Bush Forces Rush Decision on Iraq War

by Jim Lobe

Despite the stakes, Congress has given itself very little time to consider the full implications of whatever decision it makes.

By agreeing under heavy White House pressure earlier this week to schedule a vote on a war resolution before Congress adjourns for the November elections in just three weeks' time, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat, gave the administration a major advantage.

The concern, which is even now being voiced by some Democrats and major newspapers, is that Bush may now be able to "steamroll" Congress into approving a resolution that will have major repercussions not only for Iraq and the entire Middle East, but for world order as a whole.

"One or two days of rushed hearings on Capitol Hill can't begin to delve into the complexities," worried the New York Times, while Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, a Democrat, warned against rushing "pell mell" to endorse anything as broad as the president's request.

Bush's request, which was sent to Congress Sept. 19, asks for sweeping authority to use "all means (Bush) determines to be appropriate, including force," to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions, "defend the national security interests of the United States against a threat posed by Iraq, and restore international peace and security in the region."

And, in a break with past resolutions authorizing military force, the draft does not cite any imminent and tangible threat or specific act of aggression against the United States as a justification for military action now. Rather, its rationale is hypothetical and highly uncertain risks that it says must be pre-empted.

"Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the high risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its armed forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify the use of force by the United States in order to defend itself," says the resolution.

Both the sweeping nature of the request and its reliance on the very controversial strategic doctrine of pre-emption -- which was further elaborated in a new, 43-page statement titled "The National Security Strategy of the United States" -- have already provoked alarms in some quarters.

"The issue here is whether or not we're going to authorize a pre-emptive strike," noted Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington State. "This is the biggest vote any of us have ever taken."

Others pointed to the broad nature of the resolution, comparing it to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution that authorized U.S. military action in Indochina to "prevent further aggression" in Southeast Asia. It passed Congress with only two dissents.

"Congress needs to claim its leadership role in American war-making to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring," noted Timothy Edgar of the American Civil Liberties Union. Like the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, he said, Bush's request specifies neither whom Washington is fighting nor any clear military objectives.

Indeed, several Democratic senators, after meeting together last night, charged that the resolution amounted to a "blank check."

Several also noted that, just as former presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon used the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to expand the war into countries like Cambodia, so could the reference to "restoring international peace and security in the region" in Bush's draft be used to carry the "war on terrorism" to Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.

Neo-conservative hawks closely tied to Israel's Likud Party both in and out of the administration have been urging such a move since last year's Sept .11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Unlike the resolution his father submitted to Congress before the Gulf War, says Edgar, Bush's request fails to cite the War Powers Act, passed by Congress toward the end of the Vietnam War to ensure that presidents could not fight wars indefinitely without Congressional backing.

Still others, like Rep. Dennis Kucinich, said even considering such a resolution is premature because the administration has not yet made the case that Iraq represents a serious and imminent threat.

"We Need Answers, Mr. Bush" read the headline of the Los Angeles Times' editorial Sept. 19 that consisted of a list of questions about the precise nature of the threat posed by Baghdad and what Washington will do if it succeeds in overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Some on the right also expressed concerns, especially after reading the new Strategy document, which, in addition to abandoning Washington's 55-year-old adherence to "containment" of global enemies, also trumpeted the administration's attention to maintain U.S. global military supremacy.

Looking beyond a possible war with Iraq, Ivan Eland, the director of defence policy studies at the Cato Institute, a right-wing libertarian think tank, said the document's prescription for military primacy and pre-emptive attacks on potential threats is not in line with "what a republic's foreign policy should be." The Statement, he said "leads to a perpetual state of war."

The question now in Washington is whether the administration is open to negotiate with the dissenters and modify the resolution to account for their concerns.

Politically, there may be no necessity for compromise, particularly given the short time frame Congressional leaders have set. Only a handful of Republicans have expressed reservations about the resolution so far, while a somewhat larger number of Democrats, who have pushed for war with Iraq, have indicated steadfast support for Bush.

"Face it -- with the current war fever and the sharp rise in support for war in the polls, (Bush) has the votes to win. If the vote were today, (the resolution) would be approved in both houses, although more narrowly in the Senate than in the House," one Congressional aide told IPS.

"The question is whether Bush wants a strong mandate with big majorities. If so, he'll have to compromise some, but not very much."

But the Bush White House, which has already ruled out including any reference to the War Powers Act, is a fervent believer in executive power and may be inclined to settle for smaller majorities and a broader mandate, according to some political analysts who cite Vice President Dick Cheney's oft-repeated refrain that the presidency gave up far too much power to Congress as a result of the Vietnam War.

With Republican challengers already running television attack ads accusing Democratic incumbents of being soft on Iraq and with Democrats themselves eager to get a vote out of the way so they can return the spotlight to the sputtering economy before the elections Nov. 8, Bush clearly has the wind at his back. The debate will likely be a short one.