It's uncommon for Congress to intervene in a war that's under way - as the Senate did Tuesday regarding Iraq - but there is a precedent for such interference, dating back to the Civil War.
It was in December 1861, eight months after the first bloodshed in the War Between the States, that the House and Senate approved the formation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War to investigate the conflict. The panel consisted of three senators and four representatives...
On Aug. 7, 1964, Congress passed a measure known as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution giving President Johnson power to take "all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States" by the North Vietnamese...
In 1973 and 1974, Congress began to curtail operations in Vietnam, and in 1973, it passed the War Powers Act, whose intent was to put more control over war in the hands of Congress..
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