The Senate voted 65-28 on March 27 to invoke cloture, ending debate, on a bill that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 Iraq war authorizations.
Ahead of the vote Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cited the U.S. retaliatory strikes in Syria following Iran-backed groups killing a U.S. contractor, injuring a second contractor and wounding five soldiers.
Menendez noted that President Joe Biden did not need the 1991 and 2002 authorizations.
The first allowed the United States to enter the Gulf War, during which Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s forces were driven out of Kuwait. The second allowed the U.S. military to go into Iraq following reports that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction….