Daschle Accuses Bush of Playing Politics on Iraq

WASHINGTON —  In a blow to White House efforts to unite Congress behind a potential war with Iraq, the Senate’s top Democrat on Wednesday accused President Bush of politicizing the debate and demanded he apologize for questioning the commitment of Democrats to the nation’s defense.

“That is outrageous,” Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said in an angry speech on the Senate floor. He lambasted Bush for saying recently that Democratic-controlled Senate was “not interested in the security of the American people.”

The bitter outburst--which touched off a vitriolic exchange between party leaders--is likely to slow efforts to win congressional approval of a resolution giving Bush broad authority to use force against Iraq.

That, in turn, could complicate Bush’s effort to build support in the international community for a tough new stance toward Iraq.

Congressional leaders had earlier said they hoped to reach agreement with the White House on the wording of the Iraq resolution by the end of this week and bring the measure to a vote next week.

Now, there are doubts about whether such quick agreement is possible.

“We have a ways to go,” said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). “I don’t know if we’ll pull that off or not.”

Daschle’s speech brought to the surface the deep anxieties many Democrats have expressed privately that Bush has been pushing for a preelection debate on Iraq to bolster GOP candidates and to eclipse a Democratic agenda that focuses on domestic issues.

But White House officials and other Republicans said Daschle had taken Bush’s comments out of context, and urged Democrats to cool their rhetoric.

“Now is a time for everybody concerned to take a deep breath and stop finger-pointing,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Still, the tensions over the Iraq issue contributed to an already poisonous political atmosphere that has made it difficult for Congress to resolve differences on an array of issues, including legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security.

Members of both parties who support Bush’s Iraq policy said they hoped Wednesday’s collapse of bipartisanship will be only temporary.

“Hopefully, we will see this as a blowing of the whistle, which leads to a lowering of voices on all sides,” said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who supports the option of preemptive action against Iraq.

Democratic concerns about Bush’s motives in the Iraq debate have become more acute in recent days as Republicans began airing campaign ads in such conservative states as South Dakota and Arkansas suggesting that Democratic Senate candidates were weak on defense.

In several states, GOP ads have also spotlighted contributions Democratic candidates have received from the Council for a Livable World, a group that advocates arms control and a smaller Pentagon budget.

Bush, meanwhile, is in the midst of an aggressive schedule of political appearances and has been speaking with increasing forcefulness about Iraq while campaigning for GOP candidates.

Targeting Democrats

In a clear reference to Daschle and other Senate Democrats, Bush said in Trenton, N.J., on Monday, “The Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.”

Until Wednesday, Daschle had studiously avoided accusing Bush of using the prospect of war for political purposes. But he dropped that reserve Wednesday after reading a story in the Washington Post that noted Bush’s New Jersey remark. The story also said that at a fund-raiser in Kansas on Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney had suggested that a vote for a Republican House candidate would help the war effort.

Those reports were particularly galling to Daschle because he--like Gephardt--has taken considerable heat from rank-and-file Democrats who believe their leaders have done too little to slow Bush’s rush to confront Iraq.

A source close to Daschle said that on Wednesday, the majority leader felt that “his efforts to work with the president are not being reciprocated in a meaningful way.”

Indeed, the usually mild-mannered Daschle rose angrily on the Senate floor to defend his party’s record on national security. He invoked the many Democratic lawmakers who are military veterans, such as Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, who lost an arm in World War II combat.

“The president ought to apologize to Sen. Inouye and every veteran who has fought in every war who is a Democrat in the Senate,” said Daschle. “Our founding fathers would be embarrassed by what they are seeing going on right now.”

Inouye also spoke, saying to Bush: “It is American to question the president.... I stand before you a proud member of the Democratically controlled Senate.”

Daschle’s remarks infuriated Republicans, who joined the White House in saying he quoted Bush out of context. They noted that he made his comment about Democrats as he was discussing legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security, not a possible war with Iraq.

The homeland security bill has bogged down in the Senate over Bush’s insistence on a provision--opposed by Democrats and their labor union allies--to give him more flexibility in managing employees of the new department.

In that context, Fleischer defended Bush’s comment.

“There is no doubt about it: If (the homeland security bill) does not pass into law because special-interest provisions will have prevailed, the Senate will not have acted in the best interest of the American people,” he said.

Congressional Republicans joined in the defense, saying Cheney’s remarks in Kansas had been misinterpreted by Democrats because of a headline in the Topeka newspaper.

Bush, in a speech Wednesday night, broached the impasse over the proposed Department of Homeland Security and again raised the national security issue that so angered Daschle.

Speaking to a fund-raising dinner in Washington for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Bush complained that “some senators, not all senators, but some senators” are thwarting his plan over the labor rights dispute.

He added: “The Senate must hear this, because the American people understand it: They should not respond to special interests in Washington, D.C. They ought to respond to this interest--protecting the American people from future attack.”

Earlier in the day, Bush offered a low-key response when asked whether he was “politicizing the war.”

“My job is to protect the American people,” he told reporters. “And I will continue to do that, regardless of the season.”

Bush also equated Hussein and the Al Qaeda terrorist network, saying, “They’re both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.

“They work in concert. The danger is, is that Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world,” Bush said.

Aiming at Critics

His remarks seemed directed at answering criticism, included in a speech Monday by Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, that the focus on Iraq has undermined the fight against terrorism.

Republicans in the Senate were more vitriolic in their response to Daschle’s speech.

“I thought he was way over the top,” said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). “It’s almost as if they think President George W. Bush is the problem, instead of Saddam Hussein.”

Daschle’s remarks on the Iraq issue were welcomed by fellow Democrats, who flocked to the Senate floor during his speech and offered support in speeches of their own.

His comments were especially gratifying to those who thought their party leaders had been too willing to embrace Bush’s policy.

“I was very alone in urging caution,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “There’s been a rush on both sides to go [into Iraq] and wage war.”

Some said they hoped that Daschle’s comments would open more political space for Democrats to raise more questions about the wisdom of military action.

“Hopefully, this will lead to a period when we talk about the merits of Iraq policy,” said Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), a leading critic of Bush’s policy. “As time has gone on, significant questioning about the wisdom of military involvement is occurring.”

But an aide to another anti-war Democrat in the Senate predicted that the political controversy would not change the outcome of the debate on the war resolution, but only reduce the margin by which it passes.

“Instead of there being 85 votes for the resolution, there may be just 70,” said the aide.

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Times staff writers Richard Simon and Nick Anderson contributed to this report.