Trump administration officials oppose limit to war authorization

“War is fundamentally unpredictable,” Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told a Senate hearing about a potential new authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, Congress’ most significant step in years toward taking back control of its constitutional right to authorize war.

Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson both said existing authorizations should not be repealed until new ones are in place, and stressed that they believe current AUMFs provide sufficient legal authority for ongoing military action.

“The 2001 AUMF provides statutory authority for ongoing U.S. military operations against al-Qaeda; the Taliban; and associated forces, including against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS,” Tillerson said in his opening statement.

Republican and Democratic members of Congress have been arguing for years that Congress ceded too much authority over the deployment of U.S. forces to the White House after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They are also divided over how much control they should exert over the Pentagon. Repeated efforts to write and pass a new AUMF have failed.

Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the right to declare war.

Concerns intensified this month after four U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger and previously over Trump’s talk about dealing with North Korea and an April attack on an airfield in Syria.

Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the foreign relations committee, told the hearing the ambush in Niger shows that U.S. forces “can find themselves in combat at any moment.”

‘GLOBAL, ENDLESS, SHADOW WAR’

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testify about authorizations for the use of military force before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Congress has not passed an AUMF since the 2002 measure authorizing the Iraq War. But the legal justification for most military action for the past 16 years is the older authorization passed days after the Sept. 11 attacks, for the campaign against al Qaeda and affiliates.

Backers of a new AUMF say the 2001 authorization has let presidents wage war wherever they like, without spelling out any strategy for Congress, or the public. For example, Islamic State did not exist when the 2001 AUMF was passed.

“I do not think the American people want the United States conducting a global, endless ‘Shadow War,’ under-the-radar, covert and beyond scrutiny,” said Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the foreign relations panel.