Authorization for Use of Military Force
Sponsor
Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-MO)
What It Says It Does
NO STATED PURPOSE SECTION IN STATUTE. The joint resolution contains no short title provision. Its long title reads: Joint Resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States. Its whereas clauses recite that on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were committed against the United States and its citizens, that such acts render it necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self defense, that such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and that the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States.
What It Authorizes
Section 2(a)
Section 2, headed Authorization for Use of United States Armed Forces, provides that the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. That is sixty words. It names no enemy, sets no geographic limit, sets no time limit, and does not require the target to be a state. The determination of who qualifies rests with the President.
What It Touches
Constitutional Tension
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 gives Congress the power to declare War. The AUMF is not a declaration of war but a statutory authorization, and the War Powers Resolution itself distinguishes between the two. The question is whether Congress may authorize force in terms this open ended, delegating to the President the determination of who the enemy is, without limit of place or time. No court has answered it. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), a plurality held the AUMF authorized detention of an American citizen captured in Afghanistan. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), the Court held it did not authorize military commissions departing from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, with Chief Justice Roberts taking no part because he had sat on the panel below. Both decisions turned on statutory construction. Challenges reaching the delegation question have been dismissed on standing grounds, including Hedges v. Obama, 724 F.3d 170 (2d Cir. 2013).
Litigated and unresolved. No court has ruled on the constitutional question.
Sunset and Renewal
Sunset clause active.
No sunset clause, no time limit, and no requirement of periodic reauthorization. The resolution has never been amended. It passed as S.J. Res. 23 on September 14, 2001, by 98 to 0 in the Senate and 420 to 1 in the House. Representative Barbara Lee of California cast the only vote against it in either chamber. A Congressional Research Service memorandum dated February 16, 2018, prepared by Matthew Weed, compiled presidential references to the authorization in public notifications and reports to Congress. That memorandum was reproduced in full in the Congressional Record of January 15, 2020, where it was described on the House floor as showing the authorization used more than forty times in eighteen countries by three administrations. The separate 2002 Iraq authorization, Pub. L. 107-243, was repealed by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, signed December 18, 2025. The 2001 authorization was not.
Status verified September 2026.