Presidents, war and cheap shots

IN his review of my book, “War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution” [Book Review, Aug. 14], Nicholas Thompson found some positive things to say about it, for which I’m grateful. Speaking of the “war declaring” power the Constitution gives solely to Congress, he wrote that “Irons does a good job of walking readers through the gradual usurpation of this power by various presidents.” That’s what the book is about, and I’m glad Thompson feels that I accomplished that goal.

Along with this welcome praise, however, Thompson took a few cheap shots, which deserve a brief reply. These largely relate to my discussion, in the book’s final chapters, of the Bush administration’s motives and rationales for invading Iraq. His criticism is puzzling, since Thompson seems to agree with me that “a legal case against the war in Iraq” would be defensible and that I make a “plausible argument” that presidents from Lincoln through Bush have “exceed[ed] their constitutional powers in wartime.”

Despite this agreement, Thompson states flatly that I “hate” Bush and “most current U.S. political leaders” for questioning their “pre-emptive war” strategies. Equating criticism with “hatred” is really too much; in fact, I criticize every president since Truman for violating the Constitution’s “war powers” clause, and I don’t hate any of them.

Even more puzzling is Thompson’s claim that my “anti-Bush potshots” make these chapters “overwrought” and little more than “a bland recitation of Michael Moore.” The “potshots” are, in fact, a carefully documented recounting of the Bush administration’s false and misleading claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and collaborated with Al Qaeda, and their refutation by the Kay report, the 9/11 commission and even U.S. military officials. Perhaps those chapters didn’t impress Thompson, but they owe nothing to Michael Moore.

PETER IRONS

Greenville