The House voted in June to repeal the 2002 Iraq War authorization. The measure repealing the authorization to use military force (AUMF) passed by a vote of 268-161 and received overwhelming support from Democrats and 49 Republicans.
The 2002 AUMF allowed the George W. Bush administration to invade Iraq over suspicions that the country was developing weapons of mass destruction. The invasion toppled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s government but also led to what some have called a “forever war,” with American troops still in the country nearly two decades later.
The 2002 AUMF came a year after Congress passed a similar authorization allowing military troops to be deployed against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. Neither of those authorizations had an expiration date and have been used by subsequent presidents to justify military deployment around the world.
Increasingly, though, critics say presidents should not have unilateral power to deploy military troops without congressional approval.
“Repeal is crucial because the executive branch has a history of stretching” the legal authority of the AUMF, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “It has already been used as justification for military actions against entities that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist dictatorship simply because such entities were operating in Iraq.”
The current legislation to repeal the 2002 AUMF was sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who was the only member of Congress who opposed the 2001 AUMF passed three days after Sept. 11. “Two decades after casting the single ‘no’ vote against the 2001 AUMF, we have seen every administration since utilize the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs to conduct war far beyond the scope Congress ever intended,” Lee said in a statement.
Lee also said that repealing the 2002 AUMF should set the stage for getting rid of the “overly broad” 2001 authorization “so that no future president has the unilateral power to plunge us into endless wars.”
Although President Biden voted for the 2002 AUMF when he was a senator, his administration is in favor of its repeal. “The administration supports the repeal of the 2002 AUMF, as the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis, and repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations,” the administration said in a policy statement.
“Furthermore, the President is committed to working with the Congress to ensure that outdated authorizations for the use of military force are replaced with a narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats,” the statement added.
This isn’t the first time the House voted to repeal the 2002 AUMF. The House passed legislation in 2020, but it was not taken up by the Senate and it didn’t have the support of the Trump administration.
Now with Democrats in control of the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he plans to bring up the repeal legislation in 2021. He will likely face stiff opposition from Senate Republicans, who have argued that the White House should have freedom to go after America’s enemies.
“Presidents should be authorized … to go after terrorists or other armed groups who seek to harm the United States or our personnel deployed anywhere in the world, on an ongoing basis, and to do whatever is necessary to degrade their capability to strike us — and if possible to wipe them out of existence,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations panel, said during a floor debate.
The bill does have backing from Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young, however, who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Given overwhelming Republican sentiment that Biden should maintain legal authority to protect American military troops in Iraq, where there have been attacks by Iran-backed militia groups, Young argued that Biden could rely on his Article II constitutional authority and launch retaliatory strikes instead.
Still, other Republicans, including Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argue that repealing the AUMF could “embolden” terrorist groups that the president does not have legal authority to pursue.
For more background, see the November 2017 issue of Congressional Digest on “Authorizing Military Force.”
