GOP Talks About Resuming Proceedings in Day or Two

As U.S. warplanes were bombarding Iraq, House Republican leaders Wednesday postponed the debate scheduled for today on impeaching President Clinton, and several leading Republicans baldly accused Clinton of mounting the military action to derail the impeachment proceeding.

House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston of Louisiana said the House would return to impeachment as soon as Friday or Saturday, after voting today on a resolution in support of U.S. troops in the Middle East. But he offered no direct support for the president.

“We support our troops,” Livingston said. “As to the matter of timing, we would leave that to the best judgment of the American people.”

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) was far blunter. In an extraordinary escalation of the conflict between Clinton and congressional Republicans, Lott took the all but unprecedented step of refusing to back a military action initiated by the president and challenging his motives.

“While I have been assured by administration officials that there is no connection with the impeachment process in the House of Representatives, I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time,” Lott said. “Both the timing and the policy are subject to question.”

Clinton Aides Defend Attack

Administration officials offered a spirited denial of the charge that the politics of impeachment dictated the timing of the military strike.

“It is an action taken by the president solely on a basis of his best judgment of what is in the national security interests of the United States, both with respect to the action and the swiftness with which he acted,” said Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, Clinton’s national security advisor.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen added: “I am prepared to place 30 years of public service on the line to say the only factor that was important in this decision is what is in the American people’s best interest. There were no other factors.”

While Lott was challenging the motives behind the military strikes, other Republicans rallied behind the president’s decision to launch them. The issue opened deep divisions within the House GOP leadership just as it is getting its bearings following the resignation under fire of Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia last month.

Some saw the issue as the first big test for Livingston, who, along with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, had supported postponing the impeachment vote. But many pro-impeachment hard-liners, including some other top GOP leaders, bitterly opposed the delay.

“Never underestimate a desperate president,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald B. H. Solomon of New York. “What option is left for getting impeachment off the front page and maybe even postponed? And how else to explain the sudden appearance of a backbone that has been invisible up to now?”

In a closed-door briefing by Cohen for members of Congress, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, a leading Clinton foe, wanted to know whether there is any national security reason why the House cannot proceed with impeachment.

In what members described as one of the more dramatic moments of the briefing, Cohen made an appeal from the well of the House that bipartisanship traditionally prevails during times of foreign crisis.

The fierce debate over the president’s motives showed how deeply the impeachment crisis has dogged his ability to lead.

“It’s exhibit A on how much credibility the president has lost that we’re even asking, is this ‘Wag the Dog?’ ” said Rep. Marge Roukema of New Jersey, referring to last year’s movie about a presidential attempt to divert attention from a sex scandal.

Democratic lawmakers rallied behind Clinton’s action. “We believe the president acted correctly and responsibly,” House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said in a joint statement.

The two national crises intertwined just as members of Congress were making their way back to the capital for the impeachment debate. The juxtaposition left some lawmakers with a touch of political vertigo.

“It is surreal,” said Rep. Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-N.Y.), a six-term congressional veteran. “Many people have served their entire career in Congress and have never voted on two things: impeachment and going to war. I will have had the experience of doing both.”

In all the din of a Capitol stunned by developments at home and abroad, nothing stood out like the harsh refusal of Lott and several other Republicans to back their president in an international crisis.

Challenge to President Called Unprecedented

The criticism from Lott, Solomon and other Republicans represented both a dramatic escalation in the impeachment struggle and what several historians called a virtually unprecedented challenge to a president’s motives during a foreign policy crisis.

In late August, several Republican senators, including John Ashcroft of Missouri and Dan Coats of Indiana, questioned Clinton’s motives when he launched an anti-terrorist military strike in Sudan and Afghanistan in the wake of confessing to an improper relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky. But GOP leaders, including Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, quickly silenced those insinuations by unreservedly endorsing the attack.

While many Republicans again supported Clinton’s move Wednesday, the critics this time were both more strident and higher-ranking. In addition to Lott and Solomon, they included House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas and Lawrence S. Eagleburger, a secretary of State under President Bush.

“After months of lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons,” Armey said. “Whatever happens, it will take years to repair the damage President Clinton has done to his office and his country.”

In strikingly pointed comments on CNN, Eagleburger said the timing of the attack “stinks to high heaven” and argued that all of Clinton’s future foreign policy decisions could fall under the same cloud.

“As long as this mess goes on, there are going to be challenges to every single thing the president decides to do,” Eagleburger said.

Even Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), while arguing that the country should “back the president 100%,” added: “I don’t blame anybody for being a little bit cynical about it.”

Foreign policy decisions have produced intense disagreements throughout American history. But Warren I. Cohen, a University of Maryland historian, said he could think of no precedent for such prominent leaders from the opposition party accusing a president of undertaking military action specifically to divert attention from his domestic problems.

“There have been individuals from time to time in every war” who have made such accusations, Cohen said, “but never a situation where the leadership of the majority party has done that to my knowledge.”

Biden Assails Attacks on Clinton

Democrats expressed fierce anger over the remarks of Lott and particularly Solomon.

“I find it outrageous,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). “What have we come to? What in the hell is going on here? These guys seem like they are possessed by their desire to undo this guy.”

House Republicans hashed out deep intraparty differences over how to proceed with impeachment in a spirited closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday evening that focused more on foreign policy than the president’s offenses.

Some of the most ardent proponents of impeachment demanded that the debate not be delayed.

“Why is this being done on the literal eve of an impeachment vote?” asked Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, an arch-foe of Clinton’s. “The president may run the risk of having an even more cynical view of his behavior.”

“We shouldn’t let Saddam Hussein hold the nation hostage in any way, shape or form,” Rep. Bill McCollum of Florida, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said after the caucus. “I think it’s irrelevant whether there’s bombing going on. . . . This nation is capable of conducting the nation’s business regardless, and Saddam Hussein and the world’s terrorists need to know that.”

However, the military action muddled some of the clear-cut divisions in the Capitol over Clinton’s ouster. Some impeachment advocates backed Clinton’s decision to strike. Others questioned his credibility in launching the attack now.

Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.), who voted for the articles of impeachment in the Judiciary Committee, urged his colleagues to proceed as planned.

“I don’t think we should suspend our schedule,” he said. “The timing [of the bombing] is questionable, but I’m reluctant to indicate there’s any hidden motive.”

But Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), who also voted to remove Clinton during last week’s committee vote, focused his wrath on Hussein for trying to capitalize on the domestic crisis in Washington.

“We do have a matter going on with impeachment, but as long as we’re involved internationally, he’s our president,” Inglis said.

The chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Ben Gilman (R-N.Y.), backed the president’s action even as he endorsed his ouster.

“I think when we have hostility, it would be appropriate to delay any impeachment proceeding,” Gilman said.

Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) reflected the mixed emotions of many members on whether to delay. “I think we are walking on eggshells. Our work must go on . . . and it must not be dictated by every external event. [But] I think we should be sensitive to our national concerns.”

Some Republicans worried that if they did not delay the impeachment debate, the public might view them as acting against the national interest.

In the Senate, while Lott attacked Clinton with unusual force, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) backed up the military action, although he attributed the decision to “our defense leaders,” not the president.

“I am convinced that Saddam Hussein has left the United States with no choice but to strike Iraq, and I believe most Americans will support the decision by our defense leaders,” Helms said.

Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Richard Serrano, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Alissa J. Rubin contributed to this story.

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