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The United States is good at getting involved in wars and not as good at getting out of them.

A year on, the Russia-Ukraine war has no end in sight. The war is at a semi-stalemate, and both Russia and Ukraine are sticking to their demands. Ukraine has been able to defend itself against Russian aggression in large part due to the $29.8 billion worth of weapons and equipment that the US has sent so far. While the US has hit some limits, it is sending ever more advanced weaponry and provides Ukraine with intelligence to help it target Russia more effectively. Ukraine cannot continue the war without Western military and economic support.

All of which raises the question of whether the Russia-Ukraine conflict is entering forever war territory.

The USs post-9/11 wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan turned into decades-long conflicts because the objectives kept shifting, because they were guided by ideological goals, and because they were enabled by legal authorizations that gave policymakers room to expand the wars. The situation in Ukraine is obviously different from US engagement in Iraq or Afghanistan for one, the US does not have troops on the ground in Ukraine. But when I asked former high-ranking military officials and national security experts about the risk of protracted war in Ukraine, they told me that those other forever war factors are currently present in the USs support for the Ukraine war.

The Biden administration does not view the war as endless. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in October, certainly we dont want to see a forever war, and he blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for the wars continuation. But theres a lot of time between here and forever. And in statement after statement after statement, officials describe the USs enduring commitment to Ukraine. (Neither the White House nor the Pentagon replied to interview requests.)

This is going to be a generational conflict between the West and Russia, says historian Michael Kimmage of Catholic University, who has researched Putins strategy in the war. The further the West moves in, the more Putin is going to be motivated to keep on going, he told me. This is going to be the mother of all forever wars, because of the nature of the adversary.

So what can the US learn from its interventions in its Middle East forever wars? In the first year of the Iraq War, a young Gen. David Petraeus said he would repeat the mantra to himself, Tell me how this ends.

These days, Petraeus is retired from active duty and shares on social media daily Ukraine war situation reports from the Institute for the Study of War, where he is a board member. I think the most important question has to do with how one might see this war ending, Petraeus wrote in an email. Related to that is the critical question of what needs to be done to convince Vladimir Putin that the war in Ukraine is not sustainable for Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine and also on the home front in Russia.

But there are other ways of posing the question. Thomas Pickering, a former career ambassador who served in Russia and rose to be undersecretary for political affairs at the State Department, says the potential for a nuclear conflict means the US does have to think about whether it would make sense to try to terminate the war on an advantageous but not perfect basis.

I dont [think] Ukraine has to become a forever war or even a frozen conflict; in fact, we need to do everything that we and our allies and partners can to enable Ukraine and ensure that this does not become a forever war, Petraeus, now a partner at the private equity firm KKR, added.

Talking about how and why Ukraine is becoming a forever war, then, is a fine place to start.

The global war on terrorism was a sprawling and ill-defined project.

After 9/11, the US was responding to an attack on its soil, but then the George W. Bush administration expanded its international campaign to target not just al-Qaeda but the concept of terrorism one that somehow the US is still fighting today. Though President Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, US troops are still in the Middle East, and many aspects of the counterterrorism wars endure.

The way that Bushs interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan began made that possible. Congress approved a joint resolution against threats to the US homeland in 2001 that was so broad that it evolved as the threats did. That vote authorized the use of military force against nations, organizations, or persons connected to the 9/11 attacks, and in 2002, Congress passed another broad authorization on Iraq that two decades later is used to counter the Islamic State terrorist group.

The USs goals in Iraq, for example, ran the gamut of eliminating the risk of purported weapons of mass destruction, regime change, nation-building, countering Iranian influence, and then debilitating ISIS. US troops remain there in 2023. And when there were opportunities to end the initial invasion of Afghanistan like when hundreds of Taliban fighters surrendered to the US the Bush administration rejected them. Even now, 18 months after the US withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan and more than a year after the US assassinated perhaps the last known planner of the 2001 attack, the initial authorization has yet to be repealed.

As Rep. Barbara Lee, the only lawmaker who voted against the authorization of military force in Afghanistan in 2001, warned just days after the 9/11 attacks: We must be careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target.

Some of the lessons of the Bush and Obama years seem to have been put into action. Strategists now recognize that a small footprint is better than a massive US presence of hundreds of thousands of troops, and that much can be accomplished by partnering with another countrys military (instead of having boots on the ground). From the first 20 years of the war on terrorism, the US learned well that corruption among recipients of aid is corrosive to US interests. That commanders on the ground offer overly rosy assessments of progress in a self-deceptive process that ends up extending the war is now a truism.

Throughout, the American people are somewhat willing to ignore ongoing US wars, even when US soldiers are deeply involved.

But perhaps what the US ought to have learned from the forever wars is the importance of practicing humility and not underestimating ones enemies. A more difficult lesson to put into practice is the importance of incorporating dialogue and negotiations with adversaries into policy.

Mara Karlin, a top civilian strategist appointed by Biden to the Pentagon, wrote a 2021 book on what the US learned from the post-9/11 wars. In The Inheritance: Americas Military After Two Decades of War, she details how wars without clear ends affect the morale, preparedness, and even civilian control of the military. Karlin warns of the danger of overreacting to threats and attacks, as the United States did in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks and of under-responding, as the United States has done in its persistent inability to recognize and act on the growing security threats posed by China and Russia to the U.S.-led global order over the last decade or so.

Karlin didnt respond to a request for comment. But that a key Pentagon leader in 2021 worried more about a US underreaction to Russia than the potential for another endless war shows how committed a leading strategist in the Biden administration may be toward a long-haul fight.

The striking parallel between the USs long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ongoing war in Ukraine is the rhetoric surrounding the conflict.

The US role in supporting Ukraine has been framed as ideological. Biden from the get-go described the conflict in terms of good versus evil, democracy against autocracy.

Does the US stand for the defense of democracy? Biden asked again in his recent State of the Union address. For such a defense matters to us because it keeps the peace and prevents open season for would-be aggressors to threaten our security and prosperity. And senior State Department official Victoria Nuland wrote in testimony to Congress last month that Ukraines fight is about so much more than Ukraine; it is about the world our own children and grandchildren will inherit.

The Biden administration may believe that. But rhetoric like that is also how wars continue in perpetuity. Its how the objectives creep, the goalposts shift. Ideological struggles are not so easy to win.

By some metrics, the objectives that the US set out to achieve in Ukraine have already been achieved. Christopher Chivvis, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explained that the US in the past year has managed to avoid a direct war with Russia, made Russia suffer a strategic defeat, and kept the NATO alliance unified. Ukraine has also maintained its sovereign independence.

Continued unqualified support is good in the sense that it puts pressure on the Russians to try to moderate their more extreme objectives, Chivvis told me. But its not likely to get the Ukrainians to think seriously about restraining their own war aims, because they see the whole set of Western nations backing them to the hilt.

Though many experts told me that its time to begin plotting the contours of talks between Russia and Ukraine, neither side sees value in negotiating right now.

The types of military support the West is giving to Ukraine including US and German tanks and British promises to train Ukrainian pilots on their fighter jets acknowledge this reality and could help contribute to it, argues Chivvis. The most advanced and heavy weaponry, like the USs Abrams tanks, likely wont arrive till next spring. The trend is toward more and more military support to the Ukrainians, and they have no real reason as of now to limit their own war objectives, says Chivvis, who previously worked as a US intelligence officer in Europe. So its hard to see how it ends at this point.

And yet, the longer the war goes on, the more people will die in Ukraine and Russia, and the risks for the war to spiral out of control are real. As Pickering put it, the US risks stumbling into an endless war punctuated by nuclear use.

The war to defend Ukraine may be more coherent than the war on terrorism, but it also appears ill-defined in terms of goals and strategies. Analysts who might not agree on much else do agree that there isnt enough of a debate on what outcomes the US seeks.

The Biden administration, for its unprecedented mustering of allies through NATO, Europe, and elsewhere, has left some gaps unfilled. Deferring to Ukraine, as Bidens national security leaders have consistently done in public interviews, is not a strategy.

Less attention has been paid to how this conflict might end in a way that serves US interests in Europe and the world, according to Samuel Charap, an analyst at the RAND Corporation. And those trying to have that conversation about how to end the war, he told me, are sometimes cast as Russian sympathizers. But there is an urgency to have these difficult conversations. We know that, for example, conflicts that last more than a year are more than likely to continue to go on for 10 years, Charap told me.

I dont think that we should tolerate a war that stretches on for years, because if we do, it means that we are tolerating greater risk that the war will spread, said Evelyn Farkas, a former Obama defense official who now directs the McCain Institute think tank. If we knowingly accept a war that will go on for years, then I think we are taking on a moral hazard because Ukrainians are dying every month this war goes on.

The toll on human life is unfathomable, and the long-term effects on the country will be many. Kurt Volker, a former ambassador to NATO now at the Atlantic Council think tank, is worried about how the wartime mentality has forever changed Ukrainian institutions. Were going to have to help Ukraine get back to normal, he told me.

You have the presidential administration basically running everything. You have one centralized media operation for news for the country, which is highly censored, Volker said. These are things that cant go on in a normal society. So theyre going to have to decentralize. Theyre going to have to open new media outlets, going to have to have political pluralism in terms of political parties and competition all kinds of things that they are not currently grappling with.

The rebuilding of Ukraine will require massive investments, too. The countrys energy infrastructure will need to be rebuilt, and just keeping its economy afloat in the meantime may require up to $5 billion a month, the International Monetary Fund has estimated. After the hot conflict ends, the US commitment will likely continue. But an end to the conflict seems increasingly hard to find.

A Defense Department leader, Celeste Wallander, was recently asked at a Washington think tank event whether the Pentagon is planning for a negotiated outcome or an outright Ukrainian victory on the battlefield. It is difficult ahead of time to precisely predict how an armed conflict will end, Wallander said, though she did emphasize that it ends in Russias strategic failure, no question, and that the US will support the choices made by Ukraine as to whether it would negotiate with Russia.

But Wallander and her colleagues in the Biden administration have left open the question of how the US would extricate itself from this conflict. Without having a clear answer of how this ends or how the US will get out, they presuppose that Washington will be in this war for the long haul.

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Ukraine war: Whats the exit path for the US? - Vox

In 2013, MPs voted narrowly to reject a motion that would have allowed David Cameron to authorise military action in Syria. A year earlier, President Obama warned that the deployment of chemical weapons would be a red line. They were used; he did nothing. Half a million people have died; terrible crimes have been committed. The war continues, but the dictator Bashar al-Assad, supported by Russia, has largely prevailed.

In 2014, a few months after the US, UK and their allies washed their hands of that country, Vladimir Putin launched his first invasion of Ukraine (via proxies) and annexed Crimea. One direct line can be traced back to these events, and forward to present bloodshed: the invasion of Iraq. That war, 20 years ago next month, is a standard text on diplomatic and military failure.

A quick reprise: after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 Tony Blair became the galvaniser-in-chief for the White House. He was spectacularly successful in assembling a coalition of the willing for the invasion of Afghanistan (those were the days when British prime ministers had clout). Within months, however, George W Bush, had turned his attentions elsewhere, announcing in his State of the Union address that he would go after the axis of evil, at the heart of which was Saddam Hussein.

Blair resolved he would never be blindsided by the Americans again. As I wrote in Blairs Wars, he told Bush as early as April 2002 at the presidents ranch in Crawford, Texas, that he would go along with him, come what may. The rest, as they say, is dodgy dossiers, spurious legal advice, elusive weapons of mass destruction and a disastrous occupation. All the various public inquiries that followed have corroborated this chain of events.

One of the most important changes enacted after Iraq was the requirement, pushed through by Gordon Brown, that prime ministers seek parliamentary approval for future interventions. In March 2011 MPs backed action in Libya, only two years later to refuse it on Syria. The shock was immense. Bullish bombastic Britain doesnt do such things; it fights the good fight. That, at least, has always been its self-image.

Asked by the BBC to present a special radio programme on the vote, I was surprised when Blair agreed to be interviewed (he had blanked me for a decade). He was incredibly eager to be heard, to be understood. I quoted Cameron back to him, saying that people had felt let down by Iraq. As is his wont, Blair disagreed, asking in return what might happen to a world without a referee?

Iraq has left scars that refuse to heal. Libya was a smaller intervention, equally counter-productive. Afghanistan was the longest of them all, until it collapsed with the humiliating flight from Kabul in August 2021. Having given them false hope and fleeting security, the US decided that international forces should quit suddenly, leaving Afghans at the mercy of the Taliban.

These interventions and others, such as in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, were wrapped up in the doctrine of liberal, or humanitarian, intervention. It arose from the horror of a global community looking the other way as people were being slaughtered in Bosnia and Rwanda. It morphed into a messianic zeal to remove dictators and install democracy, at the barrel of the gun.

That is no more. On his appointment as secretary of state in March 2021, Antony Blinken declared: We will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in the past. However well intentioned, they havent worked.

When the United Nations general assembly voted last March to condemn Putins invasion of Ukraine, some 35 countries chose to abstain, including pivotal states such as India, Pakistan and South Africa. The ability of the US and its partners to bring the global south along with it is vastly diminished. Some are less than impressed by the do the right thing tap on the shoulder form of diplomacy; some have long been non-aligned. Some see business opportunities with China and Russia. Many continue to cite Iraq as the basis of their suspicion of western intentions.

As for Britain, it has taken a while decades in fact but is it finally beginning to accept a role in the world more in keeping with its actual status rather than self-delusion? It cannot realistically pursue a global foreign and security policy while mired in the western worlds sickliest economy. It is no longer capable of mounting a military intervention of any note. It knows it has to prioritise.

The childish Johnsonian global Britain mantra is being replaced by patient diplomacy. Britain is no longer interested in dictating or telling others what they should do, declared James Cleverly, foreign secretary, in December. Instead it wants relationships based on shared interests and common principles. There is nothing ignoble in that.

Which brings me to Germany, which thinks harder than most, that takes the practice of democracy far more seriously than most. Yet when it came to their response to Putins invasion, many in that country drew the wrong lessons from history. The Germans instinctive caution about military action led them to refuse to take part in the Iraq folly. Yet it is also responsible for their dithering over Ukraine. Never Again War Nie wieder Krieg was not the conclusion to draw from the Nazi era. Yes, war is an option to be avoided where possible; yet succumbing to dictatorship, war crimes and aggression is an even worse outcome.

The west continues to show double standards, to be selective in its choice of allies and adversaries. Saudi Arabia is perhaps the most egregious case in point. No matter how terrible its human rights abuses, the kingdom is never touched. I am not advocating a return to the mindset or the actions of two decades ago. The days of the west setting itself up as the worlds policeman are long gone. Much wider alliances need to be built.

Putin has inadvertently reminded the world of its duty to protect. Such has been the despondency about the state of global democracy, so inexorable has been the rise of populism (aided and abetted by the likes of Putin), few expected such resistance from Ukraine and its allies. The response over the past year has been collective, principled and circumspect in some ways excessively circumspect.

Iraq was a terrible war, but to cite it in perpetuity as a reason for countries never to confront dictators is to give up on values that are worth fighting for.

John Kampfner is the author of Blairs Wars and Why the Germans Do It Better

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Iraq was a terrible war but it cannot excuse our failure to confront ...

United States President Joe Bidens administration as well as many bipartisan US legislators and advocates have said they want the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (AUMF)repealed.

The authorisation was signed by former President George W Bush in 2002, enabling the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as the USs two-decade war on terror went into full swing. It has increasingly been condemned by critics for giving the US executive branch broad and menacingly vague military powers.

On Thursday, a group of bipartisan legislators in both the House and Senate launched their latest effort to do away with the 2002 law, reintroducing a bill to repeal the authorisation.

This attempt follows a period between 2021 and 2022 that advocates said represented the best opportunity yet to pass a repeal. However, the path has likely narrowed with Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives following last years midterm elections.

All of these groups are saying enough is enough. Get this appeal off the books. Put Congress back in the business of making that hard decision about when we go to war, Heather Brandon-Smith, the legislative director for Militarism and Human Rights at Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Washington lobby group, told Al Jazeera.

She noted that the 20th anniversary of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq was coming up in March.

People across the political divide seem to really want to see Congress making the decision and not the president deciding when, where and against whom the US goes to war, she said. That hasnt changed.

Critics have said the AUMFs reason for being became increasingly dubious after the US officially ended, in 2011, its combat operations in Iraq which saw US troops in the country surge to a peak of 170,000 as well as combat operations there against ISIS (ISIL) in 2021.

The repeal of the 2002 AUMF along with reformation of the geographically broader and more politically fraught 2001 AUMF, which allows the US executive to pursue military action against individuals or groups deemed connected to the 9/11 attacks have been at the centre of efforts to restructure the legal architecture that has guided US military action abroad in recent decades.

The US Congress, which has the sole constitutional power to declare war, has not done so since 1941 when it approved declarations against Japan in the wake of the Pearl Harbour attacks and, days later, against Nazi-controlled Germany and axis-allied Italy.

Instead, to involve the US military in conflict abroad, presidential administrations have relied on Article 2 of the US Constitution, which grants limited war powers to the executive branch, and legislation passed by Congress usually the so-called Authorizations of Use of Military Force (AUMFs).

AUMFs authorise major war, according to Scott Anderson, a senior fellow at Columbia Law Schools National Security Law Program. They provide legal and political cover amid lingering questions over the limits of a presidents constitutional war powers and, most significantly, cover for questions over whether presidents can take action that risks a major war without congressional authorisation.

The 2002 AUMF, at least in regards to things that intersect with Iraq, opens up the possibility of the president being able to lean on it and initiate a major war without really having to go back and check with or ensure they have the support of the most democratic branch of government Congress or just, kind of, more generally, a broader political support, Anderson said.

Now, are our presidents going to do that routinely? No, theyre not. But there are circumstances where they might.

Most recently, the administration of Former President Donald Trump used the 2002 Iraq AUMF, in part, to justify the deadly drone strike on Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital Baghdad in early 2020.

The killing led to US-Iran sabre rattling that risked escalating into full-fledged war.

The Biden administration has said it does not rely on the 2002 AUMF to solely justify any of its military actions in Iraq.

Anderson, who previously served as the legal adviser for the US embassy in Baghdad, noted that despite this, Iraq remains a particularly significant arena when it comes to the potential for wider escalation. That is largely due to the presence of Iran-aligned militias in Iraq, Irans outsized involvement in its neighbour and ongoing political and economic crises.

The US has 2,000 troops in Iraq, operating in advisory roles. Foreign forces are regularly targeted by armed groups calling for their removal.

Meanwhile, Anderson said, the executive branch in recent years has articulated an interpretation of the 2002 Iraq AUMF that allows the president to use military force in combating terrorists in the country or addressing any sort of threat to a stable government.

This creates several possible paths to escalation under a future administration, he said.

The US relationship with Iran, I think, is one of those very challenging ones, where you could see a particular president feeling liberated by the 2002 AUMF, taking riskier action, or pushing the envelope more in terms of fighting Iran.

Repeal of the 2002 AUMF has had uniquely bipartisan support in Congress in recent years, with a standalone bill introduced in 2021 by Representative Barbara Lee passing the Democrat-controlled House with the support of 49 Republicans.

While introducing the most recent legislation, which would also repeal the 1991 AUMF that authorised the USs involvement in the Gulf War, Lee said it was far past time to put decisions of military action back in the hands of the people, as the Constitution intended.

Past congressional efforts have made for some interesting bedfellows, with several Trump-aligned legislators in the Republican Partys farthest-right reaches including Representatives Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert joining the Democratic majority in pursuit of repeal.

In 2021 in the Senate, Tim Kaine, a Democrat, and Todd Young, a Republican, also introduced a stand-alone bill that went on to gain 11 Republican co-sponsors, making it poised to overcome the 60-vote threshold needed to avoid a filibuster in a congressional session where Democrats still controlled both chambers.

Kaine and Young have again teamed up in introducing the newest legislation in the Senate.

In 2021, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also gave his full-throated support for the repeal, promising to bring the bill to a vote and, with the Biden administration giving its approval to the effort, the course appeared to be charted.

Nevertheless, a Senate floor vote on the standalone repeal never came to pass, likely due to concerns over how much limited floor-time debate over the legislation would eat up, according to analysts. While Senators Kaine and Young sought to include an amendment to the Senate version of the 2023 NDAA as was approved in the House the effort was unsuccessful.

In the waning days of 2022, anti-war groups made a last-minute appeal to Schumer.

In repealing the 2002 Iraq AUMF whether by standalone vehicle or through the omnibus spending package Congress would finally reclaim its constitutional war powers in a manner both deeply significant and increasingly uncontroversial, 37 groups said in a letter to the top Democrat.

We urge you to seize this opportunity to get it off the books for good.

Analysts and advocates have said despite new obstacles, hope remains in the new congressional term, with Democrats maintaining a 51-seat majority in the Senate and Republicans taking 222 seats in the House, giving them a slight majority over Democrats 212.

In the Senate, all 11 Republican co-sponsors of the 2022 repeal bill remain in office, while 40 of the 49 Republicans who supported the House bill in 2021 have kept their seats.

Still, observers have said it remains unlikely House Republicans would bring such legislation to a vote, with large portions of the Republican Party remaining opposed.

That means pressure would almost surely have to come from Senate, with FCLNs Brandon-Smith saying the best chance would likely be including repeal as an amendment to so-called must pass legislation, such as an NDAA or other omnibus spending packages.

Despite the missed opportunities for repeal last year, she struck an optimistic tone.

The fact is that there are still bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate who want to see this AUMF off the books So we are still in quite a strong position when it comes to support in Congress, she said, which provides opportunities.

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Why is US repeal of Iraq war authorisation still relevant?

Iraq's Ala Bashir explores human ability to forget, forgive and heal in Dubai exhibition  The National

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Iraq's Ala Bashir explores human ability to forget, forgive and heal in Dubai exhibition - The National

WASHINGTON (AP) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday that the Senate will vote to repeal two decades-old measures giving open-ended approval for military action in Iraq, raising the hopes of a bipartisan group of senators who want to reclaim congressional powers over U.S. military strikes and deployments.

The vote, which would come after consideration in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could take place just before the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It would repeal the 2002 measure that greenlighted that March 2003 invasion, along with a separate 1991 measure that sanctioned the U.S.-led Gulf War to expel Iraqi leader Saddam Husseins forces from Kuwait.

Every year we keep this authorization to use military force on the books is another chance for a future president to abuse or misuse it, Schumer said. War powers belong squarely in the hands of Congress, and that implies that we have a responsibility to prevent future presidents from hijacking this AUMF to bumble us into a new war. He was referring to the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

The bill, led by Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Todd Young, R-Ind., passed the Senate Foreign Relations panel and the then-Democratic-led Housein 2021. But it never came up for a vote in the full Senate, despite significant bipartisan support.

READ MORE: Iraqis still blame Powell for role in Iraq war

The Iraq war authorizations are no longer necessary, serve no operational purpose, and run the risk of potential misuse, Kaine said Thursday.

The House is now led by Republicans, and its unclear if leaders would bring the bill up for a vote. Forty-nine House Republicans supported the legislation two years ago, but current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opposed it.

The Biden administration has supported the move, arguing that ending the war authorization against Iraq of the Saddam Hussein era would make clear that the Iraq government of today is a partner of the United States. It would also remove a grievance for rival Iran to exploit, State Department officials have said.

But Republican opponents have argued that revoking the two authorizations for military force would signal U.S. weakness to Iran.

The ayatollah is listening to this debate, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, when the panel debated the legislation two years ago.

Republicans also pointed out that President Donald Trumps administration had cited the 2002 Iraq war resolution as part of its legal justification for a 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani.

Supporters of the repeal said presidents should instead come to Congress.

The framers gave Congress the grave duty to deliberate the questions of war and peace, but for far too long this body has abdicated this duty, said Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican sponsor of the bill in the House. We must do our job.

Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.

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20 years after the conflict, Senate to vote on repeal of Iraq war ...