War Powers act may get an update

WASHINGTON » President Joe Biden wants to work with Congress to repeal and replace a war authorization law passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, White House officials said Friday. That law has been stretched across four administrations to permit open-ended combat against Islamist militant groups scattered across the world.

The Biden administration is committed to working with Congress “to ensure that the authorizations for the use of military force currently on the books are replaced with a narrow and specific framework that will ensure we can protect Americans from terrorist threats while ending the forever wars,” Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a statement.

But her statement stopped short of endorsing any particular proposal for how to overhaul the 2001 law, which is known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF.

Congress for years has struggled to reach any consensus about that question.

The wording and intent of the 2001 law have grown increasingly detached from how the American government is using it. The law authorized war against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks and those who harbored them essentially, the original al-Qaida and its Taliban hosts.

But as the campaign against terrorism evolved, the executive branch under administrations of both parties stretched its interpretation to justify combat against other terrorist groups far from Afghanistan like an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and alShabab in Somalia.

By claiming it already has congressional authority to battle such foes, the executive branch has avoided problems with the War Powers Resolution a

Vietnam-era law that requires terminating hostilities after 60 days unless authorized by Congress while a gridlocked and polarized Congress has avoided having to cast tough votes.

But many critics, including many lawmakers of both parties, say they believe that the authorization has been extended well beyond its intent, usurping the role of Congress under the Constitution to decide when the country will go to war. Yet lawmakers have been unable to agree on how to update it.

One faction refuses to write a new blank check extending the “forever war.” It is attracted to ideas for imposing tighter restraints, like having the law automatically expire after a period, restricting levels of ground forces and restricting the executive branch’s ability to deem new foes as associated forces of al-Qaida and treat them as part of the existing war.

Another faction, however, warning that Islamist terrorism remains a major threat to national security, has balked at subtracting from the government’s current authority to use military force in fighting alQaida-linked groups. The impasse has resulted in sticking with the 2001 law.

Still, there are signs that the politics may be shifting. While some veteran Republicans who favored overhauling the AUMF have retired like former Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona there are also many recently elected lawmakers, on the far left and right in particular, who share the view that Congress needs to regain its role in war decisions.

Amid the flux, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has been a steady force in pushing for overhauling the war authorizations. In Psaki’s statement, which was earlier reported by Politico, the White House also singled Kaine out Friday as a lawmaker it wanted to work with.