Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley opposed funding any American military operations in Iraq this year—before he supported them. The three-term House member, who is running for Iowa’s open Senate seat in one of the year’s hottest races, touted his support for military action against ISIS in Iraq and Syria in a recent debate.
“I recently had the opportunity to vote to give the president limited authority to begin strikes against terrorists in Iraq and Syria,” Braley said during the debate with his Republican opponent, Joni Ernst.
That’s not quite accurate, as Fox News’s Carl Cameron points out. The recent House vote Braley cited was to arm Syrian rebels fighting against ISIS. Authorization for United States’s bombing campaign against ISIS terrorists has fallen under the authorization to use military force against terrorist groups first passed by Congress in 2001, the Obama administration has argued. There’s been no separate vote in this Congress to authorize the recent air strikes.
But earlier this year, Braley voted for an amendment to not fund any military combat operations in Iraq. On June 19, California Democrat Barbara Lee offered an amendment to the defense appropriations bill to “prohibit the use of funds to be used for the purposes of conducting combat operations in Iraq.” The amendment failed, but 23 Republicans and 142 Democrats voted for it—including Bruce Braley.
Braley’s vote to bar combat funding in Iraq came just days after ISIS captured the northern Iraq city of Mosul, the country’s second largest city.
