Rep. Adam Schiff Tuesday will introduce a bill to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which Congress passed after the Sept. 11 attacks to authorize the president to fight the war on terror, his office announced Monday.
The proposal would sunset the AUMF as of Dec. 31, 2014.
While Schiff (D-Calif.) says he recognizes the U.S. will still need to use force to fight terrorist attacks,
the bill expresses hope that Congress would use the end of the AUMF to pass new legislation better suited to modern threats -- and comply with the Constitution.
The AUMF authorizes the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
Listing the U.S.’s accomplishments to date on this front, including the killing of Osama bin Laden and “decimation” of Al Qaeda, Schiff’s bill says “Congress never intended and did not authorize a perpetual war.”
“When Congress passed the AUMF shortly after 9/11, we did not intend to authorize a war without end,” Schiff said in a statement. “The cessation of our combat mission in Afghanistan next year is a logical end point for an authorization that now provides a poor description of the groups which threaten us, and an increasingly precarious legal rationale for going after them.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) in January introduced a bill that would repeal the AUMF 180 days after passage, doing the same in 2011 and 2010. None of the bills were called for a vote.
Schiff is introducing the bill the same week the House takes up debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that lays out funding and spending for the Defense Department for the upcoming fiscal year.
