In the U.S. foreign and security policy-making process, the President and Congress work together relying on two important traditions. The first one is the "bipartisan diplomacy," initiated by Senator Arthur Vandenberg immediately after the World War II. Vandenberg's assertion that "politics stops at the water's edge" led the cooperative actions between the President and Congress in the formation of the Cold War policy in the late 1940s. Next is the principle of "checks and balances" between the legislative and the executive branches. With an idea of "separating purse and sword," Congress is empowered by the Constitution to declare war, and to appropriate funds for war. Along with these contradicting traditions, Congress exerts a considerable amount of influence on the U.S. foreign and security policy. This article will examine the Congressional actions on the Iraq issue since 2001. Receiving historically high supporting rate after the 9-11 terror attacks, President George W. Bush launched the war on terror in October 2001, and he strived for attacking Iraq in March 2003. Congress participated in this process by both authorizing the use of force, and funding the cost of war and reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq. In spite of Bush's May 2003 announcement that Major combat operations in Iraq have ended, the situation in Iraq developed into chaos. Moreover, the suspicion was raised over the U.S. intelligence report on Saddam Hussein's development of weapon of mass destruction (WMD), which was the grounds for the U.S. attack on Iraq. I argue that Congress had supported the President to launch the war against Iraq at the beginning. Congress, however, changes its tone and started strengthening its oversight power in response to the growing criticism of the American electorate against Bush's Iraq policy. Especially after the mid-term election in 2006, when the electorate gave a majority to the Democratic Party in both the House and the Senate, Congress tried to change the Iraq policy by introducing bills and resolutions to set the deadline of withdrawing the U.S. military from Iraq. In terms of the Iraq issue, Congress has played as a catalyst to mediate between the President and the American electorate.

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