President George Bush can count on broad support from the US Congress as he mulls plans for attacking Iraq regardless of what the United Nations decides, key lawmakers said on Sunday, while defiant Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein picked up backing from Shiite religious leaders.
Senator John McCain told NBC television he expects the United States to go to war against Iraq as he and other Republicans said they expect overwhelming support for military action in the Congress.
”I believe that we will, for a broad variety of reasons which we can get into, including the fact that basically he is a clear and present danger to the United States of America,” McCain said.
”There are going to be a lot of Democrats that support” a resolution authorising an attack on Iraq, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama told CBS.
But Carl Levin, the Democratic chair of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, disagreed, saying in its current form the resolution would not pass.
”Oh, it’s much too broad. There’s no limit at all on presidential powers. There needs to be some changes,” the Michigan senator told Fox News. ”It’s a go-it-alone resolution, ultimately.”
Meanwhile, Bush was weighing military options against Iraq that focused on Saddam Hussein and his inner circle rather than a general assault.
US military planners have already begun choosing targets for US warplanes and missiles, the size and shape of the troop deployments on the ground and a likely timeline for a US invasion, the Washington Post reported.
The US invasion force would likely amount to more than 100 000 troops — much smaller than the 500 000 deployed in the Gulf war in 1991, the Post said, relying on special operations forces and a simultaneous ground and air assault.
”Our interest is to get there very quickly, decapitate the regime, and open the place up, demonstrating that we’re there to liberate, not to occupy,” a military planner was quoted as saying. Based on dozens of interviews with people inside and outside the administration, the newspaper said the war would likely target Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, which is seen as the political heart of the country.
More than 55 000 US troops already are deployed throughout the Gulf and in Afghanistan, with most of them oriented toward Iraq.
Pentagon officials have said two aircraft carriers, more than 250 military aircraft, and two armored brigades and equipment for a third are positioned in the region.
In Warsaw, arriving for a Nato meeting, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the reports on US war plans ”are saying the obvious.
”Obviously no one would want to harm the people of that country,” he said. ”In a very real sense the people of that country are hostages to a small group of dictatorial, repressive government officials.”
Bush asked Congress on Thursday for sweeping authority to act against Iraq, even as Washington pushes the United Nations for a tough new resolution on arms inspections, rejecting Baghdad’s acceptance of the inspectors’ return. The world body is expected to receive a US proposal by midweek.
Bush’s apparent determination to proceed regardless of how the United Nations responds has sparked fresh defiance from Baghdad, a chorus of anger from Arab leaders and alarm within the British government.
In Iraq, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said the United Nations should not serve as a platform for a US military attack.
”The United Nations should assume its role as an international organisation responsible for peace and security in the world by settling international conflicts through peaceful means,” and ”should not serve as a platform or a tool for aggression,” Ramadan said in a speech at the opening of the annual cultural festival in Babylon, south of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Shiite leaders in the southern Muslim holy city of Najaf issued two religious decrees calling on Muslims to defend Iraq in the face of a potential US military attack.
”The duty of Muslims in these difficult circumstances is to unify their position and deploy all means to defend Iraq and protect it from enemy designs,” Imam Ali Hussein al-Sistani said in one decree, known as a fatwa.
”All Muslims should know that if the aims of the aggressor are realised in Iraq… it would be a catastrophe that would threaten the entire Muslim world.”
A second fatwa issued by prominent Imam Mohammad Said Al-Hakim warned against ”any kind of cooperation with the United States” and attacked ”all those who would broker a truce with the Americans.
”The United States and their agents are seeking to impose their control on the Islamic nation, to loot its wealth and violate its holy sites,” he said.
In London, Washington’s main ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, came under pressure from his own cabinet to tread a more cautious line as he prepared to publish a 50-page document to coincide with a special parliamentary debate on Tuesday on Iraq that government sources say will confirm Saddam has nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
”We cannot have another Gulf war,” International Development Secretary Clare Short told ITV television.
”We cannot have the people of Iraq suffering again. They have suffered too much. That would be wrong … We have to find a way of enforcing, quite rightly, UN resolutions.”
Continued US talk of war also prompted criticism from Arab countries such as oil-rich Kuwait, whose invasion by Iraq in 1990 led to the Gulf War.
Kuwaiti Defence Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak al-Sabah told his country’s Al-Watan newspaper the United States could not use his emirate as a springboard to attack Iraq without UN authority.
Turkey, a Muslim US ally with key military bases that would be useful in an attack, also reiterated its opposition to any war without a UN mandate.
”Unilateral action without such a legitimacy and compromise will not be a proper move and will not constitute a solid ground for the future,” Foreign Minister Sukru Gurel said.
”Legitimacy should be respected and action should be taken jointly with the members of the international community.” – Sapa-AFP