FACT CHECK: Congress Has Repeatedly Placed Limits On Military Deployments And Funding

January 9, 2007
Tomorrow night at 9 p.m. EST, President Bush will address the nation and announce an escalation of the war in Iraq by sending about 20,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq. Can Congress do anything about it?

Some members have claimed that anything other than symbolic action is unconstitutional. Legal scholars on both the left and the right say that’s false. History supports their case.

A new report from the Center for American Progress details how, over
the last 35 years, Congress has passed bills, enacted into law, that
capped the size of military deployments, prohibited funding for
existing or prospective deployment, and placed limits and conditions on
the timing and nature of deployments. Some examples:

December 1970. P.L. 91-652 —
Supplemental Foreign Assistance Law. The Church-Cooper amendment
prohibited the use of any funds for the introduction of U.S. troops to
Cambodia or provide military advisors to Cambodian forces.

December 1974. P.L. 93-559 — Foreign
Assistance Act of 1974. The Congress established a personnel ceiling of
4000 Americans in Vietnam within six months of enactment and 3000
Americans within one year.

June 1983. P.L. 98-43 — The Lebanon Emergency
Assistance Act of 1983. The Congress required the president to return
to seek statutory authorization if he sought to expand the size of the
U.S. contingent of the Multinational Force in Lebanon.

June 1984. P.L. 98-525 — The Defense
Authorization Act. The Congress capped the end strength level of United
States forces assigned to permanent duty in European NATO countries at
324,400.

November 1993. P.L. 103-139. The Congress
limited the use of funding in Somalia for operations of U.S. military
personnel only until March 31, 1994, permitting expenditure of funds
for the mission thereafter only if the president sought and Congress
provided specific authorization.

Read the full report for more examples.