Congress Shifts From Euphoria to Anxiety and Frustration With War : Lawmakers: Hopes for quick victory are replaced by fears of bloody ground war. Support for Bush still high.

After the first week of war in the Persian Gulf, the mood of Congress has shifted markedly from giddy euphoria to a combination of anxiety, frustration and even depression at the sobering realization that the combat may last for months rather than weeks.

Interviews with House and Senate members indicate that early hopes for a quick victory have been replaced by mounting concern that the aerial bombardment of Iraq and Kuwait must be supplemented by ground attacks that will sharply increase allied casualties.

Even so, there is virtually no sign of erosion of congressional support for President Bush and the American-led coalition of forces attacking Iraq with the aim of driving Saddam Hussein’s troops out of occupied Kuwait.

“I think it will be a war of months--I don’t know how many--but I don’t think it will be a matter of years,” said a somber House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), who has attended special briefings for members of the House Intelligence Committee.

“The (Pentagon) briefers are not getting standing ovations like they did the first day,” Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) said. “A very depressed mood, with most people talking about several months (of war), maybe as long as a year.”

Despite the growing apprehension about the prospect of prolonged warfare, some key members of Congress urged the Bush Administration not to rush into ground combat, which would risk higher casualties, in an effort to shorten the hostilities.

“There’s a danger that our military commanders will come under pressure to move sooner than they want to eject the Iraqis from Kuwait,” said Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), influential chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

“I am convinced that we know how to win the war, but we need to make sure that our commanders are allowed to do it in a way that minimizes casualties, no matter how long it takes,” Aspin said.

Other lawmakers also counseled patience and said most members of Congress appear willing to trust Pentagon commanders not to start a land offensive until the fighting ability of Iraqi troops is reduced by heavy bombing and strafing raids.

“People were expecting a lot more than they ought to expect,” said Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.). “This is war. It isn’t like you are going against Grenada or Panama. . . . This is going to be a bloody situation.”

“Everybody was euphoric after the first day,” Rep. Jim Slattery (D-Kan.) observed. “It was like scoring a quick touchdown in the Super Bowl. But there are three quarters left to play. . . . The President ought to tell the American public that it’s not going to end in a matter of days. It could be months. It’s important that we all be patient.”

As the first week of the war came to an end, members of Congress could speak of little else in the corridors and lunch rooms of Capitol Hill. The House quickly adopted two war-related resolutions, one condemning Iraq for unprovoked attacks on Israel and another assailing Iraq’s treatment of allied prisoners of war. It then voted to expand tax breaks for members of the armed forces serving with Operation Desert Storm. Votes on all three were unanimous.

“There’s a solid base of support for what the President is doing, and that the Defense Department has a war plan and is systematically carrying it out,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), the third-ranking GOP leader in the House. “If the plan is succeeding at the level they say it is--OK.”

As the lawmakers spoke to reporters, however, a news ticker in the Speaker’s lobby reported more Scud missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia, underscoring the inability of allied bombers to find and destroy the mobile launchers firing the weapons.

Several House members complained that the Pentagon had provided overly optimistic and even misleading information about the Scud threat in congressional briefings.

“We were led to believe they were eliminated on the first day,” Miller said. “So the repeated Scud attacks provide the most visible indicator of a mismatch between information from the Pentagon and reality.”

Another lawmaker, who requested anonymity, said Pentagon briefing officers at first reported that mobile Scud launchers were destroyed after a single missile-firing and estimated that Iraq only had 35 of them.

Later, they raised the estimate to 70 and acknowledged that the launchers could be used over and over again, the source said, and finally, they said they were not sure how many mobile launchers Iraq had.

Miller said the Pentagon officers kept changing the measurements of success. First, they stressed the number of allied sorties and said that 70% of them were combat missions, but they later announced that only 50% were combat flights, Miller said.

“The members are getting more frustrated with that,” he concluded.

Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) echoed that viewpoint. “There is an increasing restlessness on the part of members,” he said. “The early euphoria that there would be a quick victory has changed into an unease that this may take longer than we first thought.”

“My general feeling is that they’re preparing us for a long war,” said Rep. Dave Nagle (D-Iowa). “There are two concerns: Air war is not a timetable for quick success, and the air war won’t be enough and a ground campaign may bring heavy loss of life.”

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) was one of the few House members interviewed who felt that Iraq’s ability to wage a ground war may be overestimated and that allied casualties in such fighting may not be as severe as generally believed.

But Beilenson also offered some of the gloomiest comments provided by any lawmaker interviewed.

“I’m depressed,” he said. “We worry that the war may not be over as soon as we had hoped. . . . The mood’s very pessimistic in the last day or so.”

Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento), often a bellwether of House sentiment, took an opposite view. “Most people are willing to be patient,” he said. “They don’t want to see bloodletting on the ground. . . . They might become impatient at the ineffectiveness of the air war. But I sense people (in Congress) are not at the point of frustration.”