Bush aims to bolster Iraq case
He vows to seek Congress' OK before moving against Hussein
URL: dallasnews.com.
09/05/2002
By G. ROBERT HILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON – President Bush began an aggressive worldwide drive Wednesday for support to topple Saddam Hussein, pledging first to seek congressional approval for any move against Iraq.
"This is a debate the American people must hear, must understand," the president said. "And the world must understand as well that its credibility is at stake."
Top congressional leaders summoned to the White House welcomed the president's pledge to consult Congress, although there were plenty of questions:
Will there be war? If so, when? How might it be waged, for how long? And even if there's a quick victory, then what? How long would U.S. forces remain in Iraq? And will the rest of the world – now largely opposed to any military action in Iraq – eventually rally around the United States?
"We're hoping for more information and greater clarity in the days and weeks ahead," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Mr. Bush pressed his case against the Iraqi president privately with Mr. Daschle and other congressional leaders of both parties in the Cabinet Room, then in a meeting with reporters.
"Saddam Hussein is a serious threat. He is a significant problem. And it's something that this country must deal with," the president said. "Today, the process starts."
Within the next week, Mr. Bush said, he intends to confer with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David, Md., and with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien in Detroit and to deliver a major address at the United Nations, where the administration may push a new resolution to get U.N. weapons inspectors back in Iraq.
Additionally, Mr. Bush plans to confer by telephone with the leaders of France, China and Russia and meet with other world leaders gathering in New York next week for the new session of the U.N. General Assembly.
"I will first remind the United Nations," the president said, "that for 11 long years, Saddam Hussein has side-stepped, crawfished, wheeled out of any agreement he had made ... not to develop weapons of mass destruction – agreements he's made to treat the people within his country with respect."
Mr. Bush set no timetable for action, and his press secretary said he had not yet decided even on a course of action, let alone military intervention.
"The president is reviewing a great number of options," spokesman Ari Fleischer said, and he will "continue to address this matter with the American people and with the Congress and with our friends and allies."
Already, though, the Iraq debate has gripped official Washington as the president and Congress return from their August vacations. And it's becoming increasingly enmeshed in the fall campaign for control of Congress.
"We do have to worry about the politicization of this issue," Mr. Daschle cautioned, noting that "there are skeptics out there who wonder to what extent the political implications of any of this may affect the elections."
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has talked openly of an intense debate within the administration about how to proceed with Iraq, sought allied support in a series of meetings with world leaders attending a U.N. development summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
He said the world was "now seized with this problem," but he was loudly heckled during a speech when he tried to defend the administration's record on the environment and poverty around the world.
Mr. Powell is expected to be at Mr. Bush's side when he visits the United Nations in New York next week in what is shaping up as another delicate diplomacy mission.
And while there is still discussion within the administration about what Mr. Bush will say in his U.N. speech, Mr. Fleischer discounted reports that the United States might seek U.N. approval to use military force to back up any new U.N. inspections.
"I wouldn't place a lot of emphasis on that," he said. "There are still a lot of different things that are being talked through."
Still, Mr. Fleischer said the president strongly believes that the U.N. inspectors that left Iraq four years ago must be allowed back in "with unfettered access, anytime, anywhere, to any place."
Mr. Bush, who has labeled Iraq, together with Iran and North Korea, an "axis of evil," has long warned of Mr. Hussein's determination to continue developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
And he made clear in a letter to Congress after Wednesday's meeting with congressional leaders at the White House that "doing nothing in the face of a grave threat to the world is not an option."
"At the appropriate time and after consultations with the leadership" the president promised, "I will seek congressional support for U.S. action to do whatever is necessary to deal with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime."
"We must not allow an outlaw regime that incites and uses terror at home and abroad to threaten the world by developing the ultimate weapons of terror," Mr. Bush said.
Earlier, he said that he would seek congressional approval for any action against Iraq, but offered no details.
Pressed for more information at his daily briefing, Mr. Fleischer said any congressional resolution on Iraq would be "very much akin" to the one approved by Congress in January 1991, authorizing Mr. Bush's father, the 41st president, to use military force against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait.
Mr. Fleischer reiterated that the White House was convinced that the president already has the constitutional authority to wage war, but that "it is very important, particularly in a democracy, for Congress to have its role, for Congress to speak and for Congress to vote."
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, who attended the White House meeting, said he would lead the drive to round up support for the president on Iraq in the House and expected a vote before Congress leaves for the Nov. 5 elections.
But Mr. DeLay said he didn't yet have any idea exactly what a resolution of approval would seek. "We just got back today" from recess, he said, begging off.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Flower Mound, who recently questioned the need for U.S. military intervention in Iraq, said he had told the president that he would not be discussing the issue publicly for a week.
"I'm going to be listening for a week," he said as he left the White House to return to Capitol Hill.
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he viewed Mr. Hussein as "part of a threat around the world that we cannot ignore" but wasn't sure whether Congress would be ready to vote on any resolution within the next month or so.
"If we are not ready for that kind of a congressional debate," he said, "we come back after the election, or we can do it later."
House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., also saw a long, difficult road ahead.
"We've got to now have an argument made to the Congress and the American people," he said, "and it's got to be one that convinces a majority of Americans that this is something that we need to do and to take seriously." |
