A country always at war

Congress last formally declared war in 1942. Since then presidents have sent troops abroad on UN resolutions, congressional authorizations, or their own claimed authority.

“Americans live in a perpetual state of war.”

Nobody seized this power

Executive war power did not swell on its own. Congress built the imperial presidency one deliberate vote at a time, usually while frightened.

“Congress builds the imperial presidency one step at a time.”

The week that mattered

Days after the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force with bipartisan support. It put the country on a permanent war footing.

Why the vote still matters

Commemorating 9/11 is easy. Reckoning with what Congress traded away that week, and which safeguards it gave up for security, is the harder part.

The shock of the homeland

Americans had long trusted two oceans to keep war elsewhere. Al Qaeda killed thousands, destroyed the World Trade Center and tore into the Pentagon.

Crime scene or battlefield

Clinton treated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as a law enforcement matter. Bush treated 9/11 as an act of war, and that framing set everything that followed.

Bush wanted everything

The White House draft sought power not just to hunt the attackers but to strike anyone, anywhere, before they acted. It would have made the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution look restrained.

“deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States”

Nobody wanted to look weak

Democrats feared the soft-on-security label Republicans had used since the 1960s. Republicans wanted to back their president. Still, both pushed for slightly tighter wording.

The limits were illusory

The final text named those who planned or aided the attacks, plus countries harboring terrorists. It never said against whom, never said where, and never said when it ends.

“planned, authorized, committed, or aided”

War Powers Act gutted

Congress passed the 1973 War Powers Resolution to stop another Vietnam. The AUMF made it nearly irrelevant for anything a president could tie back to 9/11.

98 to 0, and one no

The Senate passed it unanimously on Sept. 14. In the House, California Democrat Barbara Lee cast the only vote against it. Ten members abstained.

Barbara Lee's warning

Lee said Congress was repeating the mistakes of past wars and setting a precedent for presidents to fight abroad without asking. Even McCain, who helped narrow the text, cited Tonkin.

“pause, just for a minute and think through the implications of our actions today”

The lawyers went further

Bush signed on Sept. 18. His Office of Legal Counsel promptly argued he had even more power than the law gave him. John Yoo's memo claimed authority for preemptive strikes.

They were proud of it

Joe Biden, who helped write the measure, said Congress had kept its constitutional role. Sen. Jon Kyl argued that restrictions would just tie the president's hands.

“We gave the president all the authority he needed without giving up our constitutional right to decide whether force should be used.”

What it unlocked

Bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, then indefinite detention at Guantanamo outside habeas protections, military commissions instead of courts, and sweeping NSA surveillance.

Stretched all the way to Iraq

Congress passed a separate Iraq authorization, but Bush cited the 2001 law too, tying the removal of Saddam Hussein back to the language about those who aided the 9/11 attacks.

Every president since

Obama campaigned against Bush's executive overreach, then used the AUMF for drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia and for fighting the Islamic State. Trump and Biden leaned on it too.

“existing statutes provide me with the authority”

Repeal keeps failing

Lee eventually gained allies, but Congress has never rescinded or meaningfully narrowed the law. In 2026 presidents still hold war powers barely connected to 9/11.

Take the power back

Repealing the AUMF would not undo decades of drift, but it would strip one concrete source of unilateral war power. As Pelosi put it, nobody gives you power, you take it.

“nobody gives you power; you have to take it”