Senate votes to ax 20-year-old Iraq act, reclaim war powers

— The Senate voted Wednesday 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 authorization many now view as a mistake.

Iraqi deaths are estimated in the hundreds of thousands, and nearly 5,000 U.S. 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 Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat who has pushed for years to repeal the powers. Kaine said the 20th anniversary had “opened a reflective moment where we I think we’re moving in the right direction.”

Senators voted 66-30 to repeal the 2002 measure and also the 1991 authorization that sanctioned the U.S.-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 U.S. military strikes and deployments, and some lawmakers who voted for the Iraq War two decades ago now say that was a mistake.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., 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would repeal a war powers vote, since the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that authorized military force in Vietnam was repealed in the early 1970s.