US Senate votes to repeal Iraq war approval many see as mistake
- Congress pushes to reassert its role in deciding whether to send troops into combat 20 years after the Iraq invasion
- The US-led 2003 war, based faulty WMD claims, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans
The US Senate voted to repeal the resolution that gave a green light for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a bipartisan effort to return a basic war power to Congress 20 years after an authorisation many now view as a mistake.
Iraqi deaths are estimated in the hundreds of thousands, and nearly 5,000 US troops were killed in the war after President George W. Bush’s administration falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
“This body rushed into a war” that had massive consequences, said Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat who has pushed for years to repeal the powers.
Senators voted 66-30 to repeal the 2002 measure and also the 1991 authorisation that sanctioned the US-led Gulf War.
If passed by the House, the repeal would not be expected to affect any current military deployments. But lawmakers in both parties are increasingly seeking to claw back congressional powers they have given the White House over US military strikes and deployments, and some lawmakers who voted for the Iraq War two decades ago now say that was a mistake.
Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, noted it would be the first time in more than 50 years that Congress would repeal a war powers vote, since the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that authorised military force in Vietnam was repealed in the early 1970s.
