Senators introduce new war powers resolution

WASHINGTON – The chairman and other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unveiled a bipartisan resolution Monday authorizing the use of military force overseas, accelerating a debate that Congress has been reluctant to have, but that's taking on new urgency after President Donald Trump's strikes on Syria.

The resolution from Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., would repeal the broad authorizations Congress approved in 2001 and 2002 for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, replacing them with new authority to go after specific "non-state terrorist groups." A growing number of critics say Congress should no longer be using the more than decade-old resolutions as legal underpinnings for the fight against extremist groups such as the Islamic State.

The new resolution would not necessarily provide congressional authorization for the airstrikes Trump ordered, with coalition forces, in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Douma.