Congress' action may come soon
Posted on 10/02/2002 3:10:28 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Congress' action may come soon
10/02/2002
WASHINGTON - President Bush, wrangling for congressional support in his campaign against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, warned Congress on Tuesday against approving a resolution that "ties my hands."
He plans to confer with the four top congressional leaders again Wednesday in what White House and congressional aides signaled could be the meeting that finally forges a compromise authorizing the president to use military force, if necessary, against Mr. Hussein.
The Senate could begin debate quickly, with a vote to follow next week. But Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., cautioned that other issues could intervene, including the stalled legislation to create a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.
"The situation will be much clearer within the next 24 hours," he said, pointing to Wednesday's meeting.
 President Bush, meeting with Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and others Tuesday, said that he was eager to agree on a congressional resolution on Iraq so that "we'll be speaking with one voice here in the country." (AP) |
The House is scheduled to consider an Iraq resolution in the International Relations Committee for the next two days, with a vote expected next week as well.
"It's winding down, coming to a conclusion," said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
But he cautioned, "Until the drafting is conclusive and final and done, there are going to be continuing conversations."
The White House and congressional leaders have been negotiating an Iraq resolution since the president offered a draft nearly two weeks ago, seeking congressional authorization to use military force or any other means to disarm Mr. Hussein.
Some Democrats and Republicans alike, however, have questioned the war talk.
"There is clearly a threat from Iraq, and there is clearly a danger," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said Friday. "But the administration has not made a convincing case that we face such an imminent threat to our national security that a unilateral, pre-emptive American strike and an immediate war are necessary.
"Nor has the administration laid out the cost in blood and treasure of this operation."
'More of a threat'
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Dick Lugar, a ranking Republican member from Indiana, have also raised a caution flag and offered a narrowly drawn alternative resolution that dwells on Mr. Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction.
"But I don't want to get a resolution which ties my hands," Mr. Bush protested Tuesday, calling the Biden-Lugar proposal weaker than a resolution overwhelmingly approved by Congress four years ago.
Mr. Hussein was "a threat in '98, and he's more of a threat four years later," Mr. Bush said. "Why would Congress want to weaken the resolution? This guy's had four years to lie, deceive, to arm up."
Not a certainty
Mr. Bush said he hadn't yet decided "we're going to war with Iraq" but was determined to strip Mr. Hussein's regime of its capacity to develop and deliver chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
"All of us recognize a military option's not the first choice, but disarming this man is," Mr. Bush said. "We've just got to work together to get something done."
The president said he was eager to agree on a congressional resolution so that "we'll be speaking with one voice here in the country," which, he added, would send a clear signal of support to the United Nations and to the world.
In the House, Rep. Martin Frost of Dallas, the third-ranking Democrat, said he was joining Mr. Daschle and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., in supporting "the objectives set out by the administration," while trying to narrow the scope of a resolution and encouraging the administration to work through the United Nations.
"Some observers have taken the position that the opposition party is not doing its job unless it automatically opposes the administration on every issue. I disagree with this analysis," Mr. Frost said in a written statement. "When it comes to national security, I believe the public expects Democrats and Republicans to lay down our partisan swords and try to work out a consensus."
Mr. Frost noted that he had supported a congressional resolution in 1991 to give Mr. Bush's father, the 41st president, the authority to use military force against Mr. Hussein in the Persian Gulf War and had but one regret.
"I only wish he had finished the job then, so that we wouldn't have to deal with Saddam now," Mr. Frost said. "But we do, and we will."
Cost of war
At the White House, the president also addressed the cost of the war, saying that the nation's slumping economy was "strong enough to handle the challenges ahead."
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that it would cost as much as $13 billion to deploy U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf and as much as $9 billion a month to prosecute a war against Iraq, then as much as $7 billion more to return U.S. forces to their home bases.
Afterward, occupation costs could run as much as $4 billion a month.
Asked to comment on the estimates, Mr. Fleischer said it was "impossible to speculate" because the president had not yet settled on war. But he said that an uprising by the Iraqi people - either exiling or killing Mr. Hussein - would be cheaper.
"I can only say that the cost of a one-way ticket is substantially less than that. The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less than that," Mr. Fleischer said. "The cost of war is more than that."
Pressed on whether the White House then was advocating the assassination of Mr. Hussein, Mr. Fleischer noted that the Iraqi president has a "great many enemies inside Iraq. And it is impossible to last forever as a brutal dictator who suppresses its own people, who tortures its own people, who deliberately brings women into public to be raped so it can be witnessed by their families."
Asked whether it was the administration's hope that Mr. Hussein would be killed, the White House spokesman was blunt.
"Regime change is the policy," he said, "in whatever form it takes."
E-mail bhillman@dallasnews.com
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