Bush, House Leaders Reach Iraq Deal

October 2, 2002

WASHINGTON  — President Bush and House leaders have formed a resolution to deal with Saddam Hussein "diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must."

As part of the deal, Bush bent to Democratic wishes and pledged to certify to Congress ó before any military strike, if feasible, or within 48 hours of a U.S. attack ó that diplomatic and other peaceful means alone are inadequate to protect Americans from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt announced the agreement as he emerged from an hour-long White House breakfast with Bush and headed back to Capitol Hill to brief Democrats on the wording of the resolution expected to be debated in the House International Relations Committee this week.

Senate concerns about possible war with Iraq were still unresolved.

The House resolution expected to be debated in the International Relations Committee beginning this week authorizes Bush to "use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security interests of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq and 2) to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.''

The resolution also requires Bush to report to Congress every 60 days on ``matters relevant'' to the confrontation with Iraq. And, it reaffirms the policy embedded in U.S. law that Saddam should be overthrown.

As Gephardt, D-Mo., explained the final deal: ``Iraq is a problem. It presents a problem after 9/11 that it did not before and we should deal with it diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must. And I think this resolution does that.''

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush ``believes it will make available the tools he needs to deal seriously with the threat that Saddam Hussein'' poses.

The White House made plans for Bush to discuss the resolution in a public event later Wednesday.

While the president and Gephardt conferred over breakfast with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., a dozen women crowded around the White House's northwest gate in protest.

``No war in Iraq,'' read a banner they hung on the executive mansion's wrought-iron gate while one woman mounted the fence and shouted from the top of its post before being talked down by Secret Service officers.

Accord in the Democratic-controlled Senate was still up in the air, although Daschle told reporters he expected that ``at the end of the day we're going to have a broad level of support on both sides of the aisle for a resolution that indicates our support for the United Nations effort and our support for the administration's effort in dealing with Iraq.''

Secretary of State Colin Powell, reacting to inspection plans agreed to by U.N. inspectors and Iraq on Tuesday, said there should be no resumption of inspections until the Security Council comes up with new ground rules for those inspections and spells out the consequences if Iraq does not abide by them.

``We will not be satisfied with Iraqi half-truths or Iraqi compromises or Iraqi efforts to get us back into the same swamp,'' Powell said.

``Everybody understands that the old inspection regime did not work,'' Powell said. ``They (the Iraqis) tied it up in knots.''

Agreement on an Iraq resolution could set the stage for a strong vote for the president's policies before Congress recesses for the election campaign.

The administration was also pressing the U.N. Security Council to accept a proposed U.S.-British resolution to disarm Iraq, a campaign complicated by an agreement announced Tuesday between Baghdad and U.N. arms inspectors.

Bush challenged the Security Council to ``show its backbone'' by passing a tough resolution. The other permanent members of the Security Council ó France, Russia and China ó have resisted U.S.-British demands that the resolution include provisions for a military response to Iraqi failure to disarm.

While there's near-unanimous agreement that Saddam presents a threat to U.S. security interests, concurring on an Iraqi resolution has been difficult. Lawmakers from both parties are leery of giving the president open-ended authority to wage war or to act unilaterally without the backing of the United Nations or an international coalition.

If no agreement is reached, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee were scheduled to take up separate proposals Wednesday. The version in the GOP-controlled House was likely to be closer to ideas presented by the White House. The Senate proposal was crafted by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a senior member of the committee.

The Biden-Lugar proposal emphasizes the need for international support but reserves the right of the United States to act unilaterally if the U.N. Security Council fails to approve a new resolution. It also focuses on weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for military action against Iraq.

John Feehery, spokesman for Hastert, said the aim was still to work with the Senate on a resolution that will command broad support in both chambers. But he held out the possibility the House would act independently.

``There is no track,'' Biden said when asked if they were working together. ``Nobody is on the same track.''

Bush suggested he couldn't accept Biden-Lugar as written. ``I don't want to get a resolution which ties my hands,'' Bush told reporters. But he said he would continue to work with Congress on the wording ``and I'm confident we'll get something done.''

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