Bush to Involve Congress Before Moving on Iraq

President Bush said Wednesday that he would seek congressional approval before taking action against Iraq, as he began a major drive to win support at home and abroad for removing Saddam Hussein from power.

Bush also said that he will press his case against the Iraqi president when he addresses the United Nations next Thursday, telling his audience of diplomats that Hussein is “stiffing the world” by violating the agreements he had made not to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The Iraqi leader is “a serious threat to the world,” Bush said Wednesday after meeting for an hour with congressional leaders at the White House. He added: “Doing nothing about that serious threat is not an option for the United States.”

The president also said he would meet this weekend with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David in Maryland, and then reach out to the leaders of Canada, China, Russia and France, engaging in personal diplomacy to persuade world leaders to join his campaign.

The flurry of activity reflects a newly energized effort by the White House to broaden support--in Congress and around the world--for changing the regime in Baghdad.

The administration expects to lay out evidence of an Iraqi weapons program to Congress soon, although officials said privately Wednesday that the presentation would not include dramatic new revelations.

During the last month, the administration, with the exception of Vice President Dick Cheney, has largely taken a back seat while critics overseas and at home expressed sharp reservations about launching a war against Iraq, particularly if Bush does not first line up a coalition of international support. Several U.S. lawmakers--including some of Bush’s fellow Republicans--also have complained that the administration has kept Congress in the dark.

Now, the go-it-alone approach appears to have been abandoned. Bush’s remarks Wednesday to reporters, his commitment to members of Congress to seek their approval, and the upcoming diplomatic efforts suggested that the complaints had registered with the White House.

But there were no immediate dividends, either in Congress or among foreign officials. Also left unclear at the end of the day was just what course Bush would take, and whether he would have wide support.

“I am in the process of deciding how to proceed,” Bush said in a letter he dispatched to every member of Congress. He pledged to seek congressional support “for U.S. action to do whatever is necessary to deal with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s regime.”

Left unclear, however, was whether the administration might proceed with action against Hussein if it failed to win congressional approval.

There were also widespread complaints on Capitol Hill that a briefing Wednesday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had produced no intelligence information supporting the administration’s argument against Hussein.

The administration has said that the Iraqis’ arsenal includes chemical weapons and that they are rushing to develop nuclear and biological armaments.

“There was nothing new, nothing compelling, nothing to lead me to believe there is any kind of an imminent threat from Iraq,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said after the defense secretary spoke.

Rumsfeld indicated during a Pentagon briefing Tuesday that the administration has information to support its claim that Iraq is close to developing nuclear weapons. But Feinstein said: “I can find nothing that Iraq has a present-day nuclear capability.”

Rumsfeld said Wednesday that CIA Director George J. Tenet would soon present the Senate with intelligence information about the Iraqi weapons program.

Some lawmakers defended the administration’s position.

“We have plenty of reason to believe [Hussein] has now chemical and biological weapons,” said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). “We have a great deal of information indicating that he is working on the ability to have nuclear weapons.”

In preparing their plan to confront such threats, Bush administration officials are considering proposals for requiring Iraq to submit to what they are calling “extremely aggressive” weapons inspections or face military action. Such a program would provide inspection teams with thousands of U.S. troops or soldiers from a multinational force as backup in or near Iraq.

A failure by Iraq to cooperate completely with the inspection teams could help Bush’s effort to win international support for a confrontation with Hussein, and result in a military attack.

Weapons inspectors, mandated in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, were pulled out of Iraq in 1998 ahead of U.S. airstrikes, and the Hussein regime has since blocked their return.

On Wednesday, the administration’s effort to draw support from overseas reached to the U.N. development summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met there with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and several other leaders.

“We are trying to make sure the world understands this threat is as real as we believe it to be,” Powell said.

He said he received “a solid expression of support” from heads of state and other leaders. But after meeting with Powell, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said it was “vitally important” that the United States work through the United Nations and not try to oust Hussein by itself.

Although Bush has said he has made no decision about what course to follow, the message he will take to the Congress and the United Nations grew increasingly evident with his remarks Wednesday.

Using the blunt, colloquial language he favors when discussing U.S. enemies, Bush said he will remind the U.N. that “for 11 long years, Saddam Hussein has sidestepped, crawfished, wheedled out of any agreement he had made not to harbor, not to develop weapons of mass destruction, agreements he’s made to treat the people within his country with respect.”

“I’m going to call upon the world to recognize that he is stiffing the world,” Bush said.

Those attending Bush’s meeting with congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room said the president’s preference is that a vote on supporting action against Iraq occur before Congress breaks in October.

This would be just weeks before the November elections--putting political pressure on members of Congress to support the president in the face of a foe he has presented as a threat to global security. The entire House and one-third of the Senate are up for election.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) expressed concern that the timing of the debate would unnecessarily politicize the issue.

“There are skeptics out there who wonder to what extent the political implications of any of this may affect the elections,” he said.

However, Bush’s decision to seek a congressional vote was an important first step toward building political support on Capitol Hill. Such a vote was considered important in early 1991 when the administration of Bush’s father was preparing to go to war with Iraq over Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

The younger Bush appears to face a tougher sell. Lawmakers returning to Washington from a monthlong recess this week have been posing a host of questions about the timing, rationale and strategy of action against Hussein--especially a military strike.

After the meeting with Bush, Daschle said, “There has to be a better case made. The president began making that case today. He acknowledged that this is just the beginning of a dialogue. But we certainly have to better understand the threat.”

Daschle and others in the meeting with Bush said they did not believe the president considered a military attack to be a foregone conclusion.

“It would not be my assumption that the military course is the only action available to him today,” Daschle said.

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) added: “We’ve got to now have an argument made to the Congress and the American people, and it’s got to be one that convinces a majority of Americans that this is something that we need to do. What happens in Iraq after something happens? How are we going to build a democracy? Who’s going to help with that? What is the strategy for dealing with all of that?”

Even members of Bush’s party--from conservative Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho to moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine--have said the president has yet to make a convincing case for military action.

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Times staff writers Paul Richter and Greg Miller in Washington and Kenneth R. Weiss in Johannesburg contributed to this report.