Bush Says He’s Discouraged by ‘Stiff-Arm’

Although holding out hope that war can be avoided, President Bush said Wednesday that he was discouraged by the “total stiff-arm” Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz gave Secretary of State James A. Baker III in their daylong talks in Geneva.

Appearing alternately agitated and downbeat at the end of a day in which hope seemed increasingly elusive, Bush offered no specific reasons for optimism in public or, visitors said, in private.

“Unfortunately, the conclusion is clear,” Bush said. “Saddam Hussein continues to reject a diplomatic solution.

“The choice of peace or war is really Saddam Hussein’s to make,” the President added, refusing to match Aziz’s pledge at a news conference in Geneva that his country would not be the first to strike.

“I’d have to level with the American people. Nothing I saw today--nothing--leads me to believe that this man is going to be reasonable,” Bush said at a White House news conference.

“I am discouraged. . . . This was a total stiff-arm. This is a total rebuff,” Bush said. But he also declared: “I have not given up on a peaceful outcome. It’s not too late.”

Asked whether he had decided to go to war if Hussein fails to pull his troops out of Kuwait by the Tuesday U.N. deadline, Bush said: “I have not made my decision on what and when to do.”

As the direct U.S.-Iraqi diplomatic approach withered, other diplomatic efforts were launched, including a trip to Baghdad by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. But the President said there is “no back channel” approach being made to Hussein.

“I can’t tell you that there’s any hidden agenda out there, secret negotiations. There is not,” he said.

Bush spent much of Wednesday immersed in the crisis. He spoke twice by telephone, he said, with French President Francois Mitterrand, and with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada.

In Paris, Mitterrand said that France is willing to fight if diplomacy fails, but he also stressed at a news conference the differences between the United States and France on the question of whether an international conference on the Middle East could be linked to an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. Bush has been adamant in opposing any suggestion that the two issues are linked.

The question that has riveted the world’s attention on the Persian Gulf, Bush said, has nothing to do with Israeli occupation of the West Bank or the treatment of Palestinians.

“It has to do with the aggression against Kuwait,” he said.

Bush interrupted a meeting with a delegation of Republican and Democratic House members who support a resolution authorizing the use of force to speak by telephone with Baker just after the secretary of state completed his meeting with Aziz.

A matter-of-fact mood in the Cabinet Room suddenly shifted to “very somber,” according to Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), as the President reported the apparent failure of the Baker mission.

“Iraq has demonstrated no flexibility whatsoever,” the President said at a photo session at the end of the meeting.

The Administration’s public focus now shifts to the effort to win from Congress a strong endorsement of a use-of-force resolution. Debate is scheduled to begin today.

Bush and others argued that the measure represents one more chance to convince Hussein that the U.S.-led coalition of troops arrayed against Iraq will be unleashed if he does not comply with the U.N. resolutions ordering him out of Kuwait.

“I don’t think it’s too late to send a consolidated signal to Saddam Hussein,” Bush said.

But he added that no matter what Congress does, “I still have the constitutional authority, many attorneys having so advised me,” to launch an attack against Iraq.

Although the meeting in Geneva had become the public focus of the effort to avert war, an “I-told-you-so” mood prevailed at the White House, where aides suggested that the discouraging results changed nothing.

“I don’t think anyone in their right mind thought this meeting would produce anything,” said one Bush aide.

The President, at times poking a finger toward reporters and occasionally showing a clenched fist, said at the news conference that Hussein has yet to understand the strength of the forces arrayed against him and the political will behind them.

“I really believe that he is living under a delusion,” Bush said. “I think he doesn’t think that force will be used against him. I also think he’s under a delusion about what would happen if a conflagration breaks out.”

Under what are believed to be U.S. war plans, air strikes would be launched against Iraqi air defenses. If successful, they would be followed by air attacks on other key targets within Kuwait and Iraq, and a punishing aerial barrage would be unleashed to soften up ground defenses for an overland attack.

According to the most recent Pentagon figures, 360,000 U.S. troops are in and around Saudi Arabia and 430,000 will be in place by next month. Allied troops number 245,000.

Iraq has deployed 540,000 troops in Kuwait and southern Iraq, the Pentagon says.

Asked whether Hussein would be killed in a war, Bush said: “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

If war erupts, Bush was asked, will Iraqi society be decimated? Will Hussein’s military be liquidated? Will he lose power?

“I can’t be more specific, but I can be that he’ll lose,” Bush replied. “He will get out of Kuwait, and he will get out of Kuwait entirely.”

What if Iraq makes good on its threat to attack Israel if the allied forces attack Kuwait and Baghdad?

Bush reiterated that he is prepared to do what is necessary to push Hussein out of Kuwait.

“I would think that he’d think long and hard before he started yet another war,” the President said.