Congress Wants Say in Iraq Decision

04/09/2002| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTS: Bush to Hold Briefing on Iraq||Washington & London to Publish Dossiers of Evidence on Saddam's Efforts to Develop Weapons of Mass Destruction||Iraq Says Return of Weapons Inspectors Must be Linked to Broader Issues ||Arab Foreign Ministers Discuss Iraq in Cairo Wednesday||Gulf States Oppose US Strike|| STORY: After winning the Gulf War, then-President Bush boasted of the free hand he had had to wage war against Iraq. "I didn't have to get permission from some old goat in the United States Congress to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait," Bush said.

Ten years after his father spoke those words before the Texas State Republican Convention, President Bush is wrestling with the same issue: how much of a say does Congress have in deciding whether a president can send U.S. troops into battle.

Bush has promised to consult Congress before waging war in Iraq. He hasn't said whether he will explicitly ask Congress' approval to dispatch troops to depose Saddam, the Iraqi president.

As far as the White House is concerned, Bush has the legal authority he needs: a congressional vote in 1991 that authorized his father to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions by using military force to reverse Iraq's annexation of Kuwait.

Objectors say the resolutions expired after a six-week air war and four days of ground operations restored Kuwaitis' control of their country on Feb. 28, 1991.

The White House also has a congressional resolution approved last year supporting "necessary and appropriate force" as a response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is drawing a line in the sand. "The administration should not expect to commit American troops to war with a wink and a nod to Congress," he said last week.

Bush to Hold Briefing on Iraq

President Bush, answering demands to know his intentions toward Iraq, invited the congressional leadership to a Cabinet Room briefing and dispatched his Pentagon chief to Capitol Hill.

The president's meeting Wednesday with top Democratic and Republican lawmakers - including leaders of the Intelligence, Armed Services and International Relations committees - comes amid increasing signals that Bush is ready to go public with a fuller picture of what the United States knows about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities.

A Dossier of Evidence on Saddam's Efforts to Develop Weapons of Mass Destruction

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was going to the Capitol on Wednesday to provide closed-door "operational updates" on the war on terrorism, told reporters Tuesday that the administration had secret information supporting its claims that Saddam is close to developing nuclear weapons and must be overthrown.

Rumsfeld said it is already publicly known that Iraq wants to acquire nuclear weapons, that nuclear technologies have spread in recent years and that Iraq has ways of obtaining such materials.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in South Africa for a United Nations summit, similarly suggested that Bush was nearing a decision - if not on his course of action against Saddam, then a more detailed indictment of the Iraqi leader. Powell said Iraq, in trying to deny any work on weapons of mass destruction, has been playing a "con" game for years.

In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said his government hoped to publish in the next few weeks a dossier of evidence on Saddam's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Last October, three days before the United States began bombing terrorist targets in Afghanistan, Blair released to his Parliament a similar dossier on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

A new survey shows that public support for attacking Iraq has dropped over the past month to its lowest levels since the war on terrorism began on Oct. 7.

Iraq Says Return of Weapons Inspectors Must be Linked to Broader Issues

Iraq said Tuesday it was ready to discuss a return of U.N. weapons inspectors, but only in a broader context of ending sanctions and restoring Iraqi sovereignty over all its territory.

The comments - repeating a stance that U.N. chief Kofi Annan has rejected in the past - came at a World Summit in Johannesburg that has seen several world leaders sharply criticize U.S. threats to attack Iraq.

Resuming inspections "in turn will lead to a comprehensive solution, including the lifting of sanctions," Annan's office said
But Aziz repeated a previous Iraqi position that an agreement to bring back the inspectors must also deal with other issues, including lifting sanctions, restoring Iraqi sovereignty in the north and south of the country, and ending U.S. threats.

At the U.N. headquarters in New York, Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said the return of inspectors "is what the secretary-general expects will happen, and that's a necessary first step for any progress to be made on the lifting of sanctions."

In an interview with CNN, Annan said: "At this stage I cannot say they've taken a decision to allow inspectors.
Aziz was also meeting Tuesday with Nelson Mandela.

A day earlier, South Africa's revered former president issued a stinging criticism of Washington, saying he was "appalled" by U.S. threats of military action that he said would cause chaos.

Aziz and other top Iraqi officials have been traveling to Arab and other countries trying to rally support for Baghdad against the U.S. threats. Sabri arrived in Cairo for a gathering of Arab foreign minister that is due to begin Wednesday and is expected to deal with the Iraq crisis as well as Israeli-Palestinian violence.

All Arab countries oppose a U.S. strike on Iraq, but some Arab governments want to urge Iraq to allow the return of weapons inspectors.

Gulf States Oppose US Strike

A meeting of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Saudi Arabia has ended with a call on Iraq to accept the return of international weapons inspectors.

At the same time, a statement by the foreign ministers of the six member states repeated their opposition to any military action against Baghdad.

One of the member states is Kuwait, whose invasion by Iraq in 1990 sparked off the Gulf War, which in turn led to the United Nations resolutions aimed at dismantling Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The weapons inspectors have not been allowed to return to Iraq since they left the country in 1998.

PHOTO CAPTION

( L) Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., listens to a reporter's question in the Capitol, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002, in Washington. Lott took questions on a wide range of topics including Iraq and Homeland Security legislation. (AP Photo/Ken Lambert)
- Sep 03 4:54 PM ET

(R) Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz speaks to journalists September 3, 2002. Iraq is ready to cooperate with the United Nations to find a comprehensive solution to the country's crisis with the United States, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Juda Ngwenya