Posted on 06/18/21
| News Source: The Hill
The House on Thursday voted to repeal the 2002 authorization for the Iraq War in what lawmakers are framing as a first step in a broader effort to claw back presidential war powers.
The House voted largely along party lines in a 268-161 vote to scrap the 2002 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), with supporters of the repeal arguing the nearly 20-year-old law is outdated and no longer necessary.
Only one Democrat voted against scrapping the authorization, while 49 GOP lawmakers did vote to repeal it.
The war authorization was initially passed by Congress to allow the U.S military to go after former President Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, though it has occasionally been used to bolster the legal rationale for other military engagements in recent years.
“Repeal can prevent our country from entering another protected protracted engagement under this outdated authority,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the sponsor of the repeal bill, said Thursday. “We can't afford to leave this in place indefinitely. For two decades, it has been in place. This is our opportunity to restore our constitutional role.”
The House previously voted to repeal the 2002 AUMF last congressional session, but the effort went nowhere in the Senate, which at the time was controlled by Republicans.
This time, though, momentum appears to be building toward getting the repeal to the president’s desk.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced his support for repealing the 2002 AUMF and vowed to hold a vote in his chamber this year.
The Biden administration has also come out in support of repealing the 2002 AUMF, with the White House saying in a statement this week it backs Lee’s bill because “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.”
Still, Republicans argued that taking the 2002 AUMF off the books would hamstring U.S. counterterrorism missions, saying it should not be repealed until a replacement for the 2001 AUMF is agreed to.
The 2002 authorization has occasionally been cited to bolster legal arguments in the fight against ISIS, though the main authorization cited for that war has been the 2001 AUMF.
The Trump administration also cited the 2002 AUMF in part for its legal justification in the 2020 drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
“This feels like yet another political effort to undo one of President Trump’s boldest counterterrorism successes,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said of Thursday’s vote.