War on Terror

'Scrap It and Start All Over': Ex-Bush and Obama Officials Say the War on Terror's Powers Have Gone Too Far

In a rare display of candor, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson reflected on torture, Guantanamo Bay, and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Billy Binion | 7.9.2026 5:35 PM

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Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (left) and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson (right) (Illustration: Aspen Institute/Robert J. Fisch)

ASPEN, Colo.—The senior U.S. officials who coordinated and enforced the response to 9/11 have long since left government. But the legal architecture put in place in the wake of the terror attacks remains, in many ways, more robust than ever.

How do some feel now?

Alberto Gonzales—who was White House counsel on September 11, 2001, and later attorney general—and Jeh Johnson—who was general counsel of the Department of Defense and secretary of homeland security under former President Barack Obama—provided a rare window into that question at the Aspen Ideas Festival late last month in a conversation that spanned the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), torture, and Guantanamo Bay.

"I think President Bush and certainly I were stunned, were surprised that the AUMF is still in existence and relied upon, quite frankly," said Gonzales. That resolution—which gave the president........

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