The House voted Thursday to revoke the 2002 authorization for the use of military force in Iraq, sending the measure to the Senate for a vote later this year.
The bill passed by a vote of 268 to 161 and had the backing of 49 of the 209 voting Republicans. One Democrat voted against it.
Democrats have been attempting to revoke the Iraq War powers for years, arguing the decades-old authorization is unnecessary and cuts Congress out of important military decisions. The last U.S. troops left Iraq nearly a decade ago, ending a nine-year war that killed 4,500 service members.
“Congress has a historic opportunity to repeal this outdated authorization and reassert its proper authority over matters of war and peace,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, said.
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The resolution won some bipartisan support, but many Republicans voted against it out of concern that a blanket repeal would limit the U.S. military from combating terrorism in the Middle East.
The top Republican on the Foreign Affairs panel argued Congress must not end the authorization without simultaneously passing an updated directive that would ensure the United States could continue the fight against Iranian terrorism and modern-day threats in the region.
“It’s confusing to me that we are jamming through a stand-alone repeal without basic due diligence, without consulting with the State Department, the Defense Department, the intelligence community, without consulting with the government of Iraq, and our coalition partners and allies,” Texas Republican Michael McCaul said.
The 2002 AUMF repeal has passed the House more than once in years past. But it now stands a much greater chance of success in part because the Senate is under the control of Democrats and President Joe Biden said he supports the repeal of the 2002 AUMF, as he wants to update the 2001 AUMF authorizing President George W. Bush to direct the U.S military to strike Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced this week he’ll bring up a 2002 AUMF repeal measure sometime this year. A Senate committee next week will consider a bipartisan bill that would repeal both the 2002 AUMF as well as war powers authority to invade Iraq in 1991.
The House measure was authored by Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat who has been working for years to repeal both the 2002 war powers authority and the 2001 authorization.
The 2002 AUMF “bears no correlation to the threats we face today,” Lee said. “We can’t afford to leave this in place indefinitely. This is the opportunity to restore our constitutional role.”
Presidents have utilized the 2002 authorization in the years since the Iraq War ended. Former President Barack Obama cited the AUMF as legal justification for airstrikes against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria.
Schumer this week cited former President Donald Trump’s use of the 2002 AUMF to take out top Iraqi military commander Qasem Soleimani as part of the reason Congress must revoke the authority.
Schumer said the killing of Soleimani in January 2020 was carried out “without transparency, without proper notification to Congress, and without a clear strategy.”
“There is no good reason to allow this legal authority to persist in case another reckless commander in chief tries the same trick in the future,” Schumer added.
House Republicans Thursday praised Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani, who was long identified as Iran’s terrorism mastermind and was deemed responsible for the deaths of 600 American soldiers killed in terrorist attacks.
At the time of the strike, State Department officials said Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
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The 2002 repeal measure is an effort by Democrats to rebuke Trump, Republicans argued, and would leave U.S. military in the Middle East vulnerable to terrorism.
“This feels like yet another political effort to undo one of President Trump’s boldest counterterrorism successes,” McCaul said.
