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The House passed legislation to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Iraq Authorizations for Use of for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in a bipartisan vote on Wednesday, moving against two pieces of legislation that have vastly expanded the president’s ability to use military force in the U.S.’s “forever wars” in the Middle East.
The amendment to the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed easily in a 261 to 167 vote. All Democrats and 49 Republicans voted for the legislation, introduced by top Foreign Affairs Committee Democrat Rep. Gregory Meeks (New York).
In a speech on the floor, Meeks said that the AUMFs are “long obsolete.”
“By remaining on the books, these AUMFs only risk abuse by administrations of either party to sanction military force that Congress has not considered or approved. It is time for Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority over matters of war and peace — its Article 1 war powers — by removing these open-ended AUMFs once and for all,” said Meeks.
“This amendment is going to pass because a clear majority of this House agrees it is time to close these chapters of endless war,” he went on.
The 1991 AUMF regarded the Gulf War and was passed under President George H.W. Bush. The 2002 AUMF authorized military force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s regime during the George W. Bush administration.
Anti-war advocates have long called for AUMF repeals. Advocacy group Common Defense celebrated the vote as a “historic step toward ending ‘forever wars.’”
President Donald Trump used the 2002 AUMF when authorizing the assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani in 2020. This spurred the House to pass legislation to repeal the 2002 AUMF in 2021. Then, in 2023, the Senate approved legislation to repeal the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs. However, both efforts were thwarted by the Republican-controlled chambers of Congress at the time.
Wednesday’s legislation advanced past the Rules Committee after several Republicans broke with leadership, voting in favor despite Republicans typically voting down Democratic amendments in the committee. The Republicans who broke were members of the hard right House Freedom Caucus, Representatives Morgan Griffith (Virginia), Ralph Norman (South Carolina), and Chip Roy (Texas).
The NDAA passed the House 231 to 196, authorizing a military budget that would push defense funding above $1 trillion for fiscal year 2026. The budget passed largely along party lines, with just four Republicans and 192 Democrats voting “no.” It will still need to be reconciled with the Senate version to pass into law.
Though anti-war and left-leaning advocates celebrated the passage of the AUMF repeals, some have noted that the much more impactful 2001 AUMF remains in place. The 2001 AUMF was passed in response to the September 11 attacks, and was originally written to authorize military action against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and “associated forces.”
However, every subsequent president has used the 2001 AUMF as a “blank check” to authorize a wide variety of military actions. President Barack Obama was particularly instrumental in expanding the scope of the AUMF; abusing the idea of what constituted “associated forces.” Experts have said that it’s possible Trump has used the 2001 AUMF to justify the military’s recent strike against a Venezuelan vessel.
According to Costs of War, in the first 20 years of the 2001 AUMF, it was used to justify military operations in at least 22 countries — and potentially more that were not disclosed.
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