Local Politicians Stand Behind Bush in Decision to Launch Air Attacks

Although one local assemblyman wished Iraq had fired the first shot, Orange County’s political leaders Wednesday were quick to support President Bush’s decision to launch surgical air strikes.

The note of hesitation came from Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

The assemblyman said he was solidly behind Bush’s decision to take on Saddam Hussein but lamented the fact that the United States couldn’t provoke Iraq into firing first.

“It would have been better if we had somehow provoked Hussein from coming across the line in Kuwait or launch a bomb,” Ferguson said. “To be the initiator in a war gives Hussein just that much more to call upon the rest of the Muslim world.”

And even state Assemblyman Tom Umberg of Garden Grove, a Democrat whose wife has been called into active duty in Colorado with a reserve hospital, said that his personal apprehensions could not stand in the way of his faith in the U.S. military.

“Obviously, my first thoughts are for my wife,” said Umberg, sounding a little breathless from the news. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of her. I don’t know what her status is, as to whether she’s going to go to Saudi or not. . . . (But) right now, I guess I’m heartened to see things have gone apparently well. I’ve got a lot of confidence in our folks.”

California’s newest U.S. senator, Republican John Seymour of Anaheim, said he got the word of the attack while at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on his way home to California.

His first thought: “My God, I had hoped it wouldn’t happen. I had held out in my heart the hope that something would happen to find a peaceful solution. It didn’t happen. . . . I really admire the will and the fortitude and the resolve of President Bush.”

Other members of Orange County’s congressional delegation backed the policy and said the launching of military operations to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait was inevitable.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), a former fighter pilot, called the President’s speech “the best of his life. You can’t do better than that. I loathe war from the very bottom of my bone marrow, but this had to be done. It’s just necessary.”

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) said he felt a sense of relief in a country that has been drained by apprehension about when or if the nation would go to war.

“There was no benefit to waiting,” Packard said. “As we look at the reports coming back, I think the strike was very well organized. There is always a possibility it could drag on, but we have never been better prepared.”

“There was certainly nothing inevitable about this attack--it was totally within the capacity of Saddam Hussein to avoid this,” Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) said in the minutes after war broke out. “There isn’t much question about what the political outcome is going to be. The uncertainty is the risk to American forces and the map of the Middle East when this has ended.”

And from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach): “Saddam is getting exactly what he asked for.”

Times staff writers Robert Stewart in Washington, Dave Lesher in Orange County and Ralph Frammolino in Sacramento contributed to this report.