Congress Plans Full Debate on Gulf Crisis

Confronted at the start of a new session Thursday with the growing threat of war in the Middle East, congressional leaders canceled their January recess and announced that Congress will conduct a full-scale debate on the crisis after Secretary of State James A. Baker III returns from his upcoming tour of the region.

Meanwhile, congressional leaders involved in closed-door briefings with President Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said they came away with the impression that the Administration itself holds out little hope that Baker’s diplomatic efforts can avert war.

Emerging glumly from the White House, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said: “It’s not a question of whether (war will start), it’s a question of when.”

House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said in an interview that in discussing the Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait or face military force, “the President was clearly in the ‘sooner’ rather than ‘later’ school. . . . He gave us copies of the Amnesty International report on torture and human rights violations in Kuwait. He puts a lot of stock in that.”

According to Gephardt, the President “feels that the coalition is best held together by moving sooner on going to war and said a majority of world leaders he has talked with would rather go sooner than later.”

The President also urged that Congress endorse the U.N. Security Council resolution that sanctions force if Iraq does not withdraw by Jan. 15, Gephardt said.

But Congress remains seriously divided not only on whether to sanction Bush’s Middle East policies, but even on when to discuss them.

In fact, sharp differences between Democrats over the timing of the debate plunged the new Congress into acrimony within moments of its opening session. Liberal lawmakers accused Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) of preventing them from moving immediately to pass legislation that would deter Bush from attacking Iraq without prior congressional consent.

The flare-up stalled a bipartisan leadership plan to defer a debate on the Persian Gulf crisis until Baker has exhausted what the Bush Administration described as last-chance diplomatic efforts to settle the crisis short of war.

Following an acrid exchange with Sen. Brock Adams (D-Wash.), a visibly angry Mitchell recessed the opening session and convened a closed Democratic caucus to try to resolve the impasse. Lawmakers said that a compromise is in the works that would see the resolution introduced, then promptly sent into legislative limbo by referring it to committee. But that compromise, they said would not become final until Friday at the earliest.

Warning that the Senate might not give Bush approval in advance for a military strike against Iraq if forced to vote on the issue now, Mitchell expressed the fear that a divisive debate would undercut efforts to get Iraqi forces to leave Kuwait peacefully before the U.N. deadline.

However, Adams and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) pressed a non-binding measure insisting that the President seek the approval of Congress before ordering any military assault against Iraq.

War is being “talked about in coffee shops, in the workplace and in homes” throughout the nation, Harkin said in urging the Senate to waste no more time in taking up the issue. “Now is the time and here is the place to debate the constitutional prerogatives of the President of the United States.”

But maintaining that a full-blown debate now could adversely affect the outcome of crucial talks that Baker hopes to have with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz in Geneva next week, Mitchell stood firm in insisting that further congressional discussions on the gulf crisis be postponed until Baker’s last-ditch diplomacy has played itself out “so that we not put ourselves in the position of possibly, inadvertently, undermining those meetings.”

While the Adams-Harkin resolution only expresses the now clearly overwhelming consensus among lawmakers that Bush must seek congressional consent before launching an attack against Iraq, Mitchell, Foley and other congressional leaders voiced fears that, once started, the debate will be impossible to contain. Other resolutions sponsored by Democrats in both the Senate and the House call for giving economic sanctions as much as 18 months to work before resorting to force.

While many lawmakers hope to fortify peacemaking efforts by increasing Bush’s ability to threaten the use of force, others want to try to limit the President’s authority to wage war on his own. And many more--possibly a majority--seem mired in an ambivalence that reflects both the growing demands of their constituents to take a stand on the crisis and their political qualms about taking a stand that ultimately may turn out to be highly unpopular with voters.

This political caution in turn was clearly reflected in the decision made by congressional leaders who, emerging from their blunt session with Bush, announced that they were canceling Congress’ three-week recess but refused to say when the debate would take place.

“No one really knows what the leadership wants to do and, in fact, there is a sneaking suspicion that the leadership itself does not know what it wants to do,” a senior aide to a key Democratic congressman said. “Everybody is going around asking, ‘What do you want to do?’ or replying, ‘I don’t know, what do you want to do?’ ”

However, Mitchell and Foley again rejected Bush’s request that Congress conduct a relatively brief debate and adopt a resolution approving the use of military force.

Gephardt reported that the leaders also told Bush that they and the American public believe that “the burden-sharing of the United States is way out of kilter.” He also said that Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) was among those who urged Bush to give international economic sanctions against Iraq more time to work.

“Byrd was very moving, and said he prayed every day for the President and for all of us and for the country. . . ,” Gephardt said. He added that Dole was also among those urging caution on the President.

But while the President “understands and accepts there’s a difference (of opinion) . . ,” the Missouri congressman said, “there was no changing his mind. . . . He was told we respect his motives and agree with his goals but disagree on the best way to get to the goal.”

Gephardt added, however, that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should find no comfort in the division over timing.

“What Saddam Hussein has to know today is that if he doesn’t ultimately get out, force is going to be used.”

Times staff writers Paul Houston and James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.