House repeals 2002 Iraq War authorization
The House voted to repeal the 2002 authorization for the use of military force in Iraq on Thursday, a rare and historic effort by lawmakers to rein in presidential war powers.
Thursday’s vote brings the U.S. one step closer to ending the so-called Forever Wars in the Middle East that have defined the post-9/11 presidential administrations. And while the Iraq War ended nearly a decade ago, lawmakers saw an opportunity — with Democratic control of Congress — to reassert their Article I authority to declare and authorize foreign wars and military operations.
The 268-161 vote was bipartisan, drawing support from 49 Republicans and all but one Democrat. It was also a victory for Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who has pushed for the repeal for several years while presidents from both parties have undermined Congress’ role.
Speaking on the House floor ahead of the repeal vote, Lee said the nearly 20-year-old war authorization “bears no correlation to the threats we face today.”
“Repeal can prevent our country from entering another protracted engagement under this outdated authority. We can’t afford to leave this in place indefinitely,” Lee said. “This is our opportunity to restore our constitutional role.”
Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his support for repealing the 2002 authorization and said it would get a vote on the Senate floor sometime this year. President Joe Biden also backs the effort.
A complementary bill is making its way through the Senate beginning next week with a Foreign Relations Committee markup; but the upper chamber’s version, crafted by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.), also repeals the 1991 authorization — which Congress passed in the run-up to the first Gulf War — in addition to scrapping the 2002 measure.
Though both authorizations are seen as outdated, the Gulf War resolution has been left on the books unused since the brief conflict and is less controversial than repealing the 2002 authorization. Scrubbing both measures, in addition to even older military force laws, is seen by advocates as a key step in Congress beginning to reclaim its war prerogatives.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he did not support repealing the 2002 authorization, calling it "reckless" without broader debate. The bill would need the support of at least 10 Republican senators to pass the upper chamber.
"Reality is more complicated, more dangerous and less politically convenient than its supporters believe," McConnell said.
Both Kaine and Lee said in interviews this week that they plan to strategize with each other to reconcile the differences in the two bills. Kaine said the most likely path was through the annual defense policy bill, but Lee was less committal. She said Schumer’s announcement supporting the 2002 repeal was pivotal and suggested that it should stand on its own two legs.
“I hope this means we’ve garnered the votes in the Senate so that it can get to the president’s desk and he can sign it,” Lee told POLITICO. “This has taken us 20 years to get to this point.”
Despite the bipartisan showing in Thursday’s vote, the bulk of House Republicans still opposed taking the 2002 authorization off the books. Some top GOP lawmakers argued Democrats were rushing the repeal process without fully consulting with national security officials and U.S. allies, and contended the measure should be replaced with a revamped authorization that allows the U.S. to go after Iranian proxies and other groups that have gained a foothold in the region.
Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the Iraq authorization “outdated” but said Congress needs to craft “clear, updated authorities” to replace it.
“Today's vote is not happening in a vacuum. This rushed standalone repeal … sends a dangerous message of disengagement that could destabilize Iraq, embolden Iran, which it will, and strengthen al Qaeda and ISIS in the region,” McCaul said. “We would avoid such dangers by taking up [not just] a repeal, but a replacement simultaneously.”
The House has voted several times to sunset the 2002 Iraq authorization since Democrats won the majority in 2018 as part of larger defense policy and funding legislation.
Though the measure — passed in the run-up to the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime — isn’t used as a legal justification for current operations against the Islamic State terrorist group, proponents are nonetheless wary that keeping the law on the books will make it ripe for abuse.
Former President Donald Trump most recently invoked the Iraq War authorization as a part of his legal rationale for the provocative killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020.
Advocates also see scrubbing the 2002 declaration as a first step in a broader effort to tame sprawling presidential war powers, including the law that governs myriad U.S. military operations around the world.
Separately, lawmakers have tried for years to scrap the 2001 war authorization, which was adopted just one week after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and formed the basis for open-ended U.S. military action in the Middle East. Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump relied heavily on that authorization to justify their decisions to launch airstrikes and deploy ground troops in the region; but a growing and ideologically diverse group of lawmakers has openly criticized that trend.
“The ‘01 is more of an all-purpose authorization for military action against non-state terrorist groups that threaten the U.S.,” Kaine said in a brief interview. “But after 20 years of it being completely open-ended, we’re trying to figure out how to put some appropriate limits on it.”
Biden has pledged to work with lawmakers to replace the 2001 authorization with one that is better aligned with the threats facing the U.S. in the region. Those talks are in the early stages, and lawmakers expect it will be a more gargantuan task than simply repealing the 2002 measure, which is rarely invoked anymore.
“We have to thread some needles both with the White House and with Republicans on the 2001 authorization,” Kaine said.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a progressive who has long advocated for a diminished U.S. military presence overseas, said Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan could make the effort “easier,” but noted that the terror groups that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11 have extended their reach into other countries.
“We have to look at where al Qaeda has spread so much — in Yemen and many parts of the world,” Khanna said. “And we do want to give them the ability and the counterintelligence ability to go after al Qaeda, so the question is how do you repeal it and have a narrow [replacement].”
Sarah Ferris and Burgess Everett contributed to this report.