Trump Launched the Iran War Without Congress's Authorization: More Than 10,000 Targets Struck in 25 Days

A Campaign With No Known Full Scope or Duration

Donald Trump ordered the military campaign against Iran that began on February 28, 2026.¹ Congress had not authorized it.²³ On March 1, the day after the war began, an Iranian drone killed Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan and five other soldiers at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, AP reported.⁴

That is the charge: Trump committed the country to a large war on his own orders, without Congress's authorization.⁵¹² Within 25 days, U.S. Central Command reported more than 10,000 targets struck inside Iran.⁶ The Congressional Research Service (CRS) put an estimated 50,000 American servicemembers in and around the region as of March 26.⁶

The decision was his: he signed the March 2 letter that reported the campaign to Congress, and it attributed the operation to his direction.¹ He wrote that the threat to the United States and its allies and partners had become untenable.¹ Then he told Congress he could not yet know the full scope or duration of the fighting.¹

House Document 119-139, letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives¹

Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace, it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary.

Children Killed at a School in Minab

CRS's March 26 account said a Tomahawk missile reportedly killed 168 people, mostly children, at a school in Minab, and that a preliminary American military inquiry reportedly found U.S. responsibility and outdated targeting information.⁶

In an April 19 letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and colleagues gave a different count: 175 children and teachers.⁷ They also cited more than 1,700 civilian deaths across the U.S.-Israeli war, a figure drawn from news reporting and not limited to American strikes.⁷ On July 13, 25 senators demanded the still-undisclosed Minab investigation and a prevention plan.⁸ CRS's September update still described the U.S. inquiry as preliminary.⁹

A UN fact-finding mission's September report relayed a local prosecutor's final count of 156 deaths.¹⁰ It also relayed independent information asserting 157 deaths, including 123 children.¹⁰ The mission found reasonable grounds to believe U.S. strikes on Minab's school and Lamerd's sports center were indiscriminate attacks constituting war crimes; CENTCOM denied responsibility for Lamerd.¹⁰ In finding recklessness at Minab, the mission cited statements by Trump and Hegseth dismissing binding obligations under international humanitarian law, alongside outdated targeting data and the school's readily identifiable civilian features; it concluded that U.S. failures went beyond negligence.¹⁰

The Senate Armed Services Committee expressed concern that departmental reorganization had impaired the civilian-protection office and recommended annual rules-of-engagement reports, a proposal rather than an enacted requirement.¹¹ Senator Mark Kelly's March 16 oversight letter said Hegseth's remarks about giving enemies no quarter called the military's law-of-war commitment into question: Kelly explained that denying quarter means killing enemies rather than allowing surrender and warned that such a declaration would be a war crime.¹²

Americans Dead, Billions Spent

By October 10, 2026, Task & Purpose reported 21 U.S. personnel dead and 865 wounded.¹³ The revised toll includes noncombat deaths.¹³

Asked about the USS Abraham Lincoln deployment and mental-health concerns, Trump said: "Not nearly long enough."¹⁴ On August 16, retired Admiral Mike Mullen warned of lost future readiness, while acknowledging resolved problems and improved morale after relief was announced.¹⁴

CBO estimated $38 billion in military costs through August 1, 2026, CRS reported.⁹ AP reported at least $44 billion spent by October 5.⁴ CRS also relayed a Pentagon assessment that munitions expenditure had produced strategic inventory shortfalls and exposed industrial bottlenecks in resupply.⁹ CRS's October 5 aircraft report listed 81 aircraft reportedly lost or damaged, including drones; some damaged aircraft had returned to service.¹⁵

The costs extended beyond military spending. CRS cited the International Energy Agency's March 12 assessment that the conflict was causing the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, with oil flows through Hormuz down by 20 million barrels a day and Gulf production cut by at least 10 million barrels a day.⁶ The Joint Economic Committee's minority estimated that American farmers spent $1.4 billion more on diesel to plant corn, soybeans, spring wheat, cotton and rice in 2026 than in 2025, linking the price shock to the Iran war.¹⁶

He Sought a Quick Peace. The Fighting Returned.

Trump's March 2 report said the United States desired a quick and enduring peace.¹ In his April 1 address, he said American forces were on track to complete their military objectives shortly and would hit Iran extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.¹⁷ He threatened every Iranian electric-generating plant if no deal emerged.¹⁷

Address to the Nation on United States Military Operations in Iran, Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, DCPD-202600220¹⁷

If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously.

In the same address, Trump said regime change had never been the goal but had occurred because Iran's original leaders were dead.¹⁷ CRS's September report said the Islamic Republic remained in power under new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.⁹

Roll Call reported that Trump's May 1 letter asserted the extended April ceasefire had terminated the hostilities begun on February 28, while he retained forces and claimed constitutional authority to direct them.¹⁸¹⁹ At the April 30 Senate hearing, Hegseth argued that a ceasefire paused or stopped the 60-day clock.²⁰ Senators led by Adam Schiff disputed that claim on June 7, citing continued blockade operations and exchanges of fire and demanding the opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).²¹ A June 17 agreement offered a way to end the conflict and negotiate a broader settlement; CRS reported that it collapsed amid renewed fighting and expired in August.⁹

The administration stated specific military goals: destroying Iran's offensive missiles, missile production, navy and other security infrastructure, and preventing it from obtaining nuclear weapons.²² Iran suffered major losses: AP reported on October 10 that its navy and air force had been devastated and key political and military leaders killed.²³ Those losses did not eliminate Iran's military capabilities.⁹ CRS's September report relayed May reporting, based on unnamed sources describing intelligence assessments, that Iran retained as much as 75% of its mobile missile launchers and 70% of its prewar missile stockpile.⁹ It also cited September reporting that Iran had restarted missile production underground and said Revolutionary Guard naval capabilities, including small vessels and mine-laying ships, remained.⁹ Preventing a future Iranian nuclear weapon remains a continuing objective; CRS reported in September that the International Atomic Energy Agency had been unable to conduct safeguards at the facilities struck in 2025.⁹

By October 10, AP reported that American escorts had increased oil shipments through Hormuz, but ship traffic remained well below prewar levels and Iran had renewed attacks on tankers.²³ The military inflicted heavy damage, but the quick, enduring peace Trump sought had not arrived by October 10.¹⁹²³

Both Chambers Backed Withdrawal; the House Also Backed Funding

The House at first refused to order a withdrawal: Iran withdrawal measures lost there on March 5 and April 16.²⁴²⁵ The Senate approved one, S.J.Res. 185, on May 19, CRS reported.⁹

Then, on June 3, the House voted 215-208 to direct the removal of American forces from hostilities with Iran; on June 23, the Senate agreed, 50-48.²⁶²⁷²⁸ The resolution was never presented to Trump and never became law.²⁸ It exempted forces needed to defend the United States, an ally or a partner from imminent attack, subject to the War Powers Resolution's 60-day provision.²⁸

The House also supported funding: CRS reported that a budget resolution it passed in July included the funds requested for the war.⁹ By September 18, CRS recorded six House votes on Iran withdrawal resolutions, with three passing on June 3, July 23 and September 15.⁹

Republican Thomas Massie sought Hegseth's impeachment on September 15 over unauthorized Iran warfare.²⁹ Stars and Stripes reported that House leaders canceled the next voting day, delaying action until November.³⁰

Trump Reported Iranian Attacks Before Each New Round of Strikes

Trump kept directing the campaign, and in each later report he named an Iranian attack first.^31323334 On June 12, he reported strikes beginning June 9, six days after the House withdrawal vote and two weeks before the Senate's.³¹²⁶²⁷ He said Iran had forced an American AH-64 Apache helicopter to crash-land on June 8 despite a ceasefire.³¹

After both chambers had voted, his next report described an Iranian attack on a neutral-flagged commercial vessel on June 25, followed by American defensive strikes on June 26, and a separate attack on another neutral-flagged vessel on June 27, followed by precision strikes on June 28.³² His July 10 report identified further attacks on neutral-flagged commercial vessels and defensive strikes beginning July 7.³³ CBS News reported that Trump paused bombing on July 24 after 13 consecutive nights of strikes.³⁵ His September 3 report described strikes beginning September 1, including National Iranian Oil Company tankers, as defensive responses to late-August Iranian attacks, again invoking constitutional authority.³⁴ Trump's letters said no American ground forces took part in these later strikes and described precautions intended to minimize civilian casualties.^31323334

He Rejected His Intelligence Assessment, Then Bombed Three Nuclear Sites

The February campaign was not the first attack Trump ordered on his own claimed authority.³⁶³⁷ He had already struck Iran once, and he did it the day after rejecting his own intelligence community's assessment.³⁸³⁹ In March 2025, that written assessment said Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had not reauthorized the program it said he suspended in 2003.⁴⁰ It also warned that pressure had probably built on him to do so.⁴⁰ The same report said Iran's conventional forces could inflict substantial damage on an attacker, conduct regional strikes and disrupt shipping through Hormuz.⁴⁰

On June 20, a reporter put that assessment to Trump and identified its source as his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.³⁸ He rejected both the assessment and her judgment.³⁸

Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, DCPD-202500706 — Remarks and an exchange with reporters, Morristown, New Jersey³⁸

Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?

The strike came on June 21, 2025, against Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan.³⁹³⁶ His June 23 report said he had ordered it and described it as limited in scope and purpose: three nuclear facilities, with Iranian troops and other military facilities excluded.³⁶ CRS read the report and stated: "He did not cite any statutory authority."⁴¹ Eight months later, he opened the much larger campaign on the same constitutional claim.¹

He Sent More Than 150 Aircraft to Seize Maduro

About eight weeks before the Iran campaign began, Trump claimed the same independent power to order military strikes in Venezuela: his January 5 report invoked constitutional authority without a force-authorizing statute.³⁷ In October 2025, he had confirmed authorizing CIA operations inside Venezuela and said the United States was looking at action on land.⁴² On January 3, 2026, he announced that American forces had struck Venezuela's capital and captured Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores.⁴³ Beside him, Joint Chiefs Chairman General J. Daniel Caine said Trump gave the order at 10:46 p.m. Eastern the night before; more than 150 aircraft were in the air, and American forces dismantled Venezuelan air defenses to clear the helicopters' route into Caracas.⁴³ Trump said no American servicemember was killed and no American equipment lost in the raid.⁴³

The administration's strongest defense is that this was a successful law enforcement mission, with limited military strikes in support, rather than a constitutional war.³⁷⁴⁴ Trump's January 5 report said he ordered the targeted and limited strikes at the Attorney General's request to apprehend and transfer the two defendants to the United States.³⁷ Federal warrants rested on grand jury indictments in the Southern District of New York; the charges are allegations.³⁷⁴⁵⁴⁶ OLC advised on December 23, 2025 that the President had inherent Article II authority to seize Maduro without congressional authorization.⁴⁵ The Panama precedent supports the prosecution: courts allowed Manuel Noriega to be tried after American forces seized him in 1989, rejecting his immunity and seizure-based challenges.⁴⁵

At the January 3 news conference, Rubio said members of Congress were called immediately after the operation and argued that advance notification would endanger the trigger-based mission.⁴³

But permission to prosecute does not settle permission to attack.⁴⁵ As CRS explains, the court in Noriega's case did not decide the President's inherent authority or whether the military action violated international law.⁴⁵ OLC itself argued that Maduro's prosecution could proceed even if the operation exceeded the President's constitutional power to order force.⁴⁵ CRS also reported that OLC considered it unnecessary to decide whether the operation complied with international law, arguing that international law did not restrict the President as a matter of domestic law in an extraordinary rendition.⁴⁵

Trump also announced his intention for the United States to "run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition."⁴³ Afterward, Rubio described the continuing quarantine on sanctioned oil as leverage; Hegseth said it covered sanctioned or stateless vessels.⁴⁷⁴⁸

Congress's withdrawal efforts failed: the House rejected Venezuela measures in December 2025 and January 2026, and the Senate stripped its January measure of expedited treatment when the Vice President broke a 50-50 procedural tie.^49505152

Trump's Defense, and the War Decision It Does Not Settle

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and makes the President Commander in Chief.⁵ Trump's strongest defense begins with that command power and the duty to defend Americans and allies.¹⁵³ His March 2 report asserted that Iranian missiles were already attacking American forces, commercial vessels and civilians, and described the February mission as collective self-defense.¹ It said no American ground forces took part in the opening strikes and that the mission was designed to minimize civilian casualties.¹ The State Department's April 21 legal defense invoked both collective self-defense of Israel and America's own inherent right of self-defense in an ongoing international armed conflict.²² The White House also argued that Iranian threats could require action beyond imminent defense, including disrupting attack preparations.⁵³

The Supreme Court recognized in The Prize Cases that a President can meet an attack with force without awaiting special legislative authority; it also said he cannot initiate or declare war.⁵⁴ Presidents of both parties have long used force on their own authority.⁵⁵⁵⁶ Clinton's Kosovo, Obama's Libya and Trump's 2018 Syria reports used substantially the same constitutional-authority formula; OLC approved Syria's planned strikes as limited, and found both Article II and the 2002 force authorization supported the 2020 Soleimani strike.^5758595660 The administration also gave Congress information: CRS acknowledged consultation with some leaders before the February strikes and said some were reportedly notified in advance.² Briefing lawmakers and obtaining their authorization are different acts.⁶¹⁵

Congress's own imminent-defense exception matters too: the dates of Trump's later counterattacks alone do not show that Congress opposed each response.²⁸³²³³ The exception also carried a 60-day statutory condition, so describing a strike as defensive does not by itself settle whether it qualified.²⁸¹⁹ Reuters reported that the administration treated July's renewed fighting as opening another 60-day window; the letter itself cites constitutional authority without declaring a reset.⁶²³³ And the withdrawal mechanism itself has a constitutional weakness.⁶³ The War Powers Resolution, enacted over Nixon's veto in 1973, provides for withdrawal by concurrent resolution.⁶⁴¹⁹ But INS v. Chadha held that the legislative action at issue required passage by both houses and presentment to the President.⁶⁵ CRS calls the War Powers Resolution's removal device constitutionally suspect, while noting the competing view that war powers are a distinct category.⁶³ The administration made that objection and threatened a veto of a joint-resolution version.⁶⁶⁵³⁶⁷

But the executive branch's own rule places a limit on independent presidential action.⁵⁵ OLC's Libya opinion asks whether important national interests justify force and whether its anticipated nature, scope and duration make it a war requiring Congress's prior approval.⁵⁵ OLC says no single factor decides the issue; the threshold generally requires prolonged, substantial engagements, typically exposing American personnel to significant risk over a substantial period.⁵⁵ Avoiding ground troops reduces withdrawal and escalation risks and favors Trump's defense.¹⁵⁵

That test still requires assessing the whole campaign.⁵⁵ The assessment here is a constitutional argument, not a judicial holding on these operations.⁵⁵⁵ Trump began an operation that struck more than 10,000 targets within 25 days, while telling Congress he could not know its full scope or duration.⁶¹ It exposed Americans to deadly attacks, including the March 1 strike that killed Marzan and five other soldiers.⁴ Those facts support the argument that this was a war requiring Congress's decision, rather than a bounded strike the President could order alone.⁵⁵¹⁶⁴

The later attacks do not retroactively authorize the February decision, and an international-law self-defense argument does not supply congressional authorization.⁵¹⁵⁴²² The seven Iran and Venezuela reports identified constitutional authority rather than a statute authorizing force; the War Powers Resolution grants no new authority and bars inferring war authorization from ordinary appropriations.^{363713132333468} The July House budget action therefore supplied support for funding, not an enacted authorization to wage war.⁹⁶⁸

Courts have rejected war-powers suits without deciding the military action's legality.⁶⁹⁷⁰⁷¹ Nor did earlier Congresses impeach Nixon or censure Polk over their wars.⁷²⁷³ Article II, section 4 gives Congress an impeachment remedy; it does not condition that power on first obtaining a court judgment.⁵

His War Decision Cost Lives and Billions

Trump signed all seven reports, and each attributed the operation to his direction.^{3637131323334} He ordered American forces into action and ordered them to strike again.¹³²³³

The war killed American soldiers and children at an Iranian school, cost tens of billions of dollars, and continued despite Trump's stated desire for a quick peace.^4109123 A President's power to command American forces does not erase Congress's power to decide whether the country goes to war.⁵ Trump made that decision himself and kept directing the campaign after Congress's June withdrawal vote.^51283233 That is the abuse of power this article asks Congress to judge: committing the country to war through his own orders in place of congressional authorization.⁵¹²⁸