By Ellen Mitchell

May 22, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved an amendment to the annual defense spending bill that would end the authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), as lawmakers grow increasingly concerned over the possibility of war with Iran.

The committee voted along party lines, 30-22, for Rep. Barbara Lee's (D-Calif.) amendment to sunset the AUMF, which has been used as legal justification for military operations against terrorist groups.

Passed days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it has been cited as a justification for conflict 41 times in 18 countries.

“In the last 18 years, it really has become increasingly clear that the AUMF has essentially provided the president, and that’s any president, the authority to wage war anywhere in the world at any time,” said Lee, who was the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF when it was passed.

“It has already been floated as a possibility for using this AUMF as the legal basis to go to war with Iran, a war, again, that Congress has not debated or authorized,” she added.

The amendment would sunset the broad war authorization eight months after the bill becomes law. She argued that it gives Congress and the Trump administration “plenty of time to vote and debate on a new AUMF.”

The language was offered as tensions between Washington and Tehran have reached a new high in recent weeks, with the accelerated deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to the region along with a B-52 bomber task force earlier this month.