Bush to Discuss Mideast With Congress : War powers: The President says he wouldn’t hesitate to order an attack on Iraq without lawmakers’ approval.

President Bush said Monday that he will meet with leaders of Congress today to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis, but he added that he would have “no hesitancy” about ordering an attack on Iraq without congressional approval.

“I know the authorities that the President has,” Bush said during an airport press conference before leaving San Francisco for a swing into Oklahoma on behalf of Republican congressional candidates in next week’s election. “History is replete with examples where the President has had to take action” without congressional approval.

Bush added that “I’ve done this in the past (and) would have no hesitancy at all” about doing so again.

Bush insisted that a peaceful solution to the gulf crisis remains possible, but he offered a gloomy assessment of the most recent round of attempts at diplomacy.

“I haven’t seen anything to convince me that there’s anything positive,” Bush told reporters. He was referring to weekend meetings between Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein and Soviet envoy Yevgeny Primakov and the talks on the gulf crisis between Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and French President Francois Mitterrand.

Gorbachev, he added, “is holding just as firm as he can” in support of the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq. “That’s good,” he added. “That sends a strong signal that the Free World is united against this dictator.”

Bush’s reference to the Soviets as part of the “Free World” appears to have been the first time he has used the venerable Cold War phrase to embrace the Soviets. The choice of wording underlines how much the Administration sees the Soviet Union as an ally in the fight against Iraq.

Bush also said that he had no objections to a French plan to send medicine to Iraq in the wake of Hussein’s release of French hostages. The medical supplies will be inspected to ensure that they fit within the United Nations’ definition of humanitarian aide, he said.

Bush said he would “look forward” to the meeting with congressional leaders, but it could be a difficult session, given Bush’s remarks about presidential authority to send troops into battle.

The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war but makes the President the commander in chief of the armed forces. Since World War II, successive Presidents have claimed that the commander-in-chief status gives them power to send troops into combat without congressional approval. Both the Vietnam and Korean wars, along with numerous smaller conflicts over the last four decades, were conducted without a congressional declaration of war.

After the end of the war in Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers Act, a law designed to restrict the President’s power to put troops in harm’s way without congressional authorization. The law was passed over the veto of then-President Gerald R. Ford. He and his successors--Democratic and Republican alike--have questioned the constitutionality of the statute.

Since passing the law, however, Congress has shied away from putting it to the test. And in the current conflict, Bush and congressional leaders both have sidestepped the law, in large part because members of Congress hesitated to challenge a popular President pursuing what has been a popular foreign policy.

Now, however, Bush’s personal popularity has slumped, support of his gulf policy appears to have begun to erode and the first stirrings of restlessness on Capitol Hill have begun to surface. About 80 members of Congress, led by California Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley), wrote to Bush over the weekend opposing any move to open hostilities without congressional approval.

Although most of those who signed the letter are liberal Democrats, the stirrings have reached into Bush’s own party as well. For example, Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.), the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently said that Bush should seek congressional approval before launching any attack against Iraq.