Which 2024 military operations did Congress formally authorize or oppose?
Executive summary
In 2024 Congress did not pass a new, operation-specific Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to greenlight the year’s major U.S. military strikes; instead lawmakers largely acted through annual defense legislation, oversight reporting, repeal of some legacy authorizations, and political opposition to discrete missions such as the Venezuela raid and post‑October 7 strikes tied to Iran‑backed militias. The practical effect was a patchwork: statutory authorizations for the department and broad AUMFs from prior years remained the administration’s legal cover for many actions, while members of Congress used hearings, 48‑hour notices, NDAA language and, in some cases, threats of War Powers resolutions to oppose or constrain operations [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Congress authorized defense programs and rewrote personnel and procurement rules, not new combat mandates
In 2024 Congress passed and considered major defense bills — notably the Fiscal Year 2024/2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and other appropriations — that authorized funding, personnel levels, weapons buys and construction for the Department of Defense, thereby enabling military capacity but not issuing a new, targeted AUMF for that year’s specific strikes [6] [7] [3]. The House’s defense package authorized roughly $900 billion in programs and rewrote procurement and personnel rules, and included repeal language removing some older authorizations such as the 2003 Iraq war AUMF from statute, effectively narrowing the pool of standing congressional authorizations even as it funded ongoing capabilities [3] [6].
2. Congress did not formally authorize post‑October 7 strikes in the Levant; the administration relied on prior AUMFs and Article II claims
After the October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent uptick in strikes involving Iranian‑backed groups, the Biden administration responded with multiple military actions in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere and submitted a series of 48‑hour reports to Congress explaining its legal rationale; initially those reports leaned on inherent Article II authority before the administration pivoted toward AUMF‑based rationales for some 2024 strikes [2]. Congressional sources and CRS analysis show Congress did not enact a discrete 2024 AUMF to retroactively or prospectively authorize those hostilities, leaving the executive to rely on prior AUMFs (2001, 2002, etc.) or constitutional authority — a practice that many lawmakers and legal scholars have criticized [2] [8] [9].
3. Individual operations drew explicit congressional opposition but not universal statutory condemnation
High‑profile actions in 2024 and early 2025 — including targeted strikes linked to Iran‑backed militias and an alleged U.S. operation aimed at Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela — prompted sharp condemnation from members of both parties and calls for formal congressional action; critics argued these operations proceeded without prior notification or authorization, and some members pursued War Powers resolutions or hearings to force votes on withdrawal or to record opposition [4] [10] [5]. Congress debated using the War Powers Resolution to compel the end of unapproved hostilities against Venezuela‑linked targets, but as of the reporting in these sources lawmakers had not enacted a binding statutory termination of the operations [5] [4].
4. The political reality: oversight, repeal and rhetorical opposition replaced new AUMFs
Across 2024 Congress gravitated toward oversight (hearings, IG reports), selective repeal of old authorizations in omnibus defense measures, and public rebukes rather than new explicit war‑authorizing legislation; observers note this trend has left presidents with continued latitude to order strikes absent fresh congressional authorization, a pattern the executive branch and multiple administrations have exploited for decades [3] [8] [1]. Critics in Congress argued that the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs have been stretched beyond their original scope and urged replacements or terminations, but attempts to craft new, narrowly tailored AUMFs in 2024 failed to secure the necessary bipartisan support [8] [9].
5. What reporting cannot show definitively
The open record in these sources documents how Congress funded forces, repealed some legacy authorizations and registered opposition to several 2024 operations, but it does not show a single, comprehensive act in 2024 in which both chambers expressly enacted a new, operation‑specific authorization approving the year’s strikes; nor do these sources provide a complete roll‑call of every War Powers or withdrawal resolution introduced or their final procedural status beyond the cited debates [3] [5] [2]. Where members opposed individual missions, they often did so through oversight, resolutions or public denunciations, not through a fresh, broad AUMF.