McCarthy says Iraq AUMFs will first go to Home committee

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Tuesday launched an modification to the Kaine-Younger laws that will repeal the 2001 counterterrorism AUMF six months after enactment of the underlying laws.

Paul provided the same modification on the Senate International Relations Committee markup of the invoice earlier this month. It was rejected in a 1-20 vote. A number of Democrats voting in opposition to it stated they supported repeal of the 2001 authorization however that they considered the modification as dangerous to the bipartisan effort to sundown the Iraq-focused AUMFs.

“A driving power behind the AUMF was Saddam’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction — allegations that have been later revealed to be unfaithful,” wrote Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Bridget Moix, normal secretary of the Buddies Committee on Nationwide Laws, a Quaker foyer group, in a weekend op-ed on CNN.com.

The 2 stated leaving the 2002 AUMF on the books provided a possibility for a future U.S. administration to make use of it in a approach Congress didn’t initially envision when lawmakers first accredited it.

“Even after the conflict resulted in 2011, the 2002 Iraq AUMF lived on. Because the Obama administration carried out its marketing campaign in opposition to ISIS in 2014, officers cited the 2002 Iraq AUMF as one of many authorized justifications for strikes in Iraq and, later, Syria,” Lee and Moix stated. “When President Donald Trump took energy, his administration adopted swimsuit, leaning on the 2002 Iraq AUMF in 2018 to justify the continued use of power in opposition to ISIS in Iraq and Syria, whereas reserving the precise to additionally use it ‘elsewhere.'”