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CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS seem to agree on at least one aspect of the current debate over U.S. policy in Iraq: President Bush will eventually have bipartisan backing from Congress for the use of force against Saddam Hussein. "The strong presumption is that the president will get strong bipartisan support on a resolution," says Dan Gerstein, communications director for Senator Joseph Lieberman.
How and when he gets a vote on such a resolution, however, are questions that split Democrats. Several senators--Georgia's Zell Miller, John Edwards of North Carolina, and Lieberman prominent among them--have indicated that they will vote in favor of such a resolution regardless of when it's presented. Others rushed to praise the president's U.N. speech last Thursday, and then promptly set about throwing up additional obstacles to an expedited vote. In that second group are senators Joe Biden, John Kerry, Carl Levin, and, most important, Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
The remaining opposition is largely conditional. Biden called Bush's address to the U.N. General Assembly "brilliant," but said that he doesn't want a vote before the elections, lest the debate become too politicized. Daschle trotted out a list of questions he needs answered before he could support a resolution, although he allowed that a vote before Congress recesses a month from now is "likely." Levin wants to give the president a sort of calibrated authorization--little bits here and there--a proposal one GOP senator calls "nuts." But the strangest idea came from Kerry, who in essence, recommended a congressional resolution calling for a U.N. resolution before Congress votes on a final resolution.
The president was dismissive of such an approach in comments he made Friday. "Democrats waiting for the U.N. to act? I can't imagine an elected . . . member of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives saying 'I think I'm going to wait for the United Nations to make a decision," Bush said with a muffled laugh. "It seems like to me that if you're representing the United States you ought to be making a decision on what's best for the United States."
Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican who has become a leading voice for conservatives in the upper chamber, also criticized those who would delay a vote on a congressional resolution. "Liberals are now saying this is a multi-stage process. First, the U.N. speech; second, the U.N. debate; third, a U.N. resolution; and only then can we take this up," he says. "They want to slice and dice it. This has to happen now. We can walk and chew gum at the same time."
Kyl says he called National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to suggest that the president send a letter to Congress formally requesting a vote. Administration officials say that such a letter is not yet in the works, but they are leaving that option open. Regardless of how it happens, though, the president will demand a congressional vote before Congress leaves town in early October. "The president answered that question himself with one word: yes," says White House congressional liaison Nick Calio. "So, yes, we are going to be insistent."
While administration officials won't characterize the threat from Saddam as "imminent," they contend that the matter is urgent enough to warrant immediate action in Congress. "If Iraq did something tomorrow and Americans got hurt, what do you think the people on the Hill would be saying to us?" comments a senior White House official.
Although Bush has not yet formally requested a vote, he has made his feelings clear to leaders of both chambers: He wants an accelerated vote. The administration is forming bipartisan working groups in both the House and the Senate that are expected to meet two to three times weekly until the president has gotten congressional approval.
Zell Miller, a frequent Bush supporter, is one of a handful of Democrats whom the White House is counting on to make the case in his party. "Without question, I am with the president," says Miller. "I am already convinced. He has made the case with me."
Administration officials concede that they have "more work to do" with Democrats, but they are confident that much of the remaining opposition will disappear over the coming weeks, as the president details the threat. The U.N. speech, says a national security official with knowledge of administration planning, "wasn't our first shot, it wasn't our last shot, and it certainly wasn't our best shot" at making the case against Saddam Hussein. "Put it this way--the U.N. speech was the first act of a three-act play. If [Democrats] are bailing on their opposition to the president now, wait until people see Act II, when there will be new revelations about just how serious a threat we face."
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard. |
