Poll: Public wants Congress's OK on war

PRINCETON, N.J., July 7 (UPI) -- Americans now as in the past 35 years think the president needs Congress' OK before sending troops to war or bombing suspected terrorists, a poll indicates.

A Gallup poll released Monday reveals 79 percent of Americans surveyed want congressional oversight when a president proposes sending troops into battle outside U.S. borders and 70 percent say U.S. lawmakers should preapprove any presidential plan to bomb suspected terrorists.

Those levels mirror Americans' opinions in 1973 when Congress, at the end of the Vietnam War, overrode President Richard Nixon's veto of the War Powers Act, which had sought to clarify the president's power to engage U.S. troops in hostile action, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said.

The most recent poll's results were based on telephone interviews May 8-11 with 1,017 U.S. adults. The sampling margin of error is 3 percentage points.