for the st louis university law review which i think might shed some light on some of these issues one other point and i have written to mr r boxer about this because i watched the first hearing here and there is something in that article about the marine corps barracks in lebanon the long commission that looked at that issue pointed out after the fact that the rules of engagement weren't  changed to take into consideration the circumstances which were obviously very hostile it seems to me the congress has an interest in this joint committee could play a role here in looking at rules of engagement because i have evidence in this article that executive branch lawyers in the past have basically because of concern about the need to consult and the need to trigger the provisions of the war powers resolution have basically tried to get  around changing the rules of engagement which would put our military people in danger there are two incidents that i cover in that article the gulf of sidra and the marine barracks in lebanon i think that's something that the congress should be interested in if indeed the rules of engagement are changed to give our military more authority to deal with the situation clearly that's an indication that hostilities are imminent which is the phrase that is used in the war powers resolution so there are some sects of the war powers resolution that need to be examined as well so clearly there's a constitutional flaw and there is a flaw in the way we're doing business if in fact  as i heard it if we want to change the balance of power that currently exists between the legislative and executive branches in the powers we have to what we have to do we have to change the culture of the congress do we have to change the culture in the testimony that i submitted today i think i i didn't find it as an issue of culture but i think i say a number of things that speak to the culture governs executive branch thinking with regard to war powers   the views that i set forth there but the way our government is structured when there's when there's a difficult legal question within the executive branch the supreme court of the executive branch is the office of  counsel at the justice department and one of the relevant it's a request of justice for a legal opinion and these are the principles that will guide any any legal opinion that's written on war powers questions in the executive branch so i think that's the first point that is simply a reality in dealing with the executive branch in this area the second point that i address is the perception within the executive  branch the way congress approaches war powers questions and i explain that within the executive branch there's a feeling that the congress is non serious many times when it approaches what our life and death questions and i explain some of the reasons that that underlie that and i think the explanations  mistake again the mistake that i made and sending two hundred forty marines to their death but the other historical precedent was the first persian gulf war and for a lot  of especially for a lot of the democratic members of the committee that's good for the opposite principle that if you if you vote the wrong way on what turns out to be perhaps not a popular war but a war that is well conceived to come down somewhere between yes and i know and that's perfectly understandable impulse on the part of somebody who is facing a difficult choice but for the executive branch to get up to get a maybe from the congress is not particularly helpful and as i indicated and my prepared remarks i think within the executive branch that's viewed as really an effort by congress to have it both ways to be able to criticize the war after the fact if it turns out like lebanon and to the credit if it turns out well like the first persian gulf war and because brought to bear that that's designed to give a serious answer to the question and so i think i would i would answer your question what has what has to change i think if it's the congress that wants to change it i think as i point out my testimony the executive branch is not unhappy with the current balance of power between the two branches so if the congress wants to change it i think it needs to figure out a way to impose discipline on itself and when i last testified i laid out my suggestion about how the congress might go about doing that maybe i could go a little further than i did him in my testimony last week and say you know i i don't know whether you or another member want to take my idea and run with it  by all means do so if you would like i think i'll make a prediction though that if you if you try to advance that idea you will run into roadblocks and based on my experience i would suggest the main roadblock you're going to run into is  congressional leadership because the congressional leadership and i don't mean today's congressional leadership i mean any congressional leadership republican democrat doesn't depend on the personalities involved the leadership  leadership of the congress doesn't really believe in majority rule the last thing any leadership wants is a third of their caucus to join with the minority party pass legislation that they disagree with and that's what obstacle is not the executive branch it's not republicans it's it's the leadership and the leadership of both parties because they would they would rather address these cases on an ad hoc basis as they come up that i would propose but i'll defer to you on when you would like me to do that and i'm sure we'll get to that point my intention now again looking at the clock is to go to the ranking member for it doesn't take legislative branch seriously when you have someone who is taking their job seriously as i do on this side that the executive branch is opportunity mostly behind closed doors and secure setting to raise questions as to whether the rules of engagement are indeed appropriate in this case of the lebanon prior to the marine barracks as the long commission reported a number of incidents occurred a number of individual members of congress raise questions but there wasn't any institutional capacity for congress to say are we doing this the right way and then of course there was a decision made by the executive branch engagement were not changed and the marines were vulnerable so if there had been this opportunity in a joint consultation committee behind closed doors to query the executive branch on the situation it may well have been that  you would have made an impact and i just go back to this point that steve has raised individual members of congress are very serious but collectively the executive branch believes as he suggested that you  next committee that i think we're getting close to an understanding and i want to compliment you both your testimon and i tend to agree with mister in terms of a mechanism to ensure institutional guarantee of thoughtful deliberation yes there are individual members that make themselves a pain one of them is to my left and he doesn't actually job and accomplishes that frequently and often times to the benefit of the institution but i don't think we should rely on the instincts of individual members particularly when they may not have a vailable to all of the information and data staff that is really necessary to reach a fully informed decision but having said that let me go to mr carnahan and reexamined and revisit it and i guess on a personal note very proud of my former missouri senator mentor and friend tom eagleton we miss him and he was an early champion of establishing congress's authority regarding war powers he firmly believes that our founding fathers correctly placed in article one section eight responsibility to go to war with the congress because the danger of and tendency of power as creeping to the executive senator eagleton also sought to prevent an en around congressional authorization by the executive branch by seeking to prevent the president from using treaties or other authorities as the basis for going to war i'd like the panel to tell us a little bit about i guess presidents before and after senator eagleton have used treaties and institutional authority such as the un or nato to avoid congressional authorization for going to war i'd like to hear you discuss whether or not you think the president pursuant to treaty authority such as u n charter and nato can c debate in the in the senate made it very clear that this delegation of authority to the president to engage in the u n charter and sections six and seven in particular that charter which involve the use of force would not in any way supersede the constitutional authority of congress to authorize war and so while the treaty is the law of the land there were reservations offered at the time the u n charter was debated first in the same consideration was given when the nato treaty was enacted so that's that's my answer there's nothing that can supersede the constitution of legal authority for the president to commit u s forces in combat i don't believe that's true however and i think that would be a very dangerous doctrine i don't i don't think the congress would want to ever delegate note that i recall in the early one nine hundred ninety s legislation was introduced in the senate i don't recall a corresponding house bill but there was a bill introduced in the senate that would have provided that you want authorization would automatically provide  dangerous road for the congress to go down with my friend for a moment it's my understanding then that most of the treaties i think all of the treaties and that we are signatory to and have ratified including the language authorization pursuant language to the effect pursuant to constitutional process  of respective governments and i've heard this issue raised about using treaties as a way to implicate military american military forces in hostile actions overseas and yet the language in the treaties would suggest strongly would state explicitly that again constitutional process must be complied with is that an accurate statement of that that's exactly right i classic example of what you just outlined is the nato treaty of forty nine when the debate on that took place one of the key points that was made by senator vandenberg representing his party at that time on the issue was that there was going to be no automatic war that ratification of the net and that nature was clearly going to have contained within a clear language it made it clear that congress or any other party to the treaty was going to have to grasp of this issue and heard him speak about it on that i realized to have you reflect on the work he did there on that bill and i guess it's obviously relevant today but also how that compares to the bill that we're looking at here in the current congress thank you mr carnahan and i i guess i wasn't aware that you were a member of the subcommittee so i hope you'll give my best wishes to the secretary of state of your state as well your friend he wrote a book after this whole episode called war and presidential power a chronicle of congressional surrender of course he sided with president in the override vote which took a lot of courage because he felt that as he said it turned the constitution on its head and i think he was absolutely right about that and legal scholars have now looked at his debates with barry goldwater for example and barry goldwater said i can almost support this because it gives more power to the president than i thought he had under the constitution anyway i mean it was a very and then debate with senator javits who was a co sponsor of the senate legislation with him so i think that he was absolutely right he believes that the war powers resolution has been a failure he believed i should say he was very courageous man in a lot of ways and i guess you don't say these things very often in washington but he was a person that i loved and he was a mentor and   situation like imagine a situation in which a country attacks a u s ally in the middle east during a congressional recess whether it would be syria tanking jordan turkey attacking iraq which in fact it's done recently or china taiwan if the president term is that this attack threatens u s national security does the defeat an invasion impose a night a no fly zone or provide advice and training in the war zone to our  ally i'm sorry but i would have to review the legislation again i looked at it some weeks ago but for a very precise legal question like that i would be very reluctant to draw in my now somewhat hazy recollection of what the legislation provides my view risk and the u s territory was not at risk then he would have to convene the congress and already the other the example i was trying to describe was where an ally had been attacked secretary atwood that indicated that there is a bailable to the executive the prerogative of calling for a special session of congress i presume that would could be done in  expedited fashion i don't i consider myself somewhat of a history buff but i can't think immediately of a situation where that's occurred maybe that occurred in  anymore so therefore these hearings and this issue itself absolutely critical in my humble opinion i'm just going to read a couple sentences and get to the point i would assume that  want type of a minute to read this because i want to get to my point from two thousand to two thousand to ten a general and director of operations for the joint chiefs of staff after nine eleven i was a witness and therefore i pointed to the actions that led us to the invasion of iraq and necessary war unnecessary war not needed unnecessary inside the military family i made no secret rationale for war made no sense and i think i was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable now regret i did not openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat al qaeda afghanistan bin lad further toward the end of his writing my sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casual miss and swagger that are the special providence of those who have never had today than i was six years ago believe me not smart about why but i'm sitting there listening i want to trust i want to believe that i can trust what i'm being told and maybe that's my fault that i did not do more investigation but i think i was average in that respect then i think about the fact that the congress seemed to and i'm not  by my party was in charge at the time seem not to really question i don't blame the ministration for that i do not but the congress itself in my humble opinion did not have again we were the majority party or did not seek to meet its institutional responsibility again the president didn't ask for a declaration of war but we were not in a position and i'm not going to fault the leadership at that time but we did not seem to be in a position to seriously challenge what we would be in told now i'm not talking about so much in iraq but constitutionally we were neutered if i can use that word we would just neutered and we just went along well i think to close and then to get them out one point i want to make in the book that he wrote epitaph the war and this has been so profound is why with my staff we look so hard in this legislation in his son died in world war one and he had been pretty much aggressive when it came to empire building war but on the common form is if they ask why we died tail them because our fathers lied and under no circumstances should congress abdicate its responsibility to young men and women to die for country so if we don't try to tweak the night seventy three war powers act how do we have more constitutional ability to be a partner or consultant before we send americans to die and i know that's not a academic type question but i'm giving it to you because i think  many many because today in my district outside my district what does congress need to do what do we need to change what do we need to rewrite to make congress made its constitution today congress needs to develop an institutional capacity to ask those kinds of questions there are military experts on every network now that are being paid a lot of money to provide to the public their view of what's happening in iraq there's no reason why congress can't hire some of those experts that when people like secretary rumsfeld come up you can ask the right question the run up to the war in iraq was a lot longer than the six weeks of debate the congress had they were preparations being made there have now been books written there's a general marks who was asked to lead the troops into iraq has said that he went all over this government for six months trying to ask people where are the weapons of mass destruction where are they well we know there are three thousand depots where are my troops are going to have to go into that country i don't know where they are nobody could tell him because the evidence wasn't there they didn't know where they were all they had was an historical record according to george tenet's book so if there had been institutional capacity if there had been a committee that was well staffed that could could operate in private in in a secure environment those questions might have been asked you can't predict that it would have come out the right way as alexander bickel has said you know congress and the president can make  foolish errors of commission or omission but together that's somewhat less likely and together that's all we've got the problem is that the congress hasn't taken this seriously enough to create that kind of institutional capacity a parliamentary system where the prime minister is also the leader of a party he wouldn't dare take the country to war without making sure that at least his party was behind him in this system which is a separation of powers system we need a different method for assuring that the best minds of the country are at least together thinking about these issues and asking the right questions before we make the decision to go to war because as we have seen once the decision is made in the authority is granted it's the president who will determine what the duration of that war will be think a lot of criticisms that one can make of the current war and how we got into the current war and the way the administration has handled it but i don't think one of the criticisms that can be made is that this war was put together in violation or conducted in violation of the war powers resolution if the gentleman yield i'm not decision in two thousand and three that we need to fix the war powers resolution because the war powers resolution i don't think contributed to the outcome in two thousand and three i don't think a different war powers resolution would have given us a different outcome i think the larger point of some of the remarks i made earlier about congress taking responsibility and participating as a increase the likelihood that when congress does make a decision it makes the right decision i don't think there's any procedural mechanism any committee structure that's going to guarantee that congress gets it right one hundred percent of the time i don't think the of relying on a committee of experts to help the congress get it right i think looking back on the decisions the congress made in two thousand and three whole lot of it was driven by intelligence assessments that in retrospect appear to have been wrong and at least in the intelligence the congress long ago did what it is recommending be done in this area there are committees  in the house and senate committees that work full time on this issue they are staffed by by and large intelligence experts most of the staff of those committees have some background in the intelligence community their job is to oversee the intelligence community and quickly my comment based on what i have learned and my comments are based on the fact that the congress of the future there will be many people who will be more knowledgeable such is the chairman and ranking member from his or then all of us but myself and all of us who are here to do what they think is right and yet if the system is structured as it is now then i think more times than not that the members that do not have the expertise that all of us have will probably make a sim thousand but somewhere along the way we have lost our way if i can say it that way because i think it would be tragic if five years from now a chairman is having a same type of discussion on the issue of war powers because that means nothing would happen and possibly another war so this is good to have this this institutional sharing with us but the whole issue of the point is that the congress has got to come back to its cost social responsibility and dr to respond as well but i also want to note the time for secretary atwood i know he has a plane to catch and i do not want him to get to the airport and be delayed but thank you so much  if i can just for one moment make an observation and brian you can respond and then your call panelists can respond to i think the point that mr jones is getting too is in the current system it's not that i don't think that the nine hundred seventy three war powers act was violated by the administration but i do think this that it was not a fully informed decision by and while there are some experts in the intelligence committee i think that's not i think it's just it's been established that it's not necessarily reliable that's why this idea of how congress is structured there are other elements to consider in terms of any kind of policy decision the ability of the capacity of the armed services that implicates the the the i'm services committee in terms of destabilizing of the stability of the entire region in terms of our policy visited the mideast implicates the foreign affairs committee you know the initial rationale put forth was weapons of mass destruction but clearly that changed as the executive changed it rationale some of us would say to accommodate its goal of the deposing saddam hussein that rationale change but  the gentleman from north carolina used the word knew that i would put forth that we were flying blind we did not have the information available to us nor the ability in the capacity to ask the right question as to whether this was a decision that was fully informed so you're right may be simply an improvement in the  our capacity to do a fully informed decision and in part i agree that i think it's a decision where many have attempted to defer to the executive and not accepted the burden of our constitutional responsibility and that's why in my opening remarks allude to accepting our responsibility unless we just want to continue to allow mr chairman i think it is important not only to change the law but to change the culture and to take this more seriously and the even the effort even if you fail mr jones even the effort is worth it because the culture needs to be changed and people need to take this seriously i do agree with mr right to make sure that even the as i said in my testimony even the best crafted law cannot protect the nation when alexander hamilton his words the national council may be warped by some strong passion or momentary interest the strong passion that we're feeling after nine eleven was fairly obvious to everyone and when the president said this relates to terrorism and it would be awful  weapons of mass destruction came into the hands of terrorists i think that that was enough for most people i might also say that these passions can be aroused at times during the electoral calendar  when people say let's get this out of the way so we can go out and campaign and that we won't be accused of being weak on terrorism and i think obviously that was a factor here so let's be blunt about that but  particularly in an era where the concept of the unitary executive seems to be embraced vigorously  robustly by this administration i think i make a fair statement to say that dissent is not welcome and we've seen that whether it was the case of larry lindsey or shinseki and this is not simply trying to focus on the war in iraq and this administration but there is much more discipline in an executive in the executive branch whoever it may be the head of the executive branch democrat republican is irrelevant but i believe this to have a fully informed decision requires the competition of ideas requires and demands dissent and the ability to have appropriate transparency and i think one of the lessons that i have learned and i share walter's passion  on this issue is that congress has failed we did fail in our responsibility and we have to search for an answer so that it isn't just exclusively because in real terms the de facto reality is such that we do not have the institutional capacity as secretary atwo indicated to have that debate currently other than in a very fractured system and i think that's what i'm groping with as chair of this committee as i look at the jones proposal because there has to be some sort of answer now dick you might be able to give us some ideas in terms of a mechanism to improve that whether it's a analogous to the joint economic committee but a standing committee that allows for vigorous debate and when i hear the argument posed by my friend from california mr obama that well we can always stop i think what we need the funding that's much more difficult we need that information  open doors boxes open it's tough to get this is a fractured like much in the u s congress is a fraction analogy to put the genie back in the bottle and in that inter destroyed i guess that's what i'm looking for well there's plenty of examples of how congress has responded in the past to very specific controversies or issues whether it's war or whether it's intelligence  i got my start and my job being detail to work on the investigative committees involving the scandals involving the intelligence community back in the nineteen seventies select committees emerged from that deal with those kinds of questions you had representing members of the various policy committees that would have direct and concern and you know you had members of the armed services committee members of the foreign affairs committee and so on down the line and what they did was they had rotating membership to make sure that you always had someone who had an expertise that they could bring to the table in those committee meetings they dealt with security  staff they dealt with a secure of information and all of those things and now those are institutional parts of the congress in the house the senate we begin at the end of the second world war we had the joint atomic energy committee that committee had more power probably in any single committee ever had and modern times it had legislative authority it had membership that was bipartisan by cameral they had a tremendous amount of issues if you wanted to take any element of a model of all of that you could theoretically create a committee a joint committee and if you wish or two committees if it has to be that way because of the nature of  the rules of the house the senate which would have the same kind of function as it related to war related issues and which you could theoretically have people that are on the armed services committee or affairs committee the intelligence committees s resolution that committee could be the basis and the original original point of a declaration authorizing use of military force based upon private hearings in advance of an action taking place i mean the committees of the congress have got their own institutional interests and all of that but at the end of the day the right combination of circumstances emerges you probably could find some means of pulling that together and i would add that in the midst of nine eleven reaction it was a very difficult time for anybody to really understand quite what was going on and a lot of decisions had to be made in a very rapid fashion whether it was the original one zero seven forty in september of two thousand and one or subsequently the run up to the war in iraq and the second resolution but if you take a look at that time frame that was then this is now we've had all the experience of investigations all of debates that have come out all the issues in the information now you might have an environment right and propitious for people to examine these kinds of questions in a way that they might been willing to do in one thousand and two thousand and three i mean it's theoretically possible you know if you're last observation about i think what we're doing here today is a public exercise and lessons learned and i think it's clear that there's not a we don't have the clarity at for an answer but i think i'm beginning to diagnose the problem the problem is right here it's in this institution and various aspects of that problem have been touched on by a variety of witnesses over the course of the last three hearings  i think it's probably the most single important effort that this committee can undertake because as walter jones has stated i mean this is a issue of great urgency of the green importance in terms of our national life and not only how we view it in the world but its implications in the lives of everyday americans and not we're going to how do we go about ensuring that the decision making process and i grant you see this is it's not going to ever be infallible and i think we understand that this is an institution of humankind and we know that we are definitely clearly imperfect  much but maybe not necessarily for the right reason that the main reason i don't like it is that because of my strong affection for this committee and i think his proposal would have the effect of stripping this committee of one of the bear i don't understand why this committee can't do that already this is the committee that under the rules of the house of representatives has jurisdiction over questions of war and peace and precedent here where the speaker made climate change global warming an issue it was and there was a select  committee that was created it was not done without controversy but my response to you would be and i have great affection for this committee and i surely don't want to see jurisdiction either but there are issues of such paramount concern that we can't in my opinion allowed jurisdictional boundaries interfere with those issues that carry with them such profound consequences not just for this country but for the world climate  change war and peace because when we do something when we invade iraq it just doesn't impact the bond you know  iraqis within the boundaries of of iraq but that has a far greater import implications i would not mind sharing the dollars jurisdiction those jurisdiction with other committees maybe a select committee and staffing in resources ought not even be an issue whether i mean war is costly and in prize winner in economics is talking about a three trillion dollar war i mean we're talking infinitesimal amounts of money to provide congress with the kind of resources that really have that could contribute to a fully informed decision by the first branch of government with the constitutional president precedent falls on the side of the constitutional responsibility of congress to authorize you know to authorize sending troops into into combat but without this idea of a different mechanism let's call it the consultation of committee or the select committee on consultation even if there is limited input and i was  ordering the institution in congress with additional mandates on regional subcommittees for example i don't know but i am beginning to  after he left the congress but during the one nine hundred ninety s there was a lot of concern about the peacekeeping operations that were taking place around the world and as part of the u n reform legislation that the biden package that we passed during that time  there's an extensive provision requiring monthly consultations between the executive branch and the congress about peacekeeping operations and to the best of my knowledge these consultations still take place on a monthly basis a group of administration officials come up and i would advocate it has to be regular and frequent and it has to be mandatory on the part of members of congress again this calls within the institution of congress itself the rules of the house of representatives put the jurisdiction over these matters in this committee and i think to some extent what we're hearing is that maybe this committee hasn't done as good a job as it should have in exercising that jurisdiction and  d one solution is to bring in other committees bring in the leadership some of the responsibility to others and hope that collectively they can all do a better better job than than has been done but perhaps another approach would be for the committee to redouble its efforts and i'm just trying to think through how the committee might do that you know one idea would be to set up a special subcommittee focused only on that i think the problem with that is that you would then have some of the wanted to give additional gravitas to the mechanism a could be some sort of working group ad hoc working group or give it some other title but the chairman and ranking members of all the sub intelligence committee will have reservations and i think you've suggested that the chairman berman may have reservations those are the obstacles i forsee for that idea if this committee is  concerned and motivated i think there's a lot more that it by attacking by itself thank you just add one thing we're talking about consultation we're talking about two branches of government and even if you organize the committee structure or the new entity however you want to characterize it that you're still going to confront the reality of the executive branch has been very cherry about getting information out the special on something assessing as possible war activity or military operations because of concerns about operational security and about people having proper clearances and all of that sort of thing and even though most of the major committees to deal with for defense policy are intelligence  of the fact is there's a very very strong reluctance on the part executive branch based on past history to even engage people on that level if you have a committee of forty five members i mean the likelihood of them wanting to initiative so that those potential conflicts would be on the horizon and the committee given the expertise that it would the experience that it would have the gravitas that it would have would not be caught flatfooted because i went to kuwait in august of two thousand  there was such a huge build up going on there a massive massive base was being constructed in guitar and elsewhere in the gulf and i remember saying to myself there's a momentum here that is underway that is going to lead us to war what was fascinating to me going back to the executive branch is that the decision making process that is now revealing itself in the by this administration is practically nonexistent and i rely on the various books that have been published by insiders in the administration particularly i go back to secretary paul o'neill who served as a principal on the on the national security council and he was just taken aback by lack of process there was a conversation about the removal of saddam hussein and how to  that the founders were correct in having these checks and balances and information is key in terms of the coin of the realm if you  it's the weighing in the balancing of you know the dissemination of information but i think you know as you step back and look at where we find ourselves now i think a lot of us wish we had more information again i want to thank you both so much i am sure that we will be reaching out for you again because i think we were at the beginning of now taking this information simulating it and hopefully coming up with some ideas that we can refinance and