Senate rejects call to end 9/11 military force
Proposal set aside in annual defense policy measure.
Nearly 16 WASHINGTON — years to the day after Congress first authorized a military response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Senate on Wednesday rejected an effort to repeal the vir- tual blank check for military action that Congress granted to the president while smoke still rose from the rubble of the World Trade Center.
The debate pitted the Republican Party’s ascen- dant isolationist wing, represented by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, against its oldline interventionists, led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Paul pressed for the repeal vote in a strange-bedfellows alliance with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee last year. But the effort failed when senators voted 61-36 to set the measure aside rather than include it in the annual defense policy bill that sen- ators are considering this week.
“What we have today is basically unlimited war — war anywhere, anytime, any place on the globe,” Paul told his colleagues in a speech Tuesday after- noon on the Senate floor. “I don’t think anyone with an ounce of intellectual hon- esty believes these authorizations allow current wars we fight in seven countries.”
Paul had proposed repeal- ing the declaration in six months, allowing lawmak- ers time to consider a new
one. The issue has been around since 2015, when President Barack Obama asked Congress to replace the authorization of military force passed to battle al-Qaida with a new one crafted specifically to take on the Islamic State.
But so far Congress has balked, declining to take on the difficult issue even as law- makers such as Kaine insist that the legislative branch should reclaim its constitu- tional duty to declare war.
In the House, in another unlikely partnership, Rep. Barbara Lee, the Califor- nia Democrat who was the
only member of the House to vote against the original resolution in 2001, paired up with Rep. Scott Taylor, a freshman Virginia Republi- can and former Navy SEAL,
over the summer to convince the Appropriations Committee to insert language repealing the original use of force declaration into a spending bill.
“I just felt compelled to stand up and say ‘Now it’s time to look at the AUMF,’” Taylor said, using the acro- nym for the authorization for the use of military force. He said once he spoke up,
other Republicans joined in to support him: “It’s an issue that I don’t think is going to go away.”
But Republican leaders stripped the provision out of the spending measure, with House Speaker Paul Ryan saying the move was a “mistake” and that such language was not appropriate for inclusion in a spend- ing measure.
“It was really shameful,” Lee said in an interview. “The Constitution requires us to do our job and debate
the costs of war.” Wednesday’s vote put the question of the president’s authority to commit troops
overseas up for a vote for the first time in a generation, and some lawmakers, mindful of
their obligations under the Constitution, seemed gen- uinely torn.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said that in forcing senators to take a stand, Paul had “been relentless in doing something that has to be done.”
But, he added, “You can’t replace something with nothing, and we have nothing.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell argued strongly against repealing the military force authorization, saying that ending the authority the president relies on to fight the Islamic State would create only confusion within the armed forces.
“We have an all-volunteer force that protects all of us and fights for us,” McConnell told his Senate colleagues, adding, “We cannot break faith with these men and women by removing the authority they rely on to pursue the enemy.”
Wednesday’s vote cleared the way for the Senate to begin work on a massive $700 billion defense policy bill, championed by McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The defense measure sets forth McCain’s interventionist vision of America’s role in the world — a vision very different than
that of Paul or President Donald Trump. It includes $37 billion more in funding for the Pentagon than Trump asked for, authorizes $500 million to provide “security assistance,” including weapons, to Ukraine; $100 million to help Baltic nations “deter Russian aggression”
and $705 million for Israeli cooperative missile defense programs — $558.5 million more than the administration’s request.
“It’s a grandiose spending plan,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip. “We expect it each year. He challenges us to move toward his direction, and usually has his way to
some extent.”