Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Congress Seeks Iraq War End Through Funding Bill, 03/28/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june07/congress_3-28.html

Initiating Questions:

1. How are wars declared in the United States?

2. Who can declare the end of a war in the United States?

3. How can Congress end a war?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. How has the House of Representatives responded to the issue of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq?

Last week, the House of Representatives approved a nonbinding measure that would set an Aug. 31, 2008 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Calling the war "a grotesque mistake," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "The American people do not support a war without end and neither should this Congress."

2. How has the Senate responded to the issue of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq?

This week, the Senate considered similar language that would seek to have troops out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. The approval of attaching such wording to a larger funding bill marks the first time the Senate has shown support for a withdrawal timeline.

The Senate narrowly defeated a Republican amendment that would have stripped any deadlines from the bill. A vote on the bill itself was still pending by Wednesday afternoon.

3. What is President Bush's view of troop withdrawal timelines? What does he have the power to do?

President Bush has promised to veto any legislation that sets a timeline for troop withdrawal, saying the measures in the House bill "substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders."

4. What could be a possible outcome of the president's actions?

If the president vetoes the bill, he may not have the funds he says he needs by mid-April to support his Iraq strategies, including the 23,000-soldier increase in Baghdad announced earlier this year.

5. What does the U.S. Constitution have to say about the powers to declare and manage a war?

The rules dividing the powers to declare and mange a war come from the U.S. Constitution. Article II, Section 2 reads, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States," giving the White House the authority to conduct war, putting the president at the top of the military chain of command.

But Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power "to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces," and "to raise and support Armies," which the legislative branch has done by providing funds through annual appropriations bills.

6. Why might the framers of the Constitution structure the powers in this way?

"The framers of the Constitution deliberately structured the powers so there would be clashes [over war powers] and to make sure neither [Congress nor the White House] would go it alone," Susan Low Bloch, a constitutional law expert from Georgetown University, told the Washington Times.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. What do you think? Should the U.S. institute a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq? Why or why not? Explain your reasoning with clear examples.

2. Refer to a copy of the Constitution. If the Constitution were written today, how do you think its authors would write it to share war powers between the Executive and Legislative branches? Should the impact of international terrorism, which was unknown in the 18th century, influence how war powers are shared?

3. Research other countries involved in the war in Iraq acting? Are they also trying to leave?

4. How were the following wars declared: World War II, Korea, Vietnam? How did they end?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.