Senate panel votes to scrap both Iraq war authorizations

In a historic bipartisan move, a Senate panel has voted to scrap both Iraq war authorizations.

For the first time in 50 years, a Senate committee has voted to repeal decades-old war powers measures that twice launched the U.S. into war with Iraq, giving a green light to then-President George W. Bush's ill-fated plan to invade that country to topple its despotic president, Saddam Hussein, under the later-discredited justification of ridding that country of weapons of mass destruction never found. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday voted 18-14 to repeal both the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) with supporters saying it was long past time for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority to declare war. Three Republicans -- Todd Young of Indiana, Ohio’s Rob Portman, and Rand Paul of Kentucky -- voted with all the panel’s Democrats for repeal, with some Republicans who opposed the move Wednesday arguing that though they support scrapping both AUMFs, the time is not right amid rising tensions with neighboring Iran. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who along with Young has worked for years to gain the support of their colleagues, noted that no current action by the U.S. is using either AUMF "as the legal basis for any current U.S. military activity, nor are they needed to justify the detention of even a single detainee now in U.S. custody."