华盛顿——民主党领导的众议院在乔·拜登总统的支持下，于周四通过了一项立法，废除了2002年在阿富汗使用武力的授权伊拉克支持者表示，这一步骤对于国会重申其在战争问题上的宪法责任是必要的。批评者担心这会助长民兵或恐怖组织的气焰。
废除法案以268票对161票获得压倒性通过。49名共和党人投票赞成该法案。只有一名民主党人，弗吉尼亚州众议员伊莱恩·卢里亚投了反对票。在参议院，多数党领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)打算今年将该措施提交议会。
支持者说，废除死刑不会影响美国在世界各地的军事行动，但可能会阻止总统依靠2002年的授权进行无关的军事行动。白宫表示，目前没有任何军事活动完全依赖于这一授权。
这项授权是针对伊拉克萨达姆·侯赛因政府的，授权使用“必要和适当的”武力来“捍卫美国的国家安全，抵御伊拉克构成的持续威胁”，并“执行”联合国安理会关于伊拉克的所有相关决议。
众议院外交事务委员会主席、纽约民主党众议员格雷戈里·米克斯(Gregory Meeks)表示:“废除是至关重要的，因为行政部门有扩大授权法律权威的历史。”“它已经被用来作为对与萨达姆·侯赛因的复兴党专政无关的实体采取军事行动的理由，仅仅因为这些实体在伊拉克活动。”
德克萨斯州共和党众议员迈克尔·麦卡勒说，他同意授权已经过时，但他认为国会不应该在没有批准替代授权的情况下废除授权。
“我们不应该鼓励任何总统在没有第一条国会授权的情况下单干，”麦克考尔说。
在此之前，围绕国会是否将其太多的战争决策权移交给白宫的争论已持续多年。许多立法者，特别是民主党人，说2002年授权的通过是一个错误，一些共和党人同意应该取消授权。一些议员说，2001年9月11日恐怖袭击后通过的2001年反恐决议也应该重新审查。
2002年作为参议员，拜登投票支持乔治·布什总统第二年入侵伊拉克的决议。拜登当时并不被认为是2003年军事行动的主要批评者，尽管他声称自己是2020年的总统候选人。
在民主党初选期间，拜登因投票受到了相当多的批评。他和他的助手，包括现任国务卿托尼·布林肯(Tony Blinken)，最初为投票辩护时说，布什政府希望对侯赛因施加更多的影响，拜登并没有打算让他的投票成为空头支票。拜登最终称该决议是一个错误。
该法案的发起人、加州民主党众议员李金浔表示，2002年87%的现任众议院议员不在国会，当时通过的军事力量授权与美国今天面临的威胁无关。她也是9月11日之后唯一反对2001年奥托里化的人。
“直到今天，我们无休止的战争仍在继续，这场战争耗费了数万亿美元和数千人的生命，远远超出了国会的设想或意图，”李说。
舒默周三表示，“伊拉克战争已经结束了近十年”，并且“2002年通过的授权在2021年不再有必要。”
白宫表示，拜登致力于与国会合作，用“一个狭窄和具体的框架来更新授权，以确保我们能够继续保护美国人免受恐怖威胁。”
舒默说，他希望澄清，终止在伊拉克使用武力的立法并不意味着美国放弃这个国家以及与伊斯兰国组织的共同斗争。他说，该措施将消除未来政府“回到法律垃圾箱，将其作为军事冒险主义的正当理由”的可能性。
他以2020年1月华盛顿指挥的无人机袭击杀害伊朗将军卡西姆·索莱马尼为例。
特朗普政府表示，索莱马尼正在策划一系列袭击，危及中东地区的许多美国军队和官员。当时的国家安全顾问罗伯特·奥布莱恩告诉记者，总统唐纳德·特朗普行使了美国的自卫权，这次袭击是根据2002年授权使用武力的完全授权的行动。
舒默说:“没有充分的理由允许这一法律权威继续存在，以防未来另一个鲁莽的总司令尝试同样的伎俩。”。
在参议院，主要议员正在制定一项法案，该法案不仅将废除2002年的授权，还将废除1991年在伊拉克使用武力的授权，这一授权仍保留在记录中。1991年的授权使老布什总统有权对伊拉克使用武力，以执行安理会针对伊拉克入侵科威特通过的一系列决议。
参议院和众议院必须解决他们法案中的任何分歧，并就最终产品进行投票，然后才能提交给拜登签署成为法律。
最终，终止2002年授权的立法需要参议院60票才能克服程序上的障碍。参议院军事委员会的资深共和党参议员詹姆斯·殷霍夫说，他反对终止授权的努力。
“我们用它来抓索莱马尼，可能会有另一个索莱马尼在那里，”殷霍夫说。
House votes to repeal 2002 Iraq War authorization
WASHINGTON -- The Democratic-led House, with President Joe Biden's backing, passed legislation Thursday to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force inIraq, a step that supporters said was necessary for Congress to reassert its constitutional duty to weigh in on matters of war. Detractors worried it would embolden militias or terrorist groups.
The repeal was passed overwhelmingly, 268-161. Forty-nine Republicans voted for the bill. Only one Democrat, Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, voted against it. In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., intends to bring the measure to the floor this year.
Supporters said repeal would not affect U.S. military operations around the world, but could prevent a president from relying on the 2002 authorization to conduct unrelated military actions. The White House says there are no ongoing military activities reliant solely upon that authorization.
The authorization was directed against the government of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, authorizing the “necessary and appropriate” use of force to “defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and to “enforce all relevant" U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
“Repeal is crucial because the executive branch has a history of stretching" the authorization's legal authority, said Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It has already been used as justification for military actions against entities that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein's Ba’athist dictatorship simply because such entities were operating in Iraq."
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said he agreed the authorization was outdated, but he argued that Congress should not repeal it without also approving a replacement.
“We should not encourage any president to go it alone without Article I congressional authorization," McCaul said.
The action follows years of debate over whether Congress has ceded too much of its war-making authority to the White House. Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, say passage of the 2002 authorization was a mistake, and some Republicans agree the authority should be taken off the books. Some lawmakers say the 2001 resolution to fight terrorism, passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, should be reexamined as well.
As a senator in 2002, Biden voted for the resolution that President George W. Bush used to invade Iraq the following year. Biden was not considered a leading critic of that 2003 military operation at the time, despite his claims as a presidential candidate in 2020.
Biden faced considerable criticism for the vote during the Democratic primary campaign. He and his aides, including now-Secretary of State Tony Blinken, initially defended the vote by saying the Bush administration wanted more leverage against Hussein and that Biden hadn’t intended his vote as a blank check. Biden eventually called the resolution a mistake.
Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, the bill’s sponsor, said that 87% of the current members of the House were not in Congress in 2002 and that the authorization for military force passed at that time bears no correlation to the threats the nation faces today. She also was the lone vote against the 2001 auhtorization following Sept. 11.
“To this day, our endless war continues costing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in a war that goes way beyond any scope that Congress conceived or intended,” Lee said.
Schumer had said on Wednesday that “the Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade” and that ”the authorization passed in 2002 is no longer necessary in 2021.”
The White House said Biden is committed to working with Congress to update the authorization with a “narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats."
Schumer said he wanted to be clear that legislation terminating the use of force in Iraq does not mean the U.S. is abandoning the country and the shared fight against the Islamic State group. He said the measure would eliminate the possibility of a future administration “reaching back into the legal dustbin to use it as a justification for military adventurism.”
He cited the Washington-directed drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani in January 2020 as an example.
The Trump administration said Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks that endangered many American troops and officials across the Middle East. The national security adviser at the time, Robert O’Brien, told reporters that PresidentDonald Trumpexercised America’s right to self-defense and that the strike was a fully authorized action under the 2002 authorization to use military force.
“There is no good reason to allow this legal authority to persist in case another reckless commander in chief tries the same trick in the future,” Schumer said.
In the Senate, key lawmakers are working on a bill that would repeal not only the 2002 authorization, but also the 1991 authorization for use of force in Iraq, which remains on the books. The 1991 authorization gave President George H.W. Bush the authority to use force against Iraq to enforce a series of Security Council resolutions passed in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
The Senate and House would have to work out any differences in their bills and vote on a final product before it can go to Biden's desk to be signed into law.
In the end, legislation terminating the 2002 authorization will need 60 votes in an evenly divided Senate to overcome procedural hurdles. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he opposes the effort to terminate the authorization.
“We used it to get Soleimani and there might be another Soleimani out there," Inhofe said.
