Bush: Congress close to agreement on Iraq action
US President George W Bush said today that Congress, guided by leaders of both parties, was nearing agreement on a resolution authorising the use of force against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Soon the nation will “speak with one voice” in demanding that Saddam Hussein rid his nation of weapons of mass destruction, Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.
He said the Democratic and Republican leaders with whom he met this week were united in their determination to confront what he called a grave and growing danger posed by Iraq to the national security interests of the United States and its allies.
“We refuse to live in this future of fear,” the president said.
He spelled out the threat his administration says is posed to the world by Iraq’s possession of chemical and biological weapons and what he said was its determination to also acquire nuclear weapons.
“We’re moving toward a strong resolution authorising the use of force, if necessary, to defend our national security interests against the threat posed by Saddam Hussein,” Bush said.
“We are making progress, we are nearing agreement, and soon we will speak with one voice.”
The president, however, still has a way to go in building firm bipartisan support. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, once an advocate of granting Bush the right to strike Saddam, is now questioning the administration’s political motives as the November 5 mid-term elections draw near.
On Friday, speaking before Republican audiences in Colorado and Arizona, Bush repeatedly made clear that while war is a possibility it is not his first option and that he would prefer a peaceful resolution of the crisis under the auspices of the United Nations.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also underscored the theme, declaring that Bush has said “a million times” that war doesn’t have to be the first choice and that the UN should have the chance to compel Iraq to abandon its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
“I’m willing to give peace a chance to work. I want the United Nations to work,” Bush said at a fund-raising event in Denver.
He delivered the message again at an outdoor rally in Flagstaff, Arizona. “To work for peace, that’s my goal,” he said.
“Our last choice is to commit our troops to harm’s way,” Bush added. “But if we have to, to defend our freedoms, the United States will lead a coalition and do so.”
In the radio address, Bush called Saddam “a dangerous and brutal man.”
He sharpened that description on the road, saying at one point that “we must make sure that madman never has the capacity to hurt us with a nuclear weapon or use the stockpiles of anthrax that we know he has.”
Bush is spending the weekend at his Texas ranch.
