The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will take up the 1991 and
2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, or AUMFs, Schumer
said, paving the way for a possible vote in the full Senate before
members leave for the April recess, Schumer said.
"We need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all,
and doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that
initiated the war to begin with," Schumer said.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers from the Senate and House of
Representatives introduced legislation to repeal the two
longstanding AUMFs in early February.
Members of Congress have been arguing for years that legislators
have ceded too much authority to the president over whether troops
should be sent into combat, by passing and then failing to repeal
broad, open-ended war authorizations that presidents have then used
for years to justify military action around the globe.
For example, Republican then-President Donald Trump said the 2002
AUMF provided legal authority for the 2020 killing of senior Iranian
military commander Qassem Soleimani.
Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the right
to declare war.
But the measure's chances of becoming law were unclear. Members of
Congress have been divided over whether it is better for national
security to let the AUMFs stand, leaving it to military commanders
to decide how to fight America's enemies or insisting that new AUMFs
pass before old ones end.
Previous repeal efforts have not succeeded, although some have made
it through committees or been passed by one chamber of Congress.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Diane Craft)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|