Antiwar Resolution Falls Short in L.A. City Council

Following a passionate, two-hour debate attended by some 200 antiwar activists, the Los Angeles City Council deadlocked Tuesday over a resolution opposing war against Iraq.

The stalemate occurred after some council members argued in favor of expressing their opposition to the conflict, but others countered that the panel should concentrate on local problems and leave foreign affairs to others.

“We ought to focus on sidewalks, not Saddam,” Councilman Jack Weiss told his colleagues, provoking jeers from the overflow crowd. “This is a place to talk about police reform, not the Persian Gulf. This is a place to talk about an improved Los Angeles, not Iraq.”

Councilman Eric Garcetti, who authored the antiwar resolution, argued that war in Iraq is a local issue because it would cost the United States government billions of dollars to wage the effort. Some of that money, Garcetti said, otherwise could go to help solve local problems such as crime and low-performing schools.

In the end, the council voted 7-6 in favor of the resolution opposing war in Iraq without United Nations support, one vote shy of the number needed to win passage. Backers of the motion said they will push for another vote Friday, when they hope to pick up the support of Councilman Nick Pacheco, who was absent Tuesday.

“We are quite upset this resolution did not pass today because we don’t think it [inaction] represents the will of the people,” said Susan Philips of the group Neighbors for Peace and Justice.

Pacheco, who is up for reelection March 4, did not return calls for comment on claims by Garcetti and others that he had voiced support for the antiwar motion.

The council cast its vote after two hours of often rancorous debate and testimony, with many of the antiwar activists in the audience loudly booing council members who argued that the war issue is not an issue for a local city council.

“The council should run the city and take care of what we are elected to do and not try to be the State Department or the president,” Councilman Hal Bernson told the large audience of activists, many holding signs that said, “No War in Iraq” and “No Blood for Oil.”

When Bernson suggested that dissent like that shown at City Hall Tuesday would not be tolerated in Iraq, the partisan crowd erupted in loud jeers and boos.

“If our country had to depend on people like you, God help us,” Bernson responded before sitting down.

Twice during the meeting, police officers removed activists for shouting.

The crowd was a mix of ethnic and economic groups, including organized labor leaders, Hollywood actors, World War II veterans, middle-aged professionals and young activists in anti-Bush T-shirts.

In arguing for Los Angeles to join Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and 88 other cities in opposing the war, Garcetti said he is not convinced that war would reduce terrorism.

“People around the world are asking simply to hold off on unilateral war right now with Iraq because people feel that the case has not been made and people feel it affects their lives here where they live,” he said.

Garcetti pointed out that the City Council over the years has taken stands on international issues, including opposition to apartheid in South Africa and support of environmental controls in the Kyoto Protocol. He also noted that the council has taken positions on internal struggles in Croatia, Israel, Slovenia, Tibet and Burma.

“This City Council has a long history of taking a moral stance, sometimes at cost to our residents, in favor of policies that protect human rights and world order,” Councilwoman Ruth Galanter said in arguing for the antiwar resolution.

She and Garcetti were joined by council members Janice Hahn, Nate Holden, Tom LaBonge, Cindy Miscikowski and Ed Reyes.

However, the resolution was opposed by council President Alex Padilla and council members Bernson, Weiss, Jan Perry, Wendy Greuel and Dennis Zine. Perry said she opposes the war but cannot vote for the resolution when young people are shooting each other to death on Los Angeles streets and there are veterans who are homeless.

“I want to see this same passion when I want to save the lives of veterans who make their homes on the sidewalks,” Perry told her colleagues.

Zine said he could not vote for the resolution because he lacks the intimate knowledge of the Iraq situation that he believes the president and his intelligence advisors have.

Galanter said the council can oppose the war and work on improving the city.

“We are not just elected pothole-fillers,” she said in frustration.

Actors Ed Asner and David Clennon told the council it has a responsibility to stand up to what they see as an immoral military action.

“I believe this war, if George Bush starts it, will be a war against humanity,” said Clennon, who stars in the television show “The Agency.” “And I believe that the execution of [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld’s war plan will inevitably implicate our troops in war crimes.”

Asner, a veteran of liberal causes in Los Angeles, called comparisons of Hussein with Adolf Hitler “drivel.”

“I somehow can’t picture Saddam Hussein marching into Poland, nor can I picture him marching into Kuwait at this time, not with such hordes surrounding him,” Asner said.

That drew a sharp reaction from Bernson, who said he lived through World War II.

“I remember Adolf Hitler,” Bernson said. “I remember 7 million Jews being exterminated in the camps, just as Saddam has exterminated tens of thousands of his own people. There is a parallel. Nobody wants war, but unless madmen like Saddam are brought to task and are brought down, then the world will be in a very serious position.”