July 1, 2021 4:07PM # Keep Repealing AUMFs until You Hit the One That Matters By [Gene Healy](https://www.cato.org/people/gene-healy) --- SHARE On Sunday night at around 6:00 PM ET, Joe Biden became president all over again—at least by the [perverse Beltway logic](https://www.cato.org/commentary/100-days-trump-has-already-learned-seductions-foreign-war) that holds bombing the Middle East is as presidential as it gets. At the CINC’s command, Air Force F‑15s and F‑16s pounded several facilities in Syria and Iraq used by Iran-backed militias to attack U.S. troops. The Pentagon’s press office [unleashed](https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2672875/statement-by-the-department-of-defense/) a relentless adjective-swarm—“necessary, appropriate, deliberate”—justifying the “defensive precision” attacks, exquisitely calibrated to “limit the risk of escalation” while sending “a clear and unambiguous deterrent message.” Presumably that message failed to hit home, given the retaliatory [rocket attack](https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/28/politics/us-base-syria-iran-militia-rocket/index.html) at a U.S. base in Syria Monday. Still, we can take heart that no congressional authorizations were harmed in the crossfire; the president didn’t need permission from Congress, he [insisted on Monday](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-airstrikes/2021/06/28/cb7682c6-d845-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html): “I have that authority under Article II.” Meanwhile, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Congress has begun, tentatively, to signal that it might like to weigh in on war powers questions too. Two weeks ago, the House voted [to repeal](https://www.axios.com/house-iraq-aumf-repeal-fbac123f-80f8-4569-92ab-7bebc75d7d12.html) the now nearly [two-decade old](https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021016-1.html) congressional resolution that authorized George W. Bush to take out Saddam Hussein. On Tuesday, it passed resolutions revoking the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that empowered Bush senior to wage the Gulf War some 30 years ago, as well as an [Eisenhower-era](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/06/29/house-votes-to-revoke-the-presidents-war-powers-to-fight-the-soviet-union/?sh=35323314493a) AUMF aimed at protecting the Middle East from “armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism.” That’s all to the good: even if these long-moribund AUMFs have no plausible current use, there’s always the danger that a future president will concoct one as cover for new foreign adventures. And you’ve got to start somewhere, after all. But Sunday’s round of airstrikes, the second [in the space of four months](https://www.lawfareblog.com/president-bidens-inaugural-war-powers-report) launched without reference to any congressional authorization whatsoever, underscores how far Congress has to go before it meaningfully reclaims its constitutional powers over war and peace. To do that, they’d need to keep repealing old authorizations until they hit the one that really matters: the 2001 AUMF, which over the past two decades has been transformed into an enabling act for far-flung, seemingly endless war. Unfortunately, the war powers debate on the Hill gives us reason to wonder whether they’re up to the task. Consider the ongoing fight over the 2002 Iraq War resolution. It’s been more than 18 years since George W. Bush’s [“Mission Accomplished” speech](https://lee.house.gov/news/press-releases/congresswoman-barbara-lee-statement-on-18th-anniversary-of-mission-accomplished-speech_), nearly 15 years since Saddam was frogmarched [to the gallows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Saddam_Hussein#Time_and_place), and [over a decade](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/31/remarks-president-address-nation-end-combat-operations-iraq) since President Obama announced the end of the Iraq War. Two weeks ago, in [a statement ](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SAP-HR-256.pdf)supporting the House bill, the Biden administration confirmed that the 2002 AUMF is unnecessary for any “ongoing military operations.” This ought to be the easy part of war powers reform. It’s a freebie—a solid opportunity for legislators to show their profile and feign courage without worrying they’ll be accused of abandoning Our Troops—because, alas, they’re not going anywhere. But even this baby step is proving a bridge too far for the bulk of the GOP caucus. More than three quarters of House Republicans voted ‘no,’ on revoking the 2002 AUMF, for fear that consequence-free statutory cleanup is appeasement or something. Repeal would tell “our enemies that they can continue attacking the United States completely unchecked,” [sputtered](https://palazzo.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=401346) Rep. Steven Palazzo (R‑MS); it could “prevent the U.S. from taking necessary action to counter Iranian proxies,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R‑WY) [charged](https://cheney.house.gov/2021/06/17/cheney-repealing-the-aumf-sends-a-message-of-weakness-to-our-adversaries-our-allies/). These claims are demonstrably false, but they’re not “lies,” exactly; let’s just say [they reflect](https://www.google.com/books/edition/On_Bullshit/bFpzNItiO7oC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%E2%80%9CThat+is+why+she+cannot+be+regarded+as+lying;+for+she+does+not+presume+that+she+knows+the+truth,+and+therefore+she+cannot+be+deliberately+promulgating+a+proposition+that+she+presumes+to+be+false:+Her+statement+is+grounded+neither+in+a+belief+that+it+is+true,+not,+as+a+lie+must+be,+in+a+belief+that+it+is+not+true.+It+is+just+this+lack+of+connection+to+a+concern+with+truth+-+this+indifference+to+how+things+really+are+-+that+I+regard+as+the+essence+of+bullshit.%E2%80%9D&pg=PA33&printsec=frontcover) “a lack of connection to concern with truth–an indifference to how things really are.” As of last week, repeal is stalled in the Senate, thanks to [Sen. Mitt Romney (R‑UT)](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/559483-senate-panel-delays-war-authorization-repeal-after-gop-push) who led an effort to derail a scheduled hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, demanding additional briefing, so Senators could “fully evaluate the conditions on the ground \[and\] the implications of repealing the 2002 AUMF.” It’s really not that complicated, senators. The “conditions on the ground” are, we’re on the ground, getting shot at, and periodically shooting back. And the implications of this repeal are… not much. Since 2014, our presence in Iraq and Syria has mainly rested on the Obama administration’s [tortured interpretation](https://nationalinterest.org/feature/obama-abusing-the-constitution-combat-isis-11269?nopaging=1) of the 2001 AUMF to cover anti-ISIS operations. If the 2002 AUMF disappears, it’s not as if we have to go home and not get shot at. Which is precisely the problem. As Michael Brendan Dougherty [recently observed](https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/notional-restraint/) in *National Review*, it’s a little strange to be told by repeal [*proponents*](https://twitter.com/RepMeijer/status/1409296067125035010?s=20) that “this act of constitutional hygiene is a great idea precisely because it does nothing.” If that’s where the effort ends, it’s basically [hygiene theater](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/). The point, after all, ought to be to end “ongoing military operations” in Iraq, Syria, and throughout the region, because there’s no valid national security interest served by them, and so long as we’re forward-deployed in dangerous neighborhoods, the president can always claim “constitutional self-defense” as he risks stumbling into a wider war. “It’s time to end the forever war,” Joe Biden [declared](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/biden-ready-announce-us-withdrawal-even-peace-eludes-afghanistan-2021-04-14/) in April, announcing his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. But, as John Glaser and I [wrote recently](https://www.cato.org/commentary/dont-just-end-war-afghanistan-repeal-resolution-authorized-it), “Ending one deployment won’t bring an end to endless war.” Neither will repealing the 2002, 1991, and 1957 AUMFs–that won’t end a single deployment. To change the facts on the ground, Congress would need to repeal–[and *not* replace](https://www.cato.org/policy-report/july/august-2018/repeal-dont-replace-aumf)–the authorization that really matters, and on which current operations depend: the 2001 AUMF. No current threat remotely justifies our continuing presence in Iraq and Syria, much less roving presidential authority to wage war on multiple continents. To end the Forever War, end the Forever Authorization. ##### Related Tags [Constitution and Law](https://www.cato.org/constitution-law), [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).