GOP Senator Hagel Says Bush Has Too Much Leeway
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Associated Press
Wednesday 22 October 2003
OMAHA, Oct. 21 -- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) is strongly criticizing Congress, saying it gave President Bush too much latitude in conducting foreign policy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Hagel voiced his disapproval Monday in a speech at the Gallup Organization World Conference in Omaha.
"When the security of this nation is threatened, Congress and the American people give the president great latitude," he said. "We probably have given this president more flexibility, more latitude, more range, unquestioned, than any president since Franklin Roosevelt -- probably too much. The Congress, in my opinion, really abrogated much of its responsibility."
Hagel, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, voted last year to give the president the authority to attack Iraq but has frequently criticized Bush's execution of the war. Hagel has been especially critical of the lack of allies and United Nations support.
Most people in other countries are too young to remember the good done by the United States in World War II and the Korean War, he said. "The great reservoir of pro-American good will that has existed in the world since World War II . . . that reservoir is now down very low."
Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran, compared the United States' lack of international support in the Iraq war with what happened in Southeast Asia.
"The one great mistake that America made in those 58 years [since World War II] . . . was we tried to do something alone. That was Vietnam," Hagel said.
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