House votes to repeal Iraq War authorization

With Paul McLeary

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Quick Fix

— The House votes to repeal the 2002 Iraq War authorization as the bipartisan effort picks up steam in the Senate.

— Top Pentagon leaders defend the Biden administration’s defense budget on Capitol Hill.

— The presidents of the U.S. and Russia agreed to pursue nuclear arms control talks at a summit in Geneva.

HAPPY THURSDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE, where we're always on the lookout for tips, pitches and feedback. Email us at [email protected] and [email protected], and follow on Twitter @connorobriennh, @bryandbender, @morningdefense and @politicopro.

On the Hill

AXING THE AUMF: The House votes today on legislation from Rep. Barbara Lee to repeal the 2002 war authorization passed in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The long-anticipated House vote comes as momentum builds across Capitol Hill for scrubbing the nearly two-decade-old declaration amid a broader push to narrow presidential war powers that has won President Joe Biden's backing.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer threw his support behind repealing the outdated Iraq authorization on Wednesday, vowing to hold a vote on scrapping it this year, POLITICO's Andrew Desiderio writes.

“The Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade. The authorization passed in 2002 is no longer necessary in 2021,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

More Senate action: Following Schumer's endorsement, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced a vote next Tuesday on similar bipartisan war powers legislation. The panel will mark up a bill from Sens. Tim Kaine and Todd Young that would repeal both the 2002 Iraq War and 1991 Gulf War authorizations.

AUSTIN FACES ROUND TWO IN THE SENATE: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley testify on the administration's defense budget request at a 10 a.m. at a Senate Defense Appropriations hearing. This morning's hearing is the pair's second Senate appearance in two weeks.

In addition to senators' standard parochial concerns, Austin and Milley are likely to face renewed skepticism from appropriators over the Pentagon's flat budget topline and the trade-offs required to maintain readiness in the tight spending scenario.

Last week, Armed Services members peppered Austin and Milley on the topline, mothballing older weapons, the nascent Navy proposal to cancel a nuclear-tipped cruise missile, and the Pentagon's differing view of how to distribute billions of dollars meant to bulk up U.S. forces in the Pacific.

Also today: The Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing on the Air Force and Space Force budget with acting Secretary John Roth, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond at 9:30 a.m.

The House Armed Services Seapower panel holds a hearing with Navy and Marine Corps officials on the budget request for seapower and projection forces at 11 a.m.

FOR YOUR RADAR: The defense budget hearings keep rolling next week on Capitol Hill. Here are some highlights:

On Tuesday, Senate Armed Services holds a hearing on the Navy and Marine Corps budget with acting Secretary Thomas Harker, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday and Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger at 9:30 a.m.

Also Tuesday, Senate Defense Appropriations hears testimony on the Army budget with Secretary Christine Wormuth and Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville at 10 a.m.

On Wednesday, House Armed Services holds a hearing on the defense budget with Austin and Milley at 10 a.m.

And Thursday, Senate Defense Appropriations convenes a hearing on the Navy and Marine budget with Harker, Gilday and Berger at 10 a.m.

Russia

ARMS TALKS: The U.S. and Russia will restart arms control talks at some point in the coming months, an effort that ranks as perhaps the one solid deliverable from four hours of talks between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

In remarks to the media after the summit in Geneva, Biden suggested the two sides got into some detail when talking about weapons. They “agreed today to launch a bilateral strategic stability dialogue that's working on a mechanism that can lead to control of new and dangerous and sophisticated weapons coming on the scene now that reduce the time to respond, [and] raise the prospects of accidental war, and we went into some details of what those weapon systems were.”

Biden’s description suggests they brought up the rapid development of hypersonic conventional and nuclear weapons, which move so fast they’re hard to track, and even more difficult to shoot down.

A statement from the White House later spelled out that the two countries will kick off an “integrated bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue in the near future that will be deliberate and robust. Through this Dialogue, we seek to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.”

Militarizing the Arctic: Putin didn’t get into quite as much detail as Biden over their arms control talks, but in between bouts of “whataboutism” aimed at racism and gun violence in the U.S., the Russian leader launched into an extended defense of Russian claims in the Arctic.

Asked about the movement of more Russian military equipment to the High North, which includes the S-400 air defense system, Putin insisted that "the concerns of the American side about militarization have no basis," and that Russia was not doing "anything new" in the region.

That’s partially true in a very strict sense, as Russia is rebuilding old Cold War-era bases throughout the north. But Putin quickly glossed over that to focus on new sea routes in the Arctic produced by melting ice and the need for icebreakers, search-and-rescue capabilities, and clear international rules for transiting the High North.

“Putin’s instinct to turn a reporter’s question on Arctic military development into a legalistic discussion on law of the sea is telling,” said Joshua Tallis, a naval analyst at CNA, a Washington-based research organization. “It shows that Russia (much like the U.S.) sees the Arctic as an increasingly maritime domain.

“In this way, emerging Arctic security risks are more multidimensional than in the Cold War, when the predominant threats were from ballistic missiles fired from under the sea or over the pole,” he added. “In the Arctic, Russia still sees itself as a status quo operator.”

Related: Biden says he told Putin U.S. will hack back against future Russian cyberattacks, via POLITICO's Martin Matishak.

More: U.S. and Russian ambassadors to return to their posts after summit, via POLITICO's Maeve Sheehey.

Afghanistan

'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS': If Biden does not act immediately to evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters before the U.S. withdrawal is completed, “blood will be on his hands,” Republican Rep. Michael Waltz said Wednesday, our colleague Lara Seligman reports.

The fiery comments by Waltz, a former Green Beret, add to growing bipartisan pressure on the White House to address a backlog of roughly 18,000 Afghans waiting on special immigrant visas that would allow them to enter the U.S.

Afghan interpreters have been killed by the Taliban for aiding U.S. troops, and with more than half of U.S. forces now out of Afghanistan, lawmakers fear more will be killed as the withdrawal accelerates. Waltz and other lawmakers have repeatedly urged Biden to order the Pentagon to immediately evacuate the Afghans to locations such as Guam, the UAE or Qatar, where they can safely complete the paperwork to obtain their visas.

Industry Intel

NEW TANKER: The Air Force is surveying industry to see whether another contractor can produce its next batch of aerial refuelers similar to the Boeing-built KC-46, Reuters reports.

"The Air Force's survey is the first step in the process of buying the next batch of refueling tankers. The Air Force said the tranche of 140 to 160 jets would follow Boeing's current contract to produce 179 KC-46s as the Pentagon replaces hundreds of Eisenhower-era KC-135s still in service. Wednesday's 'sources sought' document was released as part of its market research, the Air Force said."

Despite issues with the KC-46, acting Air Force Secretary John Roth told Congress on Wednesday that "at this point we don't see the economic or business sense of recompeting the contract."

Speed Read

— U.S. Army has hidden or downplayed loss of firearms for years: The Associated Press

— Macron pitches Biden on plan to get foreign fighters out of Libya: POLITICO Europe

— Boeing, Airbus gear up for post-tariff fight for orders: The Wall Street Journal