A bipartisan Senate coalition voted to repeal a pair of decades-old laws that green lit U.S. military action in the Middle East.
Senators, in an voice vote, adopted an amendment from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) to the annual National Defense Authorization Act that would scrub the old war power laws passed in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The vote is a win for war powers advocates, and it moves Congress as close as it’s ever been to rescinding the laws.
Even opponents — who see value in keep the Iraq War measure on the books — didn’t press for a roll call vote on the measure. One of those opponents, Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told fellow senators on the floor “I see how the wind is blowing” on the outcome of a vote.
A similar repeal was included in the House-passed version of the defense bill. Its inclusion in the competing Senate bill makes it much more likely that a final compromise defense measure will repeal the old war authorizations, though it’s far from a guarantee.
Advocates in both parties contend older war authorizations need to be excised to prevent abuses of presidential power — despite those wars having long concluded. Democratic lawmakers highlight President Donald Trump’s use of the Iraq War authorization in part to justify a drone strike that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020.
Those proponents see scrubbing the two Iraq-related war laws as a down payment on a larger overhaul of presidential war powers that have expanded markedly in the post-9/11 era. That would likely include paring back the 2001 authorization for use of military force, passed after the attacks on U.S. soil, that undergird counterterrorism operations across the world. Those reforms have proved far more politically perilous.
“Both chambers have passed the same repeal before on a bipartisan basis. The House included it in its NDAA this year,” said Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.). “Let’s do the same here in the Senate and close the book on these forever wars.”
The vote is a minor victory for war powers advocates amid larger concerns about Trump’s aggressive use the military.
Trump’s decision to use military strikes to destroy vessels near Venezuela suspected of smuggling narcotics has been criticized by senators in both parties. But there has been no bipartisan consensus to rein in the administration.
The Senate blocked a resolution Wednesday from Kaine and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to bar further military operations in Latin America unless they’re authorized by Congress. The measure only won the votes of two GOP senators.
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