WASHINGTON–U.S
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, on Thursday
spoke on the U.S. Senate floor ahead of voting in support of Senator Mike Lee’s
(R-Utah) amendment to sunset all future authorizations for use of military force after two years, which is included in Murphy and
Lee’s National Security Powers Act. Murphy highlighted the importance of
Congress reclaiming its role as a co-equal branch on matters of war and
national security.
“I’m going to support Senator
Lee’s amendment, [in] part because I’ve
introduced legislation to do the same thing alongside him, but because I think
it’s time that we started putting this Congress in the position to flex that
muscle that is given to us in Article I, which is to be co-determinants of
American foreign policy alongside the executive branch. Notwithstanding the
good work of Senator Menendez and Senator Kaine, we have over the course of the
last several decades completely outsourced that responsibility to set the
national security of this policy to an executive branch, and a national
security apparatus inside the executive branch, that has become bigger than the
Founding Fathers’ wildest dreams,” said Murphy.
Murphy continued: “Senator Lee’s amendment says this, if you’re going to
pass an authorization of military force, every Congress you have to come back
and debate that authorization of military force. When you’re talking about our
most sacred responsibility, putting the men and women who protect us in harm’s
way, I think we owe it to them, I think we owe it to our voters, to make sure
that those authorizations of military force are not being expanded or perverted
beyond their initial scope.”
On the expansion and
misuse of the 2001 AUMF over the past two decades, Murphy said: “The 2001 AUMF, which everybody at the time knew was
about fighting al Qaeda, and those that harbored al Qaeda, which at the time
was a fight in Afghanistan, has been used to justify airstrikes operation and
support for counterterrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Djibouti, Libya, Pakistan,
Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Cuba, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kenya,
Kosovo, Jordan, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria, Philippines, and Turkey. I don’t think
anybody who voted for the 2001 AUMF believed at the time that it was an
authorization for military force and counterterrorism operations in that many
countries, and if we were required to come back and have the debate on the 2001
AUMF, or other AUMFs, we would be able to check with our public, to check with
the people we represent, and see if they still believe it is necessary to send
American forces that far and wide. Maybe some of the most disastrous military engagements
of our history, like the war in Iraq, would have come to an earlier close had
this Congress been required to debate those measures on a regular basis instead
of just allowing those AUMFs to persist.”
Murphy concluded: “We should repeal and rewrite the 2001 AUMF. It is
way too broad and cuts Congress out of some of the most important decisions
about where our troops fight. That’s a complicated endeavor, but I know Senator
Menendez is committed to it, I know there are many Republican colleagues committed
to it. But I think history has shown that without a forcing mechanism, it’s
unlikely that Congress is going to make those very difficult decisions, which
is why a sunset on AUMFs is a worthy idea of consideration.”
Last Congress, Murphy
introduced the National
Security Powers Act, bipartisan legislation to reclaim Congress’s
critical role in national security matters. The legislation specifically
safeguards congressional prerogatives in the use of military force,
emergency powers and arms exports. In each of these cases, the president is
required to consult congressional leaders and obtain congressional
authorization before exercising the powers in question. Any congressional
authorization will have to meet specific requirements, including an automatic
sunset. Under the National Security Powers Act, any activities
lacking such authorization will face an automatic funding cutoff after a
specified number of days. You can read more about the bill here.
A full transcript of his
remarks can be found below:
“Mr. President, later today
we are going to vote on an amendment offered by my colleague Senator Lee, and
this is a really important amendment. This is a
really important debate for us to have: The question of how long
authorizations of military force should last. We are able to have this
amendment vote because of the great work that Senator Kaine and Senator
Menendez have done to bring to an end authorizations of military force that
have been on the books for decades. Authorizations of military force that most
Americans didn’t even know existed.
“So first, I’m grateful to my
colleagues and to Senator Young as well for having brought us to this moment
where we can make the collective decision, Republicans and Democrats, to take
off of the books these expired authorizations of military force that are
dangerous so long as they allow a President of the United States to pervert the
original meaning of the authorization of force, to go to war against Saddam
Hussein in Iraq, for other means and mechanisms.
“I think this is really
important, both spiritually to show that Congress is still in the game of
setting foreign policy alongside the executive branch, but practically because
we have seen these authorizations occasionally be sort of picked up, unearthed
from the grave, and used to justify military action that can’t find a
justification in Article II power, or in other AUMFs, and so I couldn’t be more
supportive of the underlying measure.
“But Senator Lee is asking us
to look prospectively and to take a step to not
repeat the mistakes of the past. His amendment would suggest that every future
authorization of military force, and we’ve passed very few of them on
this floor, would be limited to two years.
“Full disclosure, I’ve
introduced that legislation with Senator Lee. It’s part of a broader piece of
legislation that he and I have introduced to reform the War Powers Act, to
reform our arm sales processes, and to reform the President’s emergency powers
to try to right size the balance of authority between an outsized executive
branch and I think an underwhelming legislative authority.
“I think Senator Lee’s
amendment is a good idea. The only reason I wouldn’t support it is if it
jeopardizes the underlying bill. But if it doesn’t, then I’m going to support
Senator Lee’s amendment, [in] part
because I’ve introduced legislation to do the same thing alongside him, but
because I think it’s time that we started putting this Congress in the position
to flex that muscle that is given to us in Article I, which is to be
co-determinants of American foreign policy alongside the executive branch.
Notwithstanding the good work of Senator Menendez and Senator Kaine, we have
over the course of the last several decades completely outsourced that
responsibility to set the national security of this policy to an executive
branch, and a national security apparatus inside the executive branch that has
become bigger than the Founding Fathers’ wildest dreams.
“There’s a wonderful book by
Walter Isaacson, called “The Wise Men,” that’s about the individuals
who set up the post-World War II order, but it’s also an interesting
examination of how things used to be when Congress was doing its job, regularly
passing legislation setting the parameters of American foreign policy.
“One of the most
extraordinary stories that’s told in “The Wise Men,” is the story of
Robert Lovett, who at the time, I believe, was the Deputy Secretary, or an
Undersecretary of the Department of Defense. He eventually went on to become
Secretary of Defense, and on a regular basis, I believe it was multiple times a
week, Robert Lovett on his way home from work, would stop and have a drink or
dinner with Arthur Vandenberg, the then-Senate Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee. Every single week, multiple times, the administration
would send one of their most important policymakers to sit down with the
Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to work together on setting
American national security policy in the wake of World War II.
“Senator Menendez is a very powerful
Chairman, but I don’t think he gets that kind of deference from the
administration. Because the administration
knows that they can make national security policy largely without or around the
United States Congress because we have made a collective decision to outsource
that responsibility. Now that has become convenient in a world in which our
enemies are a lot harder to define. They’re shadowy, they’re defuse, they
change names in an era where victory is just as hard to define. We don’t have
peace treaties any longer with our enemies, or non-state actor enemies at the
very least. So we’ve been content to just let the administration decide who we
fight, when we fight them. We’ve let the Department of Defense get so big that
we can barely track what they do. We don’t even demand much information from
them.
“I learned last week that the
Department of Defense sees very little responsibility to engage members of
Congress when it comes to briefing us on contract award decisions, despite the
statute mandating that Congress receive information when requested. There’s
just an imbalance of power, and it’s created by our decision to only have
debates on national security policy every long, random, infrequent, once in a
while.
“Senator Lee’s amendment says
this: If you’re going to pass an authorization of military force, every
Congress you have to come back and debate that authorization of military force.
When you’re talking about our most sacred responsibility, putting the men and
women who protect us in harm’s way, I think we owe it to them, I think we owe
it to our voters to make sure that those authorizations of military force are
not being expanded or perverted beyond their initial scope.
“The 2001 AUMF is still on
the books. It’s important because it’s our sole authorization of military force
against extremist groups. And let me tell you, I cover the Middle East on the
Foreign Relations Committee, there are still groups there that are thinking
about plotting attacks against the United States. We need to chase them, we
need to keep them on the run. But the 2001 AUMF has a scope and a size today
that would be shocking to most Americans.
“The 2001 AUMF, which
everybody at the time knew was about fighting al Qaeda and those that harbored
al Qaeda, which at the time was a fight in Afghanistan, has been used to
justify airstrikes operation and support for counterterrorism in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Djibouti, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Cuba, Cameroon, Chad,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kenya, Kosovo, Jordan, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria,
Philippines, and Turkey.
“I don’t think anybody who
voted for the 2001 AUMF believed at the time that it was an authorization for
military force and counterterrorism operations in that many countries, and if
we were required to come back and have the debate on the 2001 AUMF, or other
AUMFs, we would be able to check with our public, to check with the people we
represent, and see if they still believe it is necessary to send American
forces that far and wide. Maybe some of the most disastrous military
engagements of our history, like the war in Iraq, would have come to an earlier
close had this Congress been required to debate those measures on a regular
basis instead of just allowing those AUMFs to persist.
“And so I come to the floor
to frankly thank Senator Lee for bringing this piece of our bigger bill before
the Senate. I’m going to certainly consider voting for it. I want to make sure
that it doesn’t compromise the underlying legislation;
these amendments are moving fast. But my last hope for our body is this: that
this isn’t the last time that we have a debate on this floor about the
scope of American military operations abroad.
“We should repeal and rewrite
the 2001 AUMF. It is way too broad and cuts Congress out of some of the most
important decisions about where our troops fight. That’s a complicated
endeavor, but I know Senator Menendez is committed to it. I know there are many Republican colleagues
committed to it. But I think history has shown that
without a forcing mechanism, it’s unlikely that Congress is going to make those
very difficult decisions, which is why a sunset on AUMFs is a worthy idea for
consideration.
“I yield the floor.”
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