Congressional Digest

Excerpt

On September 21, 2001, President George W. Bush appeared before a joint session of Congress and vowed to “direct every resource at our command … to the destruction and to the defeat of the global terror net­work.” He thanked Congress for its leadership in pass­ing, just three days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, a resolution authorizing him to use “all nec­essary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons” that he determined were involved in the attacks. The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) was unique in that it declared war not against a n…