Longtime Democratic Allies Split Over Gulf : Politics: Californians Waxman and Berman have great respect for each other but just can’t agree on giving Bush war-making authority.

Illustrating the deep division among Democrats on President Bush’s request for war-making authority in the Persian Gulf crisis, longtime California allies Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) have split over what they both term the most important vote of their congressional careers.

“I just can’t vote for war now,” said Waxman, a nine-term veteran. “I’m just not convinced that war is our only option. . . . I don’t think we should say diplomacy is at a dead end.”

Berman, a House member since 1982, said he would support the President, adding: “If we do not deal with Saddam Hussein now, the world and the United States will be facing a more heavily armed, a more powerful, more dangerous Saddam Hussein five or 10 years from now. . . . This is a man who is hell-bent on establishing hegemony over the entire Middle East region.”

The opposing decisions by two of the most liberal members of the House underscore how lawmakers, facing a solemn and historic decision today, are looking more to conscience than ideology in making up their minds.

Both men said the famed Waxman-Berman political machine and their friendship will not be affected by differences over the war resolution that is expected to win congressional approval with a combination of a near-solid Republican vote and a substantial minority of Democrats.

They have been working together in California politics since the late 1960s, effectively helping each other and like-minded Democrats. But they could not reconcile their views on the gulf crisis.

Similarly, other Los Angeles area Democrats who usually vote together--Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson and Rep. Mel Levine--have lined up on opposite sides on the issue of delegating war powers to the President.

“War is not necessary,” said Beilenson, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “We have (already) protected all of our vital interests.”

Levine, who came to politics through his opposition to the Vietnam War and who is considering a race for the Senate next year, said the gulf crisis is more comparable to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s than to the unpopular war in Southeast Asia.

“We simply as a nation can’t afford to be appeasing a dictator in the 1990s,” he added.

While nearly all of California’s 19 House Republicans are expected to support Bush’s position, a substantial majority of the 26-member Democratic delegation is expected to support their leadership’s plan to delay the use of force while economic sanctions and diplomatic moves are given more time to persuade Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait.

Leaders in both parties predicted that the Democratic proposal will fail and that the House will give the President a green light to go to war by a margin of 40 to 50 votes.

The Senate outcome is expected to be much closer, but Bush appeared likely to win a narrow majority there.

Waxman, one of the most influential members of Congress on environmental and health issues, said the gulf war vote may be the most important vote he ever casts.

“I’m anguished by it,” he said. “War (with Iraq) may be inevitable if we have no other way to bring about Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait or to contain or eliminate Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry.”

But he said the President would have more united backing if he came to Congress later to seek war-making power when other efforts have failed to dislodge Iraq from Kuwait.

As a strong supporter of Israel, Waxman added, he worries that even a successful war against Saddam Hussein might radicalize the Arab world and produce more instability in the region that would be harmful to Israel’s interests.

“It could be that after sacrificing 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 people, nothing would be accomplished,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen if you get bogged down in a war.”

Berman, however, said the casualties might be even greater if action against Iraq is delayed.

“I can’t get out of my mind the notion that this man (Hussein) is a very dangerous, potentially very powerful tyrant, and even though there is inadequate burden-sharing and even though it sickens me that some of our allies are not participating the way they should, . . . we have to deal with him now,” Berman said. “If we don’t, we’ll pay a much greater price in the future.”

Waxman and Berman, who said their decisions were the most difficult they ever made in Congress, said the issue is so complex that reasonable people could disagree.