The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved on Wednesday a decision to repeal a 2002 legislation that gives open-ended approval for military action in Iraq.
The step would reclaim congressional say over US military strikes and deployments. It will now move to the full Senate for its final approval.
On Wednesday, the Committee voted 18-14 to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).
For his part, US Senator Jim Risch said that “President Biden has directed airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria twice since February. Both actions have failed to deter further Iranian aggression.”
He recalled the Iranian militias’ attacks against US forces at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, the attacks on Israeli-owned ships in the Gulf of Oman, and increased drone attacks against Saudi Arabia from both Iraq and Yemen.
“I’m concerned that a repeal of the 2002 AUMF could increase calls for a repeal of the 2001 AUMF – an authority that is critical to our global counterterror operations,” he noted.
“The day following the most recent US strike, Iranian militias launched multiple rockets at our forces in northeast Syria, and several days of attacks against our troops and diplomats in Iraq resulting in American injuries."
However, in an effort to ease the concerns of Risch and other Congress members about the negative impacts of repealing the AUMF, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said the decision would not affect the State Department’s diplomatic initiatives.
“The administration has made clear that we have no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF, and that repeal would have minimal impacts on military operations," Sherman told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
