About F%$#ing Time

The House of Representatives has voted to repeal the 2002 Authoriziation of Use of Military Force (AUMF) used to invade Iraq, which is a good, if meager, first step.

It would be excellent policy to do this, so don't expect that the Republicans will even allow a vote in the Senate:

The House voted on Thursday to revoke the authorization it gave in 2002 to invade Iraq, a step that would rein in presidential war-making powers for the first time in a generation.

The bipartisan action reflected growing determination on Capitol Hill to revisit the broad authority that Congress provided to President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks through measures that successive presidents have used to justify military action around the world.

The 2002 authorization was repeatedly applied well beyond its original intent, including in a campaign much later against the Islamic State in Iraq and for the killing of the Iranian general Qassim Suleimani last year.

The vote was 268 to 161, with 49 Republicans joining 219 Democrats in favor of the bill. The debate now moves to the Senate, which is expected to take up similar legislation as the United States military completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan after nearly two decades of fighting there.

………

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said on Wednesday that he would put a similar measure on the Senate floor. A blueprint written by Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, and Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, will be considered next week by the Foreign Relations Committee.

President Biden said this week that he backed the House measure, making him the first president to accept such an effort to constrain his authority to carry out military action since the war in Afghanistan began 20 years ago. Mr. Biden’s decision came on the heels of announcing a full troop withdrawal from the country.

This is the minor AUMF in the scheme of things though.  It's the post 911 one that is the one where the vast bulk of military deployments have found legal justification.

Even if the Senate joins the House in repealing the 2002 authorization, Congress would still leave in place a much broader authorization, passed three days after the Sept. 11 attacks, on approving the use of force against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Successive presidents have cited the 2001 authorization to justify operations against “associated forces,” and critics say it has given presidents excessive latitude to wage “forever wars” without further congressional approval in the Middle East and beyond.

Until now, the Senate has refused to bring up legislation to repeal the authorization of military force, and the House has done so only as an amendment to broader legislation that never went anywhere.

The 2002 AUMF has not been used in over a decade, but the 2001 AUMF is still being used today.

Baby steps, I guess.