WASHINGTON: The administration of President George W. Bush took another stride towards war late this week when both houses of Congress authorized Bush to use military force against Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council or another vote by Congress.
But veteran political analysts, as well as anti-war activists, are warning that Bush would make a big mistake if he interprets the two votes as anything like a blank cheque for unilateral action to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
That was the explicit message of many of the lawmakers who voted for the resolution, including some from Bush’s own Republican Party.
“Because the stakes are so high, America must be careful with her rhetoric and mindful of how others perceive her intentions,” said Senator Chuck Hagel, an influential Nebraska Republican.
“Actions in Iraq must come in the context of an American- led, multilateral approach to disarmament, not as the first case for a new American doctrine involving the pre-emptive use of force.”
While polls continue to show a significant majority of the public favouring military action to remove Saddam, they also underline a great wariness about doing it alone. Moreover, a clear majority opposes going to war if Saddam accedes to demands for “full and complete weapons inspections” or if the UN Security Council fails to gives its approval, according to two polls published in the last week.
“While I would expect the votes this week to have a slight upward effect on popular support for going to war,” said pollster Stephen Kull, director of the University of Maryland’s programme on international policy attitudes (PIPA), “the trends are in the direction of a softening in support for war”.
The votes on Thursday and on Friday capped several days of debate in both chambers. The House of Representatives voted 296-133 and the Senate 77-23 to approve a resolution that, while stressing the need to exhaust diplomatic options to resolve the crisis at the Security Council, permits Bush to undertake military action if he concludes that diplomatic avenues are fruitless.
Democrats were badly split in both houses, and even those who voted with the president warned that Bush should not consider the resolution a license to proceed as he wishes.
“Completely bypassing the UN would set a dangerous precedent that would undoubtedly be used by other countries in the future to our and the world’s detriment,” noted House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, whose negotiations with Bush last week succeeded in watering down a much more sweeping draft than the one originally submitted by Bush himself.
To his disappointment, Gephardt, a likely candidate for president in 2004, found himself in a distinct minority among Democrats in the House when the votes were tallied. A total of 126 Democrats voted against the resolution, while only 81 voted for it, a showing that cheered Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett, who helped organize the opposition.
“We held the supporters of this resolution under their goal of 300 votes,” he told reporters. “I hope that sends a message to the president that he really needs to rethink what he’s doing.”
On the Senate side, Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who also supported the resolution, did somewhat better in keeping his troops in line. A small majority of Democrats, including Gephardt’s likeliest rivals for the 2004 presidential nomination, voted for the resolution, but, in doing so, only a small handful indicated full confidence in Bush.
Meanwhile, anti-war forces, while denouncing the vote, said they believed that momentum is actually on their side. In the last two weeks, they have orchestrated the sending of hundreds of thousands of faxes, emails and letters that have deluged Congressional offices.
Even Republican lawmakers have reported that anti-war messages sent to their offices have outnumbered those supporting Bush by as much as 10 to one.
“We are seeing a remarkable mobilization against a war that has not yet even begun,” noted Robert Borosage, the founder- director of the Campaign for America’s Future, at a standing-room-only press conference on Thursday that featured more than a dozen prominent figures opposed to war.
Most activists say that creation of what could be the largest coalition of groups opposed to US military action since the Vietnam War is proceeding at a surprising rate. Hundreds of local anti-war demonstrations have been reported around the country over the last two weeks.
On Tuesday, 53 mainly humanitarian and religious groups issued a statement urging Congress to oppose the resolution. Among the signers were such prominent grassroots groups as Greenpeace, Oxfam America, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (which represents some 140,000 mainline Protestant congregations), and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
“We believe that a unilateral pre-emptive strike against Iraq at this time would undermine rather than strengthen US national security,” the statement said.
“We are concerned that such action could actually heighten the risk of terrorist attacks against US citizens while undermining international cooperation to reduce terrorism.”
Two other major grassroots groups that have generally abstained from deep involvement in anti-war movements have also come out strongly in recent days. John Sweeney, head of the country’s largest labour confederation, the AFL-CIO, issued a statement earlier this week opposing unilateral action against Iraq.
A new poll released on Friday by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that the anti-war forces around the country are both much more vocal and more engaged in getting their views across than are supporters of Bush’s policy.
The poll, based on interviews of more than 1,500 respondents conducted last week, found that Iraq’s alleged relevance to the ‘war on terrorism’ was the key factor in sustaining majority support (62pc) for military action against the country. And it found that the administration’s controversial efforts to tie Saddam to Al Qaeda were paying off.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.