Twenty years later the US Senate cancels the authorization to intervene in Iraq. And now who pays the dead?
On March 29, the US Senate voted 66-30 to repeal the Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) 2002 that allowed former President George W. Bush to launch a military invasion of Iraq on the basis of false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The bill is now headed to the Republican-led House of Representatives, where it's not yet clear whether lawmakers will put it to a vote.
“ Congress has abdicated its powers for too long ,” said Senator Tim Kaine, who has spearheaded Senate efforts to repeal the AUMF on Iraq in recent years. “ Presidents can do things wrong if there are outdated authorizations on the books,” he added.
If the bill passes a House vote — and is signed by President Joe Biden — it will be the first repeal of a war authorization since 1974.
Just last week, the US Senate voted overwhelmingly against repeal of the original AUMF, signed on September 18, 2001 by George W. Bush in response to the 9/11 attacks. Unlike the AUMF for Iraq, the 2001 AUMF is considered a broader, unchecked law passed to target alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the 2001 AUMF was used to justify more than 40 military interventions in at least 22 countries without Congressional approval.
In the years following 2001, the US Congress also approved the so-called "security cooperation authorities" (SCA) which allowed the Pentagon to secretly deploy troops and wage secret wars in dozens of countries around the world.
According to a report by the New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice, SCA allows the Pentagon to "train and equip foreign forces anywhere in the world" and to "provide support to foreign forces, paramilitaries and private individuals who in turn support US counterterrorism operations,” with a spending limit of $100,000,000 per fiscal year.
As a result, in dozens of countries, these programs have been used as a springboard for hostilities, with the Pentagon refusing to inform Congress or the US public about their covert operations.
“Researchers and reporters have discovered [SCA] programs not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen,” the report points out. .
Christopher C. Miller, former acting head of the Pentagon, said in his memoir released last month that the United States should be held responsible for the failure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The US military-industrial complex has morphed into a hydra-shaped monster with almost no control over the American war machine,” Miller writes.
In an interview with The Hill, Miller went on to say that “ we have invaded a sovereign nation, killed and maimed many Iraqis and lost some of the greatest patriotic Americans to ever live – all over one bloody lie ”. The cursed lie was the one told by Colin Powell about the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussei. Of which no trace has ever been found.
Now who will pay for the deaths and destruction resulting from the war in Iraq?
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The article Twenty years after the US Senate cancels the authorization to intervene in Iraq. And now who pays the dead? comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/ventanni-dopo-il-senato-usa-cancella-lautorizzazione-a-intervenire-in-iraq-ed-ora-chi-ripaga-i-morti/ on Sat, 01 Apr 2023 06:00:08 +0000.