Before President George Bush goes before the United Nations to make the case for action against Iraq, his administration is facing a tough audience closer to home: Congress.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff met for three hours on Tuesday with General Tommy Franks, the commander who would lead any military campaign in Iraq.
Meanwhile, a push by senior Bush administration officials, including Capitol Hill meetings on Tuesday with CIA director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, hasn’t convinced key lawmakers that a war is needed.
”I set the mark very high,” said House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Texas Republican. ”I will need to see a plan before I will cast a vote. I will need to see it is necessary, and there is a plan that I personally think is fair to the courage we ask of these young people.”
An important part of any overall plan to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, many lawmakers say, must be that the United States not act alone in its fight against Iraq.
On Thursday, Bush will tell the UN General Assembly that the United Nations cannot stand by while Saddam defies it by barring weapons inspectors and develops chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Under the agreement that ended the 1991 Gulf War and several UN Security Council resolutions, Iraq is forbidden to develop weapons of mass destruction and under orders to allow any already in its arsenal to be destroyed.
”I believe this is an international problem, and that we must work together to deal with the problem,” Bush said during an appearance on Tuesday at the Afghan Embassy.
Bush linked his goal of toppling Saddam to the war on terror he began after the September 11 attacks a year ago.
”I’m deeply concerned about a leader who has ignored the United Nations for all these years, refused to conform to resolution after resolution after resolution, who has weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said. ”And the battlefield has now shifted to America; so there’s a different dynamic than we’ve ever faced before.”
Bush does not plan to offer new information about an Iraqi threat or recommend any specific actions in his Thursday speech, a senior White House official said on condition of anonymity.
Lawmakers said Tenet and Rice gave no new information in the private Capitol Hill meetings.
Outside experts and US officials say Iraq probably has stocks of chemical and biological weapons and could make a nuclear bomb if it could obtain enough nuclear material. Iraq denies having weapons of mass destruction.
”This is not something where you can wait until you have clear evidence,” Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in an interview with AP, Radio.
”In fact, one of the fundamental points that September 11 should have brought home to us is that you may not have a clear case after the fact, because the nature of terrorism is that it operates in the shadows, and it could be a way for a country that wants to do us harm to do it in a semi-anonymous way.”
But many lawmakers say they have yet to be convinced that Iraq poses enough of a threat to justify a pre-emptive strike. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, gave Tenet a letter asking for a report outlining the consensus of US intelligence agencies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
”If we are about to make a decision that could risk American lives, we need full and accurate information on which to base that decision,” Durbin wrote.
CIA representative Mark Mansfield said the agency is studying the senator’s request. A number of both public and classified CIA reports have discussed Iraq’s programs, but a specific estimate solely about Iraq’s weapons efforts has not been issued.
Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent Bush a letter that said, ”Based on what we have heard to date, there is not yet a consensus on many critical questions.”
Those questions include whether Iraq would be likely to use weapons of mass destruction, what links it has to terrorist groups and whether Iraq could be disarmed without the use of force, said the letter by Chairman Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican.
The senators urged Bush to seek broad international support and to be candid with the American people that Iraq requires a long-term commitment by the United States.
Bush met on Tuesday with the prime minister of Nato member Portugal, who cautioned him against acting alone.
”It is very important that the United States of America and President Bush listen to the opinion of the close allies, and Portugal is a very close ally of the United States,” Prime Minister Jose Durao Barroso said.
The Bush administration will continue pushing Congress on Iraq, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appearing next Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee. The panel met in secret on Tuesday with CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency officials.
In open session, two former UN arms inspectors told the panel that as long as Saddam remains in power, Iraq’s nuclear and biological programs seriously threaten the United States.
David Kay, a former chief weapons inspector, said he had no doubt that Iraq, with enough time and money, would develop a nuclear weapon.
”They will eventually surprise us in ways that will be terribly painful,” he said. – Sapa-AP