Wary Congress Moves Toward a Vote on Iraq

Grim talk of war and peace filled the Capitol on Wednesday as Congress moved closer to granting President Bush broad authority to launch--if diplomacy fails--the second U.S.-led war against Iraq in a dozen years.

The House debate is expected to end today with a final vote on the resolution, which would have far-reaching consequences for American foreign policy. The Senate also may take its final vote today.

Hawks, who have held the upper hand from the start, argued that Congress must give Bush the strongest possible show of support to help the administration confront the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his suspected weapons of mass destruction.

Doves, outnumbered but speaking out in force, complained that the resolution Bush wants would give him unchecked power to initiate preemptive war--one that they warned would lack international support, violate American tradition and cost unknown numbers of lives.

Many lawmakers in between wrestled with a vote they called one of the most important of their careers.

“It’s been a terrible, terrible time,” said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), who intends to support the president’s resolution but prefers an alternative that would link the use of military force to action by the United Nations.

“In the morning you wake up and say, ‘Where am I going today? How am I going to vote?’ And midafternoon, you’re somewhere else. This is probably going to be the hardest vote that any of us will ever make.”

The televised debates, observed firsthand by some tourists in the galleries and a smattering of lawmakers seated in the House and Senate chambers, yielded some dramatic moments amid the long hours of scripted speeches.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, prowled the Senate floor, beseeching his colleagues to be wary of endorsing a new doctrine on the use of force.

If Congress chooses to authorize military action, Biden said, “please do not rest it on this cockamamie notion of preemption. You will rue the day if that is a precedent we establish.”

Biden, who has raised questions about the administration’s approach, did not indicate how he would vote. However, he is considered likely to back the White House resolution.

Indeed, developments on both sides of the Capitol showed unstoppable, growing momentum behind the resolution Bush proposed last week with bipartisan congressional support.

The measure would authorize the president to use U.S. military force against Iraq if he concludes that diplomatic efforts to disarm Hussein have failed. It would urge cooperation with the United Nations and require subsequent reports to Congress but would nonetheless give the president wide latitude to act.

With Republicans forming a solid wall behind the president, key Democrats continued to fall in line, including Harry Reid of Nevada, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate; Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, his party’s ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee; and Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, a potential 2004 presidential contender.

“By standing with the president, Congress will demonstrate that our nation is united in its determination to take away Saddam Hussein’s deadly arsenal, by peaceful means if we can, by force if we must,” Kerry said.

Sen. Charles Hagel of Nebraska, until now a leading Republican skeptic of the drive toward military confrontation, also embraced the Bush resolution.

So did Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the only current Senate Republican who opposed the measure authorizing the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

The White House kept up pressure in an effort to win the largest possible majorities for its resolution. Administration officials have stressed that it would help their effort in building an international coalition to confront Hussein and force Iraq’s disarmament.

At the United Nations in New York, diplomats continued their search for agreement on wording for a new Security Council resolution on Iraq. The United States and Britain were moving toward accepting a single compromise measure that would call for “consequences” if Baghdad defies weapons inspections, but it would not directly authorize the use of military force, according to U.S. officials and U.N. diplomats.

However, differences remained, with France and Russia focused mainly on getting inspectors back into Iraq, while the United States and Britain pressed for stringent conditions to ensure compliance by Hussein’s regime.

Bush spoke by telephone with French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is scheduled to fly to Russia to meet today with President Vladimir V. Putin.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, addressing a U.S. intelligence report that surfaced Tuesday and raised questions about whether Hussein would launch a catastrophic first strike against the United States, said the information indicates that the Iraqi arsenal should be cause for concern.

“If Saddam Hussein holds a gun to your head even while he denies that he actually owns a gun, how safe should you feel?” Fleischer said.

For Bush, the major question remains how many Democrats will back him. In January 1991, most congressional Democrats opposed the resolution that his father’s administration sought to authorize the Gulf War.

But the current debate has revealed that last year’s terrorist attacks changed the world view for many Democrats.

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who opposed the 1991 war, supports authorizing military action against Hussein’s regime because, he says, the United States cannot risk the possibility that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would flow from Iraq to suicidal terrorists.

Half or more of the Democrats in Congress are expected to agree with him in the final votes. These Democrats, spanning the party’s ideological spectrum, have echoed concerns raised in Congress immediately after last year’s attacks. Like Bush, they have tied action on Iraq to the continuing threat of terrorism and the overarching priority of securing the American homeland.

Still, many Democrats are preparing to vote against the resolution.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), the most senior member of the House and a supporter of the 1991 war, said approval of the measure would be “an act of great folly.”

In a stinging speech on the House floor, Dingell contrasted the administration’s policy with the reluctance of President Kennedy to launch a war during the Cuban missile crisis.

Moving against Iraq without the backing of a global coalition, Dingell said, “poses enormous risks to the troops that we would be sending, and it poses enormous risks to this country and its foreign policy. Not only is it novel and dangerous to talk about preemptive strikes, but it is something which need not be done.”

Some Democrats, anguishing over the debate, seemed likely to follow a two-pronged strategy.

First, they planned to vote for an alternative proposed by Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) that would authorize the use of force against Iraq only in concert with the U.N. Then, with the expected defeat of Spratt’s proposal, they would vote with Bush.

That was the path chosen by senior Democrats such as Skelton and Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles. Waxman said most of his constituent phone calls and mail have been running against the president’s proposal.

“People would prefer what I want, which is a proposal that would work through the U.N., and only if that doesn’t succeed would we come back and delegate further authority to the president,” Waxman said in an interview. “But at the end of the day, what I want isn’t going to prevail. And I think it’s important to have the strongest bipartisan signal of unity to get the U.N. to act.”

Most Republicans showed few qualms about their votes.

Rep. Ron Lewis (R-Ky.) noted that allied warplanes patrolling Iraq are still dodging antiaircraft fire, years after the 1991 cease-fire. “Iraq is still fighting, and we need to respond,” Lewis said. “The Persian Gulf War is ongoing.”

Another Bush supporter, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), declared: “Saddam Hussein is uniquely evil--the only ruler in power today and the first one since Hitler to commit chemical genocide.”

The Senate, which has been debating the Iraq issue for a week, rejected, 88 to 10, an amendment by Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) concerning the use of force against terrorist groups. The amendment was opposed by the White House as a distraction.

Today, the Senate is expected to vote to shut down debate and move toward passage of the resolution.

Final action could come as early as tonight, though Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and other opponents might try to stall the vote

The decisions by Hagel and Kerry, both Vietnam War veterans, to support the resolution helps the White House toward its goal of passage by a lopsided margin.

But Hagel raised many questions, even as he endorsed the resolution.

“In authorizing the use of force against Iraq, we are at the beginning of a road that has no clear end,” he said. Kerry too had pointed words, warning the administration that it must build an international coalition.

“If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region and breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots,” Kerry said.

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Where the Resolutions Stand

Several resolutions on Iraq are pending before the United Nations and Congress:

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Before Congress

House version: One, backed by President Bush, authorizes the president to use armed forces to ‘defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq’ and strictly enforce U.N. resolutions. Another authorizes military force only in conjunction with passage of a new U.N. Security Council resolution. A third would urge the U.S. to work for Iraqi disarmament through peaceful means using U.N. diplomacy.

Status: The full House is expected to pass the Bush-backed measure today.

Senate version: One is the Bush-backed resolution also being consider by the House. The other authorizes force only in conjunction with the U.N., similar to another House version.

Status: The Senate may vote today as well. The Bush-backed resolution is expected to pass.

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In the U.N.

U.S. proposal: The United States has drafted a tough resolution that demands that Iraq allow inspectors anywhere on its territory and authorizes military force if Iraq refuses. The draft is backed by Britain.

Status: The U.S. may agree to return to the Security Council for authorization of military force if Iraq blocks inspectors. But it may reserve the right for a coalition to go ahead and strike if the approval process bogs down or fails at the U.N.

France’s alternative: France wants two resolutions, one laying out new instructions for the inspections and a second, if needed, dealing with consequences of any Iraqi noncompliance. Russia will back the French approach if the initial resolution clearly lists the criteria Iraq must fulfill to have sanctions against it suspended.

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Compiled by ROBERT PATRICK / Los Angeles Times

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Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Tyler Marshall contributed to this report.