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The final vote to end two Iraq war authorisations clears a key procedural hurdle, as the Senate decides to limit debate.

The United States Senate has backed a measure expected to clear the way for a vote to repeal two authorisations for war in Iraq.

On Monday, the chamber voted 65 to 28 to limit debate over whether to end two Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) one from 1991 that coincided with the Gulf War and a second from 2002, approved in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.

That support exceeded the 60-vote minimum needed to advance the legislation. The final vote to repeal is expected later this week.

Mondays vote takes place as the US marks the 20th anniversary of the 2003 Iraq War. All 28 votes against Mondays measure came from Republican Senators.

Typically, under the US Constitution, Congress wields the exclusive power to declare war. But with the two Iraq war authorisations, Congress granted open-ended authority to the presidency to exercise force in the region.

That, some argue, has allowed the presidency to gain too much power over military action. It has also spurred criticism that these zombie authorisations have fuelled forever wars that are no longer justified.

In the minutes before Mondays vote, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey called the measure a means of exercising the chambers most solemn duty: to decide when and under what circumstances to send Americans into harms way.

It is a recognition that Congress not only has the power to declare war but also should have the responsibility to end wars, Menendez said in his speech, urging his fellow Senators to approve Mondays measure.

Menendez also blasted the war authorisations as obsolete and outdated. He argued that US President Joe Biden has sufficient authority to defend against threats without them, pointing to recent military air raidsin Syria.

If were going to debate whether to provide the president additional authorities, then we should have that debate separately. But it should not be under the cloak of keeping old authorisations on the book, authorisations that are not needed to meet any current threat, Menendez said.

But several of his Republican colleagues in the Senate took to the floor to argue in favour of retaining the Iraq war authorisations, on the basis that a repeal might limit the USs ability to take action in the Middle East.

Texas Senator John Cornyn, for instance, asserted that while the political situation in Iraq has changed, the threats to US interests remained. He also cited Iraqi security as a motivation.

American forces are no longer there to counter threats from Iraq. We are now there to counter threats to Iraq. That includes threats from Iran, the number-one state sponsor of international terrorism, Cornyn said in his speech.

Despite the fact that Iraq is now our partner, that doesnt mean its time to abandon our security interests in the region. America still has very real adversaries in the Middle East who would do us and our allies harm if they go the chance.

South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, delivered a fiery speech saying that repealing the war authorisations would embolden US adversaries.

Heres what youre doing. Youre sending the signal by doing this that were leaving. Were withdrawing. That we dont have the will as a nation to see this thing through. Theres nothing good that comes from this, he said, ending his speech by calling the prospect of a repeal one of the most ill-conceived ideas after 9/11.

On Twitter after the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that the chamber would vote on the final passage of the repeal later this week.

Americans want to see an end to endless wars in the Middle East, he wrote.

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US Senate votes to advance repeal of Iraq War authorisation - Al Jazeera English

U.S marines and Iraqis are seen on April 9, 2003, as the statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is toppled at al-Fardous square in Baghdad. Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images hide caption

U.S marines and Iraqis are seen on April 9, 2003, as the statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is toppled at al-Fardous square in Baghdad.

In the coming weeks, both chambers of Congress are expected to debate and vote on a bill repealing the authority that Congress gave President George W. Bush to use force against Iraq.

It has been more than half a century since Congress repealed a similar resolution. That was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964, which had allowed then-President Lyndon Johnson to escalate the conflict in Vietnam.

That war ultimately cost more than 55,000 American lives and many times that many Vietnamese lives, destabilizing the entire region.

We will return to that precedent in a moment. For now, Congress is focused on the fallout from its decision to greenlight a war with Iraq in October 2002. The U.S. and its allies invaded and occupied Iraq the following March. It was 20 years ago this month.

There was no declaration of war against Iraq, although the Constitution gave that power to Congress in its Article I. Congress has not declared war on anyone since 1942, nor has any president asked it to. But there have been long and bloody wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq not to mention hundreds of strikes using drones, missiles and "special forces" (the exact number is not known).

By repealing its 2002 authorization for the war in Iraq, Congress may hope to reassert more control on the war-making decisions of the executive branch. That is the goal, at least, of many on Capitol Hill.

One of repeal's principal sponsors in the Senate is Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine. He says the 2002 authorization (and another granted to President George H.W. Bush in 1991 prior to the Persian Gulf War) "are no longer necessary, serve no operational purpose, and run the risk of potential misuse."

Congress has tried to stand up to presidents in previous eras, as the struggle between the branches is built into the nation's founding documents. But Congress has been weakened in this struggle by events over a long period of time and more recently by dramatic events in real time.

Congress has often been complicit in allowing the executive leeway for military adventures, dating back at least to Thomas Jefferson's forays against pirates in the Mediterranean in the early 1800s.

But the expansion of presidential war-making accelerated literally in a flash on Sept. 11, 2001, when hijacked airliners smashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost, exceeding even the death toll from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that propelled the U.S. into World War II.

Sept. 11, 2001, galvanized Americans much as Pearl Harbor had. Americans were fearful, and also vengeful. The awfulness of the Twin Towers collapsing and the grief of thousands of families who lost loved ones turned swiftly to anger. There were popular songs on the radio and rants on TV about what the U.S. would do in retribution. Just three days after those attacks, Congress met and passed an authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, directing President Bush to go after the perpetrators and those who harbored or enabled them.

That covered the invasion of Afghanistan that fall and has been used by every president since for scores of operations many still secret. It is important to note that the 2001 AUMF against terrorists would remain intact under the current Senate's repeal bill; the measure would apply only to the later resolution aimed specifically at Iraq and an 1991 AUMF concerning Iraq's invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait.

The second wave of combat helicopters of the 1st Air Cavalry Division fly over an RTO and his commander on an isolated landing zone during Operation Pershing, a search and destroy mission on the Bong Son Plain and An Lao Valley of South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. The two American soldiers are waiting for the second wave to come in. Patrick Christain/Getty Images hide caption

The Iraq resolution came 13 months after Sept. 11. The initial thrust into Afghanistan had ousted the Taliban regime but failed to capture al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The Bush administration increasingly turned its attention to the regime of Saddam Hussein. While never explicitly saying Saddam had aided in the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush and his national security strongly implied it.

"Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror," Bush told Congress in January 2002. "... The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas and nuclear weapons."

Bush also asked Congress to "imagine those 19 hijackers [on Sept. 11. 2001] with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein." Just before the AUMF of 2002 was debated, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice warned the U.S. could not wait to find "a smoking gun" because it might be "a mushroom cloud."

So the Iraq AUMF was approved by a vote of 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate. Only six Republicans voted no in the House and just one in the Senate. A majority of Democrats in the House were opposed (126-81). But in the Senate, the majority of Democrats voted yes (29-21). There was one Independent vote against the resolution in each chamber.

In all this, the trajectory of the Iraq War as an issue in domestic politics tracked the precedent set by the Vietnam War.

The Tonkin Resolution was named for a bay on the Vietnamese coast where torpedo boats were alleged to have attacked U.S. warships. Johnson persuaded Congress the national honor was at stake and Vietnam was the key to stopping the advance of global communism. Congress passed a resolution saying he could "take all necessary measures" to protect U.S. interests in Vietnam. The House voted unanimously for it, and only two members of the Senate opposed it.

In 1970, the Senate vote to repeal it was 81-10. (The lopsided vote for Tonkin in 1964 was nearly matched by the vote for the September 2001 AUMF against terrorists, which had one House member, Democrat Barbara Lee of California, opposed and two senators not voting.)

Back in 1964, Johnson had his Tonkin authority and public support (he won a full term in the White House that November with 60% of the popular vote). Soon, he was escalating the war until half a million U.S. personnel were in Vietnam. Draft orders soared, protests proliferated, and support on Capitol Hill deteriorated.

Although popular at first, Johnson's war became an albatross. He aborted his bid for a second elected term in 1968.

Two years later, Johnson's Republican successor Richard Nixon was trying to wind down U.S. involvement in Vietnam and did not want to defend the Tonkin resolution. The leaders in both parties in Congress were ready to have it off the books so as to assert more oversight on presidential war-making.

Attempts in that direction were made in the years that followed, including the passage of the War Powers Resolution in 1973. But presidents continued to find ways around Capitol Hill in the decades to come, especially after the life-changing experience of Sept. 11, 2001.

Any comparison to Vietnam seemed far-fetched when Congress went along with Bush on Iraq in 2002. The initial invasion was successful: Baghdad fell and the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein went into hiding (later to be captured, tried and executed).

But the occupation that followed was awkward at best, breeding far greater resistance among Iraqis than Bush administration planners had expected. Even those glad to be rid of Saddam chafed at the presence of a foreign army. presence.

Over time, support waned back at home, as well. The war paid the U.S. no visible dividends and made no new friends. Multiple polls measured support above 70% in the month of the invasion, but below 50% by the summer of 2004. It has remained under water ever since.

While Bush survived to be reelected in 2004, he came close to losing in the Electoral College. He had the protection, too, of noting that his Democratic opponent John Kerry, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, had voted for the Iraq authorization as had Kerry's running mate John Edwards of North Carolina.

But two years later, Democrats stormed to majorities in both chambers of Congress in 2006 for the first time in 12 years. The central issue that year: the Iraq War.

Early in 2007, as debates began among Democratic candidates for president and first-term Sen. Barack Obama used his opposition to the Iraq War as an Illinois state legislator to set himself apart from more experienced Senate colleagues especially putative frontrunner Hillary Clinton of New York.

More than a few observers at the time noted that without that Iraq vote, Obama would not have had an actual issue to use against Clinton.

Just as Obama had made Clinton pay for her 2002 vote on Iraq, Trump used it to question her judgment in the 2016 fall campaign. Trump himself had expressed ambivalence about the Iraq War on several talk shows when it began, but he later claimed to have been against it before it even began. He has also later classed it among the "forever wars" the U.S. should never have fought.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent running for president in 2016 and again in 2020, called the Iraq War "the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history." He himself had voted against the resolution in 2002 as a member of the House. But his effort to use the issue against Biden in the 2020 primaries was ultimately not successful.

As president, Biden has signaled the president would sign the repeal, which some in Congress have been pushing for years. The House passed a repeal bill in 2021 that did not get to the Senate floor. The sponsor of that House bill, as well as this year's successor version, was Democrat Barbara Lee of California.

Lee was the lone member of Congress to cast a vote against not only the 2002 Iraq resolution but also the previous AUMF against terrorists that cleared Congress three days after Sept. 11, 2001.

Originally posted here:
Congress revisits approval for Iraq invasion, recalling change of ... - NPR

WASHINGTON -- Two decades after the Iraq invasion in March 2003, Congress is seriously considering repealing the 2002 and 1991 authorizations of force against Iraq, with a Senate vote expected this week. Bipartisan supporters say the repeal is years overdue, with Saddam Hussein's regime long gone and Iraq now a strategic partner of the United States.

For senators who cast votes two decades ago, it is a full-circle moment that prompts a mixture of sadness, regret and reflection. Many consider it the hardest vote they ever took.

The vote was "premised on the biggest lie ever told in American history," said Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, then a House member who voted in favor of the war authorization. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that "all of us that voted for it probably are slow to admit" that the weapons of mass destruction did not exist. But he defends the vote based on what they knew then. "There was reason to be fearful" of Saddam and what he could have done if he did have the weapons, Grassley said.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, then a House member who was running for the Senate, says the war will have been worth it if Iraq succeeds in becoming a democracy.

"What can you say 20 years later?" Graham said this past week, reflecting on his own vote in favor. "Intelligence was faulty."

Another "yes" vote on the Senate floor that night was New York Sen. Charles Schumer, now Senate majority leader. With the vote coming a year after the Sept. 11 attacks devastated his hometown, he says he believed then that the president deserved the benefit of the doubt.

"Of course, with the luxury of hindsight, it's clear that the president bungled the war from start to finish and should not have ever been given that benefit," Schumer said in a statement. "Now, with the war firmly behind us, we're one step closer to putting the war powers back where they belong -- in the hands of Congress."

In 2002, the George W. Bush administration worked aggressively, in briefing after briefing, to drum up support for invading Iraq by promoting what turned out to be false intelligence claims about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

In the end, the vote was strongly bipartisan, with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and others backing Bush's request.

Joe Biden also voted in favor as a senator from Delaware, and now supports repealing it as president.

Other senior Democrats urged opposition. The late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., urged his colleagues to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, where "nearly every day you will find someone at that wall weeping for a loved one, a father, a son, a brother, a friend, whose name is on that wall."

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, now the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, recalled on the Senate floor earlier this month his vote against the resolution after the threat of weapons of mass destruction "was beaten into our heads day after day."

"I look back on it, as I am sure others do, as one of the most important votes that I ever cast," Durbin said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who also voted against the resolution, said that at the time, "I remember thinking this is the most serious thing I can ever do."

For many lawmakers, the political pressure was intense. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, then a House member and now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he was "excoriated" at home for his "no" vote, after the Sept. 11 attacks had killed so many from his state. He made the right decision, he says, but "it was fraught with political challenges."

For those who voted for the invasion, the reflection can be more difficult.

Hillary Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York at the time, was forced to defend her vote as she ran for president twice, and eventually called it a mistake and her "greatest regret."

Markey says that "I regret relying upon" Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, along with other administration officials.

"It was a mistake to rely upon the Bush administration for telling the truth," Markey said in a brief interview last week.

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Congress weighs repealing Iraq votes - Arkansas Online

I recently rose from a slumber to discover that many of the learned had risen up to declare the U.S. war in Iraq not only a failure but also a misbegotten undertaking that no person of minimal intellect would have undertaken. There are two dangers in this view. The first is that there is a class of warriors who went into harms way and now carry the bitterness of the dead. The second is the bitterness of those who didnt go into battle yet held fragments of knowledge, enough to mislead.

Obviously, all have a right to discourse, but judging anything as complex as wars mere decades after they were fought risks misunderstanding and rubbishing those who were there. The wars veterans can distort the facts too, but they are owed the benefit of the doubt that they were not fools and that their memory carries with it a measure of truth. I have children who fought in Iraq. They have the right to be bitter if they choose. Those who judge a war whose real truth will not be known for centuries and even then it will be debated are peering into the dark.

If these lines sound bitter, they are not meant to be. I wrote a book as the war was intensifying, fully aware that my children would carry the burden of casual thought. I want to begin by quoting from that book, something always in bad taste but important to understand the necessity of the war:

On the morning of September 11, 2001, special operations units of the international jihadist group Al Qaeda struck the United States. In a classic opening attack, they struck simultaneously at the political, military, and financial centers of the United States. The attack on the political centers failed entirely when the aircraft assigned to that mission crashed prematurely in Pennsylvania. The attack on the military center was only partially successful. The aircraft assigned to that target crashed into a section of the Pentagon that had been modernized with fire-resistant materials, which effectively contained the explosion. The planes assigned to attack the U.S. financial center succeeded completely, not only destroying the World Trade Center towers but closing down the financial markets for several days and disrupting the U.S. economy.

The nineteen men who carried out the mission were capable operatives. Their achievement was not taking control of four airliners simultaneously, although that was not a trivial accomplishment. Rather, it was planning, training, and deploying for the operation without ever being detected by American intelligence or, more precisely, acting in such a way that in spite of inevitable detection, the data never congealed into actionable intelligence. While their military capabilities were enormously inferior to those of the United States they had to steal an air force their skills at covert operations were superb.

A major asset of al-Qaida was that it possessed a highly dispersed force that enabled it to group and regroup. It had demonstrated the ability to operate globally while maintaining political relations in a fixed position. Al-Qaida had political operations in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and as far east as Southeast Asia. It operated throughout these areas, growing its regional influence and maintaining a capability to operate widely. The attack on the United States demonstrated the ability to operate in many environments. Most important, al-Qaida could disperse while maintaining offensive power.

Al-Qaida therefore posed multiple threats in multiple regions. It could strike covertly as in the United States while maintaining regional bonds in Afghanistan and exploring the Pacific. Its force was so highly dispersed that its ability to strike would outrun even U.S. intelligence, which was focused on operational threats. Al-Qaida was focused on maintaining a wide range of options without providing relations and resources that could be neutralized. It was precisely this capability that enabled al-Qaida to operate covertly in the United States and kill 3,000 people without putting the groups core at risk.

This was a force that could not be rapidly defeated. Nor could it be negotiated with or even located for negotiations. There was no political option or opportunity to divide the force. And the possibility to penetrate it was an illusion.

At the same time, the United States could not accept the status quo. Al-Qaida had demonstrated its capabilities, and there was no reason it would not strike again. Lacking political solutions, Washingtons only option was a military strike a broad and diffuse campaign designed to fragment al-Qaida. That meant U.S. operations on a nearly global basis, from Saudi Arabia to Myanmar.

This could not be a conventional war for three reasons. First, the enemy had no center of gravity. Second, the attacking force had to disperse. Third, the normal logic of intelligence did not apply. Following 9/11 with meticulously targeted attacks against al-Qaida was not an option, as the intelligence did not exist. Al-Qaida was hidden even within the United States, had no center, and was seen as relentless in its hostility and ability to strike.

Invading Afghanistan and Iraq was the only practical option if the goal was to cripple a very capable enemy. The U.S. launched broad attacks in multiple countries. This could provoke hostility, but there was no better option. It was an unconventional counteroffensive, and this is what its critics dislike, but they offer no clear alternative. After 9/11, the threat was simply too great. The strategy was worldwide disruption. It was not pretty, but it worked. There were no other large-scale attacks on the U.S. homeland.

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The Necessity of the Iraq War - Geopolitical Futures

Then-Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi (center) oversees TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyann (left) signing one of four deals with Iraq's Oil and Electricity ministries on Sept. 5, 2021. (Source: Prime Minister's Media Office)

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyann broke his silence about fraught negotiations with Iraq over a $27 billion set of energy deals, framing the issue as a test of the state's ability to respect contracts through changing governments and shifting political winds.

Speaking on March 21 during a presentation on the French energy majors sustainability and climate strategy, Pouyann said he had held several rounds of discussions with the Baghdad government and was now waiting for a political decision from the Iraqi government before he would proceed.

I will tell you the truth we have a debate about the contract we signed," Pouyann said. "Iraq is not the easiest place to invest. We know the risk. For me, as I said to the authorities, the continuity of the voice of the state of Iraq is fundamental. We signed the contract in September 2021 with one government. We knew there were elections after. It was a test: will this contract go through the change of government?

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TotalEnergies takes hard line with Iraq on GGIP - Iraq Oil Report