Lawmakers on Wednesday voted down a measure directing the president to withdraw American troops from Iraq and Syria absent a new authorization for use of military force (AUMF) from Congress. The vote was 288-139.
The measure, brought to the floor by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) with Reps. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), relied on a provision of the Nixon-era War Powers Resolution to force a consideration by the House of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria, which the lawmakers argue were never properly authorized by Congress.
While airstrikes against the Islamic State (ISIL) first began in August of last year, Congress has yet to pass an authorization for the use of military force specific to those operations, with the administration instead relying on the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs in Afghanistan and Iraq as the legal authority for the campaign.
“We introduced this bipartisan bill to force a debate on how Congress has failed to carry out its constitutional duty to authorize our military engagement in Iraq and Syria,” McGovern said in prepared floor remarks.
“For over 10 months, the United States has been engaged in hostilities in Iraq and Syria without debating an authorization for this war,” McGovern said.
Acknowledging that the troop withdrawal measure was “blunt,” McGovern nevertheless argued that it was necessary given the lack of willingness on the part of House leadership to pass a new AUMF.
“Congress needs a clear deadline…That deadline is the withdrawal of our troops by the end of the year. It gives this House, this Republican leadership, six entire months to get AUMF enacted. It gives this House, this leadership, six more months in which to simply do their job.”
Members of both parties spoke against the concurrent resolution, however, saying that it would impose an arbitrary timeline for withdrawal and jeopardize operations against a severe threat to U.S. interests in the region.
“This resolution, I believe, would take us in the opposite direction of where U.S. policy should be,” said Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “If the United States were to remove our forces from the theater, as this resolution calls for, ISIS would surely grow stronger.”
“This has nothing to do with authorizing the use of force against ISIS, but would unilaterally withdraw U.S. forces from the fight,” Royce said.
But supporters of the measure pushed back hard against characterizations of the resolution as a withdrawal measure.
“This resolution that we’re debating here today would have no standing if there were an AUMF,” McGovern pointed out. “We wouldn’t even be allowed to bring this to the floor.”
Others argued that Congress was relinquishing its constitutional prerogative to declare war to the executive branch by refusing to take up a new AUMF.
“We have a constitutional duty, that duty is to debate,” said Rep. Walter Jones, one of the co-sponsors of the resolution.
“’The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature,’” said Jones, quoting James Madison. “We need to do this on behalf of the Constitution and on behalf of our young men and women in uniform.”
Beyond Wednesday’s affair, debate in the House over a new war authorization has fallen silent several months after the administration introduced a draft AUMF to Congress, which was panned by both parties. Last week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi admitted that lawmakers aren’t even discussing the matter anymore.
