Rumsfeld Makes Case for War

Seeking congressional support for a war President Bush says he has not yet decided to wage, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told lawmakers Wednesday that Iraq poses the greatest threat to global stability.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld told lawmakers that the United Nations already has ample evidence to take forceful action against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Rumsfeld’s testimony provided the Bush administration’s strongest statement since Iraq offered Monday to allow in international weapons inspectors of why the U.S. wants much more from Hussein’s regime. It came as the White House was preparing a draft resolution supporting military action that was to go to lawmakers as early as today.

Congressional sources who have discussed the matter with the administration say they expect Bush to request broad authority to take military and other action if Hussein does not dismantle Iraq’s capacity to make and deploy weapons of mass destruction.

“It’s going to be a straight authorization for the use of force, and they will resist efforts to add conditions,” said a senior aide to the House Republican leadership. “We will make it as broad as possible and give the president as much latitude as possible. If the Democrats have a problem with that, they don’t have a lot of wiggle room.”

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said, however, that he expected the resolution to focus on the aim of eliminating Iraq’s weapons capability rather than on ousting Hussein--the latter a more controversial goal in the international community Bush is trying to court.

Lott said the U.S. was still intent on forcing Hussein from power.

In the face of waning international support for military action, Rumsfeld addressed criticisms and questions about why Washington now insists that Iraq looms as the world’s gravest danger. Point by point, he cataloged Hussein’s pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the Iraqi leader’s willingness to use them.

“No terrorist state poses a greater and more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq,” he told the committee.

In his testimony, Rumsfeld said the administration’s focus on Iraq will not detract from its declared worldwide campaign against terrorism. Fewer than 20% of major combat units are performing war duty now, he told the committee.

And he challenged the suggestion that war should follow only a “smoking gun” that links Hussein to terrorism or another use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

“The last thing we want is a smoking gun,” Rumsfeld said. “A gun smokes after it has been fired. The goal must be to stop Saddam Hussein before he fires a weapon of mass destruction against our people.”

Rumsfeld also dismissed Iraq’s offer to let U.N. weapons inspectors return without conditions, an overture that Russia, France and Arab nations have seized on as a means to slow Washington’s march toward war. Diplomats at the United Nations argue that the U.S. should hold its fire until Iraq interferes with the world body’s attempts to disarm the country.

If failure to comply with weapons inspections represents a casus belli needed to justify military action, “the U.N. already has it,” Rumsfeld said. “Iraq’s noncompliance with U.N. inspection regimes has been going on for more than a decade. What else can one ask for?”

Rumsfeld’s appearance was briefly interrupted when two female protesters began chanting “Inspections, not war.” They held up a banner with the same message before being escorted from the room by Capitol Hill police.

Bush reinforced Rumsfeld’s message after a meeting with congressional leaders in which he urged a quick vote to authorize a possible military strike.

“Saddam Hussein has stiffed the United Nations for 11 long years,” Bush said. “He deceives. He delays. He denies. And the United States, and I’m convinced, the world community, aren’t going to fall for that kind of rhetoric by him again.”

Despite Bush’s confidence that world leaders would rally behind Washington, diplomats at the U.N. expressed frustration with Washington’s bellicose line. The world body, they said, was founded to be an instrument to keep the peace, not to wage war.

The United States has to wait “until we have a full debate here to make our own judgment,” said Ambassador Jagdish Koonjul from Mauritius, a member of the Security Council, which will decide what action, if any, the U.N. will take against Iraq. “The return of inspectors is something the whole international community has been calling for, and now we’ve got that.

“If we hear, even in the very first two days, that they can’t do their work, then we will take action,” he added. “But we should not create a situation where it will be impossible for them to work at all.”

In the face of resistance from Russia, France and especially Syria on the Security Council, U.S. and British officials began work Wednesday on a new resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. The text is expected to list requirements for Iraq’s compliance on a range of other U.N. measures that include respecting human rights, renouncing terrorism and giving up black market trade--elements that critics say add additional tripwires for Iraq’s failure.

Of the 15 Security Council members, 12 have indicated that they would like the inspectors to have a chance to resume their search for hidden weapons programs in Iraq before the international community resorts to force. Colombia may side with the U.S. and Britain. A resolution needs nine votes--and no vetoes from any of the five permanent members--to pass.

The U.S. and Britain expect to introduce the measure next week, which means an interim of intensified lobbying and arm-twisting in U.N. corridors and foreign capitals.

“We have to have the noises about military action because that’s the only thing that has gotten us to this point,” said a British diplomat who requested anonymity. “The Iraqis only opened the door with a gun to their heads. The threat of military action will be needed at every stage of the process for Iraq to make the right decisions.”

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri asked for a last-minute meeting Wednesday evening with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the world body’s chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, to pledge his government’s full cooperation with the inspections. Blix, who will meet in about two weeks with Iraqi officials in Vienna to finalize arrangements for the inspections, said he hoped that monitoring would get off to a “flying start.”

Afterward, Sabri pressed Iraq’s own agenda in a brief statement to reporters. He said he hoped that allowing the inspectors to return “will lead to the eventual lifting of this brutal regime of sanctions, which has been killing hundreds of thousands of our people for the last 12 years.” He added a defiant appeal for the U.N. to avert attacks, asking that the Security Council respect “Iraq’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.”

In Iraq, Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz was even less conciliatory, telling reporters that the U.S. concern about weapons of mass destruction was merely a pretext for war and that Iraq hoped the world would not “bow to the American blackmail.”

But in Washington, the drums of war beat on, as the president said that he wanted Congress to display unity and vote on a congressional resolution authorizing military force against Iraq before the U.N. Security Council decided on a resolution of its own.

“It’s an important signal for the world to see that this country is united in our resolve to deal with threats that we face,” Bush said.

In their comments, Bush and the congressional leaders suggested that whatever differences they may have had in recent weeks about the content or timing of a resolution had been swept aside.

They agreed that a resolution offering support for the campaign against Iraq should be acted on quickly, and that it would aim for broad bipartisan backing.

“We’re going to work together, the four leaders and the president, on that resolution, try to find appropriate language,” House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said after the meeting.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) agreed, saying the two parties in Congress would work with the administration.

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Farley reported from the United Nations and Hendren from Washington. Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Janet Hook in Washington contributed to this report.