Bush Answers GOP Foes of a War on Iraq

President Bush responded Friday to the increasingly contentious debate among Republicans over what course he should follow regarding Iraq, acknowledging the growing opposition to a military campaign to remove President Saddam Hussein from power.

The dissent spread this week when Brent Scowcroft, the White House national security advisor during the administration of Bush’s father, warned that an attack on Hussein could jeopardize the war on terrorism by angering allies whose support is critical.

Several former officials close to Scowcroft said they doubted he would have gone public with that posture without clearing the move first with the senior Bush, heightening questions about the latter’s view on confronting Iraq. The former president has not commented publicly, which has only fed speculation.

“It’s fair to say it’s probably reflecting 41’s thinking,” said one aide who served in the White House of the senior Bush, the 41st president.

“Scowcroft and [the elder] Bush move along on the same page,” said another Republican close to the former national security advisor.

The 43rd--and current--president, told reporters Friday: “I am aware that some very intelligent people are expressing their opinions about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. I listen carefully to what they say.

“Listen,” he added, “it’s a healthy debate for people to express their opinion.... But America needs to know, I’ll be making up my mind based upon the latest intelligence and how best to protect our own country plus our friends and allies.”

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Scowcroft, who serves now as head of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, interjected himself into a debate in which Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others are understood to be urging Bush to move forward with military action against Iraq.

By speaking out, Scowcroft had multiple goals, said a former official with whom he consults. He strengthened the hand of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others, particularly in the State Department, who have urged caution. He “bucked up the president” to resist pressure for military action. And he moved to slow down any drive toward an invasion of Iraq.

Scowcroft’s words carry particular weight not only because he has a close relationship with the Bushes--he was at the family summer compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, in early July at the same time as the president--but also because he was deeply involved in the conduct of the Persian Gulf War against Iraq in 1991.

Bush has said frequently that he has no specific plan to attack and that no decisions have been made about Iraq. But he repeatedly says he favors “regime change” there.

Scowcroft, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, wrote under the headline “Don’t Attack Saddam” that Hussein “terrorizes and brutalizes his own people” and is devoting “enormous effort to rebuilding his military forces and equipping them with weapons of mass destruction.”

But, he said, “we need to think through this issue very carefully.”

Scowcroft continued:

“There is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them. He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address.”

Describing the Iraqi as a “familiar dictatorial aggressor” interested in his own survival in power, Scowcroft said “there is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression.”

At the same time, he said, attacking Iraq would risk destroying the administration’s global anti-terrorism campaign. A massive attack on Hussein, he added, might lead the Iraqi leader to decide that he had “nothing left to lose,” provoking him to use weapons of mass destruction. A likely first target would be Israel, which might respond with nuclear weapons, “unleashing an Armageddon in the Middle East.”

Bush, emphasizing twice that he would base any decision on how best “to keep the world at peace,” employing “the latest intelligence,” reiterated his case against Hussein.

“There should be no doubt in anybody’s mind this man is thumbing his nose at the world, that he has gassed his own people, that he is trouble in his neighborhood, that he desires weapons of mass destruction,” the president said.

Bush spoke with reporters outside the Crawford Community Center, where he had thanked local volunteers for the support they provide the White House during his visits to his 1,600-acre ranch seven miles outside town. He is spending much of August here.

The president was meeting at the ranch Friday with Condoleezza Rice, his national security advisor and a Scowcroft protegee. She served on the National Security Council staff under Scowcroft during the first Bush administration.

Rice, in an interview with the BBC that was broadcast Thursday, said the outside world has an obligation to oust Hussein or face inevitable global “havoc” perpetrated by his regime, thus making clear she and her mentor have parted company on this issue.

Rumsfeld was expected to confer here with Bush next week.