Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. Ray Bradbury’s novel “Fahrenheit 451” was first published on this day in 1953.
Saddam is long gone. But the Iraq War authorization lives. For now.
Later this year, if Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd C. Young (R-Ind.) have their way, journalists may finally be able to write the obituary for the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) with which Congress gave the green light for George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
The 2002 AUMF was born on Oct. 16, 2002 — 20 years ago this week! — and will have been, in the language of obituaries, pre-deceased by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was deposed by U.S. forces in 2003, tried in 2005 and executed in 2006.
The “zombie” authorization is still on the books, Kaine told The Daily 202, “because Congress hasn’t had the backbone to…
