Veterans for Common Sense

Republican candidates are beating the war drums just as support for invading Iraq is dissipating. Whereas a Gallup Poll last November revealed 74 percent in favor of a ground invasion of Iraq and 20 percent opposed, this August the percentage of those in favor plummeted to 53, with 41 percent opposed — roughly the same margin that existed before September 11.

Moreover, the profile of those who favor war versus those who oppose it increasingly resembles the electoral breakdown of the mid-1990s. The opponents are disproportionately women, minorities, senior citizens, the college-educated and residents of the Northeast, Midwest and Far West. The administration’s core supporters are rural, white, male, southern Republicans without a college diploma.

That’s not a good recipe for building a national consensus and may not help the Republicans in November. Here, based on materials specially provided by polling organizations, is a rundown of who is opposing and who is supporting the administration’s rush to war in Iraq.

Women.

Women have historically been less supportive than men of using war as a means of resolving international conflicts. More women than men wanted to pull out of the Korean and Vietnam wars, and, in January 1991, women were far less supportive than men of going to war in the Persian Gulf.

After September 11, according to Washington Post polls, an overwhelming majority of both men and women backed a military response to the attacks, but only 55 percent of women, compared with 76 percent of men backed a military response “if 1,000 American troops would be killed.”

In this August’s Gallup Poll, women backed the use of ground troops against Iraq by only 48 percent to 45 percent, while men were in favor by 57 percent to 37 percent. Women’s opposition stems not only from a fear of casualties but also from dissatisfaction with the administration’s unilateral strategy.

In the Gallup Poll, women placed more importance than men on whether “at least some Western allies” support the administration’s action. Only 12 percent thought that the United States should send troops even without the backing of any allies.

Minorities.

In the August Gallup Poll, minorities opposed an invasion — blacks by 53 percent to 43 percent and other nonwhites by 48 percent to 45 percent — while whites backed going to war by 57 percent to 37 percent.

Minorities have been disproportionately opposed to war during the last four decades, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans were in office, but their opposition hasn’t stemmed primarily from a fear of casualties.

In a Pew Research Center poll from January 2002, the margin of difference between white and black support for taking military action against Iraq did not change when the poll raised the possibility of “thousands of casualties,” whereas the margin difference between men and women doubled.

Minorities appear to assign less urgency to military intervention, whether in Kosovo in 1999 or in Iraq this year. It may be skepticism about whether countries such as Serbia and Iraq really threaten the United States. Polls show blacks more doubtful than whites about links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Minorities’ views of war may be shaped not only by a distrust of Bush administration priorities but by a broader perception that war — and military spending — are a diversion from domestic social concerns. In a pre- September 11 Washington Post poll on military spending, whites approved of the way the Bush administration was handling defense and the military budget by 54 percent to 31 percent, while blacks disapproved by 59 percent to 34 percent.

Minorities are also more supportive of the United Nations and wary of unilateral American action. In a poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, 43 percent of minorities “strongly agreed” that the United States should cooperate with the United Nations, compared with 31.6 percent of whites.

Senior citizens.

Two other groups that have not historically been antiwar have joined the opposition to an invasion of Iraq. Senior citizens were not disproportionately against intervention in Kosovo or in Afghanistan, but according to August’s Gallup Poll, those over 65 years of age oppose sending ground troops to Iraq by 49 percent to 38 percent. That may reflect skepticism among senior citizens about this administration’s foreign policy.

In a pre-September 11 Washington Post poll, senior citizens (age 61 and over) disapproved by 52 percent to 40 percent of the Bush administration’s handling of foreign affairs, while middle-aged respondents (age 45 to 60) approved by 57 percent to 38 percent.

Senior citizens may also be more skeptical about administration arguments that Saddam Hussein constitutes a threat to American interests. In this August’s Gallup Poll, only 34 percent of senior citizens (in contrast with 47 percent overall) believed that Saddam Hussein would attack the United States with nuclear weapons.

College graduates.

College graduates have sometimes been the most supportive of going to war. In a November 2001 Washington Post poll, 73 percent of college graduates, compared with 71 percent of all respondents, favored sending a “significant number of ground troops into Afghanistan.”

And in a Gallup Poll in June, they favored invasion by 53 percent to 44 percent. But in August, as the Bush administration’s intentions became clearer, they opposed it by 47 percent to 44 percent.

One factor is that college graduates have been more inclined than other groups to favor multilateral approaches to foreign policy. In a June 1999 Washington Post poll, college graduates backed a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo by 54 percent to 41 percent, while overall it was opposed by 48 percent to 46 percent.

Like senior citizens, they are also disproportionately skeptical of administration claims that Saddam Hussein might eventually use nuclear weapons against the United States.

Democrats.

As might be expected, self-identified Democrats, who favored invasion by 55 percent to 39 percent in July’s Gallup Poll, now oppose it by 52 percent to 44 percent. That probably reflects the decline in George W. Bush’s popularity and a partisan reaction to the prospect of war.

But the growing skepticism about invasion can’t be reduced to partisanship. Between the Gallup Polls conducted in June and August, the backing for invasion among Republicans declined by 11 percent and among independents by 4 percent.

Most striking, perhaps, self-identified moderates went from supporting the war at 60 percent to 33 percent in June to a tepid 49 percent to 45 percent support in August. That suggests that Bush is losing both the left and the center of the electorate.

Whites, males, Republicans and those who have not graduated from or never attended college. These groups generally support an invasion of Iraq. In the Gallup Poll, those with only a high-school education favored war by 60 percent to 34 percent; Republicans, meanwhile, backed going to war by 67 percent to 26 percent.

In addition, southerners favored an invasion by 62 percent to 34 percent, compared with 47 percent to 44 percent for midwesterners. Rural residents, for their part, favored going to war by 58 percent to 35 percent. If you put these different proportions together, you get a high-school-educated white male from the rural or small-town South. Overall, this group strongly supports the U.S. military and its actions, and is skeptical toward, or even opposed to, the United Nations and multilateral foreign-policy initiatives.

Readers of Walter Russell Mead’s Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World will recognize this prototype in his portrayal of the “Jacksonian” school of American foreign policy.

It’s not really a school, and it’s not really a product of Andrew Jackson, but it is an important current in American foreign policy, typified by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). The views of these primarily southern Jacksonians could be roughly contrasted with the more internationalist outlook one finds among college graduates and among citizens in the Northeast and Far West, as with the more conventionally isolationist tendencies of many midwesterners.

In most polls, southerners and those without a college degree register the greatest support for military action. (White southern support, one assumes, must even be higher.)

In the Washington Post’s pre-9-11 poll, southerners approved of Bush’s defense and military policies by 58 percent to 26 percent, compared with 53 percent to 34 percent overall.

Meanwhile, those without a college degree approved of the president’s policies by 56 percent to 35 percent, compared with 51 percent to 43 percent for college graduates. At the same time, these two groups are most leery of multilateral action. Southerners and those without a college degree were least supportive of the United States joining NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo. In the June 1999 Washington Post poll, only 42 percent without a college education favored sending a NATO peacekeeping force; 54 percent of college graduates who responded said they favored such action. These two groups are the most supportive of unilateralism.

In August’s Gallup Poll, 24 percent of southerners (compared with 15 percent of midwesterners) said, “The United States should send troops even if none of our Western allies supports that action.”

This group of Americans backed Bush enthusiastically in the 2000 election and will loudly support his plan to go to war against Iraq. Indeed, Vice President Dick Cheney kicked off the administration’s attempt to win support for a unilateral invasion at a speech in Nashville, Tenn., a few dozen miles from Jackson’s Hermitage, before local members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

But these supporters are hardly representative of the country or of the direction in which the country is moving. As the debate over war on Iraq goes forward, Bush will need to find allies among those groups that have increasingly turned away from him.

Meanwhile, Democrats, who have privately complained about the administration’s plans for war but have remained silent publicly for fear of alienating voters, should take heart from the growing opposition. If the Democrats and Republicans who oppose the administration’s strategy for a preemptive unilateral strike against Iraq want to make their case, they are going to find an increasingly receptive public.

Sunni Arabs, including Saddam Hussein and most Iraqis in the American-backed opposition, account for no more than 16 percent of the Iraqi population; they dominate central Iraq as far south as Baghdad. Ethnic Kurds, who are also Sunni Muslims, make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s population and are concentrated in the mountainous north. But nearly two-thirds of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims, and they populate the slums of Baghdad as well as the south of Iraq. Unlike Kurds and others in the northern no-flight zone, who have received a proportionate share of Iraqi revenues under the United Nations-administered oil-for-food program, Iraqis in the vast southern zone have suffered greatly from a decade of sanctions. Saddam Hussein, of course, is entirely willing to let them suffer.

Shiite Muslims would be the largest voting bloc in any democratic Iraq. This is why the Bush administration must find a way to integrate them into its Iraq planning, something it has so far failed to do. It is also a principal reason why Saddam Hussein has suppressed Shiism. In recent years Saddam Hussein has hand-picked one Shiite cleric after another to lead the Shiite community, only to see each one defy him — and be murdered quickly thereafter. In a shooting spree beginning in 1998, one top Iraqi Shiite cleric after another was gunned down. Iraq’s last grand ayatollah, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, was murdered with his two sons on a road near Najaf. Another powerful cleric, Hussain Bahr al-Uloom, died under mysterious circumstances last year.

It is Shiites who have most consistently fought Saddam Hussein since 1991, when Shiite clerics called for an uprising. “The Shia uprising in the south was far more dangerous than the Kurdish insurgency in the north,” one eyewitness later reported to the State Department. Although the small and disastrous northern uprising in 1996 had no exact counterpart in the south, a Shiite group attacked Mr. Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, that year and crippled him. In 1998 Shiite rebels attacked Mr. Hussein’s second in command, Izzat Ibrahim.

American officials have long been reluctant to work with Iraqi Shiites out of fear that they might be too close to Iran, where the Shiite faith predominates. But Iraqi and Iranian Shiites are not as close as it might seem. The Iraqis are Arabs and the Iranians are Persian. They also, with some exceptions, follow very distinct and sometimes hostile forms of Shiism: Akhbari in Iraq, Usuli in Iran. Akhbari Shiism has never promoted political rule, while the Usuli school produced the politically active caste of priests that is a distinctive feature of Iranian Shiism.

Iraqi Shiites demonstrated their independence from Iranian Shiites in 1980 after Iraq invaded Iran. A Central Intelligence Agency report noted in 1991 that Iraq’s Shiites “rejected Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini’s concept of velayat-e faqui (political rule by a supreme religious leader) and remained loyal to Baghdad during the eight-year war with Iran.”

Despite a lack of political connection, Iraq’s most important Shiite clerics survive in exile in Iran today. Only in August did Bush administration officials meet with the brother of Shiite leader Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, head of the influential Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is based in Tehran. This is only a small step toward forming a representative anti-Hussein coalition.

For the most part, the Bush administration continues to work with Sunni groups. Among the Iraqi opposition, the State Department is closer to the Iraqi National Accord, while the Defense Department is closer to the Iraqi National Congress. Both groups are dominated by Sunni Arabs (although the president of the congress, Ahmad Chalabi, has a Shiite mother). The Iraqi National Congress is far more active in Washington and another congress leader, al-Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein, in August announced his proposal to restore the Iraqi monarchy, which was installed by Britain in 1921 and lasted just 37 years. The Sunni Arab-led kingdom was never popular with either the Shiite majority or the Kurds.

The Bush administration can gain political credibility for its actions on Iraq only by engaging all groups there. Iraqi Shiites in exile in London and Tehran are seeking reassurances that, after Saddam Hussein, they would for the first time enjoy their fair share of power. Meanwhile, leaders of the Kurdish minority recently told American journalists that a unified, representative Iraq is what they want. Any viable outcome must also address the concerns of Iraq’s neighbors, particularly Turkey and Iran.

One possibility for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq is a decentralized state with considerable regional autonomy, including the division of oil revenues to ensure adequate budgets for provincial development. This could be the only way to keep the nation together. But getting there would require talking directly to leaders of all three population groups. No plan will work that does not take into account the nearly two-thirds of Iraqis who are Shiites.

Frank Smyth has written frequently on Iraq.

The agreement, announced after a pivotal White House meeting yesterday morning among Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and four congressional leaders, cleared the way for a historic and lengthy debate to begin on the war resolution in the Senate today and the House next week.

Few question that Congress will approve the compromise or something close to it before lawmakers head home at the end of next week for the midterm elections, but some Democrats and Republicans still are expected to try to restrict Bush’s authority.

The agreement is less sweeping than the proposal Bush originally sought Sept. 19 and contains more concessions than the White House agreed to late last Thursday. It moved toward an alternative put forward by Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) that would more sharply focus the use of force on Iraq’s cache of weapons of mass destruction.

The compromise was more specific about the circumstances that would prompt military action, listing defense of the nation’s security against threats posed by Iraq and enforcement of “all relevant” United Nations Security Council resolutions. The relevancy language was added to allay concerns that U.S. troops not be used to require Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to return Kuwaiti prisoners or halt human rights abuses.

It would require Bush to notify Congress no later than two days after he has committed troops that he had done so. He would be required to state that he dispatched troops after determining that diplomatic efforts were dead and unlikely to lead to enforcement of UN resolutions. Bush also would have to state that military conflict would not divert from the nation’s war against terror, a new requirement.

Like the first White House compromise, yesterday’s accord dropped a broad phrase that would have allowed the president to engage in war to “restore international peace and security in the region,” something critics said would have given Bush leeway to go to war anywhere in the Mideast. Bush also would have to report to Congress every 60 days, rather than every 90 days, as initially sought.

The agreement exposed deep divisions among Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) attended the White House morning session but did not sign on to the compromise that his House counterpart, Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), backed. Daschle was not invited to a celebratory gathering in the Rose Garden and later signaled he intends to continue to press for changes. Republicans at the meeting were House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.

Daschle supports the alternative offered by Biden, Hagel and Lugar, which would limit use of force only to compel Iraq to disarm chemical and biological weapons and halt its drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

“At the end of this process, I am certain the Senate will adopt with broad bipartisan support a resolution that clearly provides the president the authority he needs to deal with Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction,” Daschle said in a statement.

Biden canceled a Foreign Relations Committee meeting, and Daschle scratched his regular noontime meeting with reporters. Soon after, Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), John W. Warner (R-Va.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered the compromise in the Senate.

Some Democrats expressed dismay privately about Gephardt striking a deal with the White House, saying it undercut Daschle. Gephardt said Daschle and his staff were involved in the negotiations.

Biden conceded that political momentum was working against him, though he said he still wants a Senate vote on his proposal. “The straight, honest answer is it’s probably too late,” Biden said, adding that the compromise probably will attract “a lot of votes – that’s going to create a lot of momentum.”

Warning that “on its present course the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency,” Bush celebrated the agreement at the Rose Garden event.

“Saddam must disarm, period,” Bush said. “If, however, he chooses to do otherwise, if he persists in his defiance, the use of force may become unavoidable.”

Gephardt, a possible presidential contender in 2004, emerged early in the talks with the White House as a hawk toward Iraq. He told those gathered at the White House that he sought a compromise “to ensure that Iraq is disarmed and to lessen the likelihood that weapons of mass destruction can be passed to terrorists.”

As the House International Relations Committee began discussing the compromise last night, Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), who faces a tough re-election bid, came out forcefully against the resolution, calling it “mutual assured destruction.” The panel’s opening session was disrupted by three female protesters who chanted “No war with Iraq.”

William Douglas and Tim Higgins contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

In a contentious, closed-door Senate hearing today, agency officials refused to comply with a request from the committee for a broad review of how the intelligence community’s clandestine role against the government of Saddam Hussein would be coordinated with the diplomatic and military actions that the Bush administration is planning.

Lawmakers said they were further incensed because the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, who had been expected to testify about the Iraq report, did not appear at the classified hearing. A senior intelligence official said Mr. Tenet was meeting with President Bush. Instead, the agency was represented by the deputy director, John McLaughlin, and Robert Walpole, the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs.

The agency rejected the committee’s request for a report. After the rejection, Congressional leaders accused the administration of not providing the information out of fear of revealing divisions among the State Department, C.I.A., Pentagon and other agencies over the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy.

Government officials said that the agency’s response also strongly suggested that Mr. Bush had already made important decisions on how to use the C.I.A. in a potential war with Iraq. One senior government official said it appeared that the C.I.A. did not want to issue an assessment of the Bush strategy that might appear to be “second-guessing” of the president’s plans.

The dispute was the latest of several confrontations between the C.I.A. and Congress over access to information about a range of domestic and foreign policy matters. Just last week, lawyers for the General Accounting Office and Vice President Dick Cheney argued in federal court over whether the White House must turn over confidential information on the energy policy task force that Mr. Cheney headed last year.

The C.I.A,’s rejection of the Congressional request, which some lawmakers contend was heavily influenced by the White House, comes as relations between the agency and Congress have badly deteriorated. The relations have soured over the ongoing investigation by a joint House-Senate inquiry — composed of members of the Senate and House intelligence committees — into the missed signals before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Tenet in particular has been a target of lawmakers. Last Friday, Mr. Tenet, a former Senate staffer himself, wrote a scathing letter to the leaders of the joint Congressional inquiry, denouncing the panel for writing a briefing paper that questioned the honesty of a senior C.I.A. official before he even testified.

A senior intelligence official said Mr. Tenet’s absence at the hearing today was unavoidable, and that no slight was intended. The official said that he missed the hearing because he was at the White House with Mr. Bush, helping to brief other Congressional leaders on Iraq. The official said Mr. Tenet had advised the committee staff several days ago that he would not be able to attend. Mr. Tenet has promised to testify about the matter in another classified hearing on Friday, officials said.

One Congressional official said that the incident has badly damaged Mr. Tenet’s relations with Congress, something that Mr. Tenet had always worked hard to cultivate.

“I hope we aren’t seeing some schoolyard level of petulance,” by the C.I.A., the official said.

While the House and Senate intelligence oversight committee have received classified information about planned covert operations against Iraq, the C.I.A. has not told lawmakers how the agency and the Bush administration see those operations fitting into the larger war on Iraq, or the global war on terrorism, Congressional officials said.

“What they haven’t told us is how does the intelligence piece fit into the larger offensive against Iraq, or how do these extra demands on our intelligence capabilities effect our commitment to the war on terrorism in Afghanistan,” said one official.

Congressional leaders complained that they have been left in the dark on how the intelligence community will be used just as they are about to debate a resolution to support war with Iraq.

Congressional leaders said the decision to fight the Congressional request may stem from a fear of exposing divisions within the intelligence community over the administration’s Iraq strategy, perhaps including a debate between the agency and the Pentagon over the military’s role in intelligence operations in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has been moving to strengthen his control over the military’s intelligence apparatus, potentially setting up a turf war for dominance among American intelligence officials. Mr. Rumsfeld has also been pushing to expand the role of American Special Operations Forces into covert operations, including activities that have traditionally been the preserve of the C.I.A.

Congressional leaders asked for the report in July, and expressed particular discontent that the C.I.A. did not respond for two months. Lawmakers had asked that the report be provided in the form of a national intelligence estimate, a formal document that is supposed to provide a consensus judgment by the several intelligence agencies.

The committee wanted to see whether analysts at different agencies, including the C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the State Department, have sharply differing views about the proper role of the intelligence community in Iraq.

But intelligence officials say that a national intelligence estimate is designed to assess the policies of foreign countries — not those of the United States. “They were asking for an assessment of U.S. policy, and that falls outside the realm of the N.I.E., and it gets into the purview of the commander in chief,” an intelligence official said.

Committee members have also expressed anger that the C.I.A. refused to fully comply with a separate request for another national intelligence estimate, one that would have provided an overview of the intelligence community’s latest assessment on Iraq. Instead, the C.I.A. provided a narrower report, dealing specifically with Iraq’s program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Lawmakers said that Mr. Tenet had assured the committee in early September that intelligence officials were in the midst of producing an updated national intelligence estimate on Iraq, and that the committee would receive it as soon as it was completed.

Instead, the Senate panel received the national intelligence estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program after 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, too late for members to read it before Wednesday’s hearing.

The committee had “set out an explicit set of requests” for what was to be included in the Iraq national intelligence estimate, said one official. Those requirements were not met. “We wanted to know what the intelligence community’s assessment of the effect on a war in Iraq on neighboring states, and they did not answer that question,” the official said.

A senior intelligence official said the 100-page report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program was completed in three weeks under very tight Congressional deadlines, and the writing had to be coordinated with several agencies.

Democrats opposing a possible invasion of Iraq cited those problems as more reason to oppose President Bush’s request for a congressional go-ahead for the use of military force. Bush accuses Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of stockpiling chemical and biological weapons in violation of U.N. resolutions demanding that Iraq disarm.

“Are we exposing our men and women at this point to contamination, … knowing that we cannot protect them?” asked Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif. “I’m not going to support going blindly into warfare that could result in great bodily harm to our fighting men and women.”

Investigators from the General Accounting Office and the Pentagon’s inspector general said the military has problems keeping track of its protective gear, supplying enough protective equipment to troops and training them in how to work in a contaminated environment.

“The survival of our service members and military operations in a chemical or biological environment may be at risk,” Raymond Decker of the GAO told a House Government Reform national security subcommittee hearing.

Decker and Joseph Schmitz, the Defense Department inspector general, said their reports on problems with chemical and biological protection were largely classified. They cited these unclassified details:

·The Defense Department has not accounted for up to 250,000 defective protective suits. Military officials told the panel there was a low risk those suits would be used in combat.

·The military has shortages of some important protective gear and has not met internal requirements for the number of full protective ensembles, which include gas masks, hoods, suits, boots and gloves.

·Many units have had insufficient training in how to deal with chemical or biological attacks, and the military has implemented only recently requirements that units submit reports on their chemical and biological training. Marine Corps and Air Force training is “more robust” than Army and Navy training, Schmitz said.

The Defense Department recalled almost 800,000 protective suits in 2000 after warnings from internal investigators about defects including holes, improper stitching and embedded foreign objects in the fabric. All were made by a bankrupt New York company, Istratex, whose top officials later pleaded guilty to federal charges.

The Defense Logistics Agency has accounted for about 550,000 of the defective suits, agency official George Allen told the House panel. The agency has offered free shipping and has sent reminder notices to military commanders as recently as a month ago to recover the defective suits, Allen said.

He and Army Maj. Gen. William Bond, a chemical and biological defense official, said remaining defective suits probably would not be in the hands of front-line units.

The military currently has about 4.5 million sets of protective gear, including 1.5 million of the latest version, known as the Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology, or JSLIST.

All four military services have shortages of some items, Decker said, and the shortages are to worsen as older equipment passes expiration dates, he said.

Pentagon officials also said training has improved for chemical and biological attacks. Officers in Central Command — the regional command that covers Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding areas — are particularly keen to ensure their troops are trained and equipped for chemical or biological warfare, inspector general Schmitz said.

Training has been inadequate for other units, Decker said. Commanders are often reluctant to have troops train with protective gear because it is time-consuming and restricts the soldiers’ abilities to do their jobs, he said.

“I’m not convinced that the realism and degree of training that has to happen … is taking place,” Decker said.

In a leaked proposal for a UN resolution drafted by the US with help from British officials, the Bush administration is seeking to transform the inspections process into a coercive operation. The resolution would place a full-scale invasion of Iraq on a hair trigger, authorising UN member states “to use all necessary means to restore international peace and security” if Iraq does so much as make an omission in the weapons inventories it presents to the security council.

Weapons inspectors would operate out of bases inside Iraq, where they would be under the protection of UN troops. UN forces or the forces of a member state would enforce no-fly and no-drive zones around a suspected weapons site, preventing anything being removed before inspection.

Diplomats at the UN said there was no doubt that US troops would play a leading role in any such enforcement, allowing the Pentagon to deploy forces inside Iraq even before hostilities got under way.

The release of the draft helped Washington regain momentum in security council talks a day after Iraq took the initiative by agreeing to inspections under existing UN guidelines. That agreement was welcomed by France and Russia, but dismissed as empty by the US and Britain. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, called the existing guidelines “defective”.

The resolution will be debated over the next few days among the permanent five security council members. President George Bush’s negotiating position was bolstered yesterday when the House of Representatives agreed to a war powers resolution handing him open-ended authority to take military action against Iraq.

The Senate, where there was tougher opposition to such a blanket authorisation, was reported to be moving towards support of the White House line.

Under the US draft, security council member states could send their own inspectors into Iraq to operate alongside the official UN teams and these extra inspectors would have the “same rights and protections accorded other members of the team”. Member states could also “recommend” to the UN teams which sites to search and how to do it. Iraqi officials could be taken out of the country, along with their families, for questioning, in order to remove the fear of Iraqi government reprisals.

The Iraqi deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said there was no need for a new resolution and that the existing resolutions were good enough for inspectors to do their job.

John Pike, the head of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington military thinktank, said the resolution was worded in such a way that Iraq was almost certain to reject it, even if the alternative was invasion.

“I could never imagine Iraq agreeing to this. If you’re going to be invaded you might as well make the invading force shoot their way in. It’s the sort of proposal meant to be rejected,” Mr Pike said.

British officials said the draft represented more of a discussion paper for the five permanent members than a formal document to be circulated within the full security council. British experts worked alongside their US counterparts at the state department in the early stages of its drafting, but it was then handed to the White House and the Pentagon, who added some of its tougher elements.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “We are not going to comment until final resolutions are published.”

But it was clear that London was uneasy with some items in the draft, particularly the use of troops to quarantine suspect sites and to guard the inspectors’ routes to the sites. One British official pointed out that it was put within square brackets and could be jettisoned later.

The intention behind the clause, the official said, was to avoid the situation under earlier inspection regimes whereby “inspectors were coming in the front door and kit was moving out the back.”

Further anxiety about the US position came from Chris Patten, the EU’s commissioner for external relations. In a speech in Chicago today hewill say: “If the US were to fall prey to the temptation to act alone and outside the framework of international order, even for the best of motives, it would be setting off down a very dangerous path.”

Diplomats in New York and Washington said it was clear there was a split between the state department and the Bush administration’s hawks over how far the US should compromise, particularly over the threat of force.

The French have proposed an alternative resolution, which would make inspections tougher, but omits the authorisation of military action in the event of Iraqi intransigence or evasion, deferring such a decision to a later resolution.

Resolution main points:

· The US (as a permanent member of the UN security council) can ask to be present in any inspection team and thus gain access to any part of the country

· The inspectors can set up bases throughout the country. They will be accompanied at those bases by soldiers under the UN banner sufficient to protect them

· The UN will have the right to declare no-fly, no-drive and exclusion zones, ground and air transit corridors, to be enforced either by the UN or by member states which could include the US

· Iraq must agree to free and unrestricted landing of aircraft, including unmanned spy planes

· The UN can take anyone it wishes to interview out of Iraq, along with his or her family

· Any false information provided by Iraq or any failure to comply with the resolution would automatically entitle member states to use all necessary means to restore international peace

This summer, in the midst of the Bush administration’s “War on Terrorism,” Hollywood released another movie mimicking reality. In “Minority Report,” police forces arrest people for crimes they have not yet committed. A small group of visionary seers inform the police of an impending crime, and the police launch a preemptive strike against the alleged criminal. There’s just one problem: sometimes the visionary seers are wrong.

The Bush administration recently announced a new military strategy remarkably similar to the theme of Minority Report. The Bush Doctrine, outlined in the new “National Security Strategy for the United States,” states that the administration “will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively” against national security threats. The driving force behind a decision to attack will be a prophesy of impending doom from a small group of visionary seers, ostensibly led by Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney. There’s just one problem: sometimes these visionary seers might be wrong.

This summer, in the midst of the Bush administration’s “War on Terrorism,” Hollywood released another movie mimicking reality. In “Minority Report,” police forces arrest people for crimes they have not yet committed. A small group of visionary seers inform the police of an impending crime, and the police launch a preemptive strike against the alleged criminal. There’s just one problem: sometimes the visionary seers are wrong.

The Bush administration recently announced a new military strategy remarkably similar to the theme of Minority Report. The Bush Doctrine, outlined in the new “National Security Strategy for the United States,” states that the administration “will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively” against national security threats. The driving force behind a decision to attack will be a prophesy of impending doom from a small group of visionary seers, ostensibly led by Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney. There’s just one problem: sometimes these visionary seers might be wrong.

Apparently, the visionary seers in the administration think they should be able to direct the awesome fury of the American military against states and organizations that might threaten American citizens or, perhaps more importantly, American “interests.” These seers claim to know a terrorist or a ruthless dictator when they see one, perhaps because they collectively have so much experience providing funding, weapons, and even anthrax and other biological agents to their type.

From the Contras to the Indonesian military to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Agency, Rumsfeld, Cheney and recent Republican and Democratic administrations alike have openly supported plenty of bad guys and terrorists. But we are now asked to overlook that fact and focus on a good guy turned bad: Saddam Hussein.

The Bush administration is rushing forward with plans to invade Iraq and impose a “regime change” on the premise that Saddam Hussein has suddenly become a major threat to America, or perhaps more importantly, American “interests.” Rumsfeld and Cheney keep claiming Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but now that the door has been opened to United Nations inspections to verify these claims, they say we can’t trust the inspections and might need to invade Iraq anyway.

Even if Iraq does have chemical or biological agents tucked away somewhere, the Bush Administration and its shadows in Israel and Britain have not presented compelling evidence that the mere existence of these weapons justifies a potentially costly and destabilizing conflict ending in a regime change. The seers in the Bush Administration ask the American public and the international community to trust their judgment, but they don’t want to provide the facts to back up their assertions, and they unjustifiably ridicule those who express reservations or promote diplomatic solutions. Is this any way to run a democracy?

In order to justify a preemptive strike against a sovereign nation, our government should have solid and credible evidence that the threat is real and requires immediate action leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. To date, the Bush administration has not satisfied this well-respected principle of international law.

Based on publicly available information, there does not appear to be any solid and credible evidence that Iraq poses a real and immediate threat to the United States or was involved in any way with the brutal attacks of 9/11. In the absence of an immediate threat, we do fortunately have the luxury of deliberation and should carefully consider the implications of the Bush Doctrine and of invading Iraq. In addition, there is a choice of military and non-military means to address the danger of Saddam Hussein and other real or perceived enemies. So why is the administration pushing so hard for war right now?

If the Bush administration has solid evidence that Saddam Hussein is about to invade or attack the U.S., then it should produce the evidence and use it to build international support for a preemptive strike. The administration’s seers boldly claim the evidence exists, but what if they are mistaken? What if they only see through lenses smeared with blood and oil and fogged by power and arrogance? Which repressive dictatorship would they have our young men and women invade next? Saudi Arabia? What is their exit strategy for the War on Terrorism?

The movie “Minority Report” made me think about a future world in which people could be arrested based on the tip of a stranger or the vision of a government seer. The Bush Doctrine has thrust the United States into this future, and the implications for global peace and security are both troubling and profound. As we debate the wisdom and necessity of launching a preemptive war against Iraq, let us also ponder the perception of the Bush administration’s seers and the possibility that they are wrong.

Dan Fahey served in the Persian Gulf in July 1991 on the USS Arkansas, and was later discharged as a conscientious objector. He has written extensively on the use of depleted uranium munitions in the wars in Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan.

“The success of the inspectors’ mission will be linked to the cooperation of the Iraqi government and the extent of the support the inspection team gets from the international community by not taking any positions which hinder inspections,” Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said in a statement.

Iraqi arms experts and U.N. weapons inspectors struck a deal in Vienna on Tuesday allowing U.N. arms experts back — but the United States rejected any resumption of inspections before a tough new Security Council resolution was in place.

The statement, in which Moussa welcomed the deal and said it included “positive steps” to resolve the Iraq issue, did not elaborate on what positions could create obstacles for the inspectors.

Washington wants the Security Council to adopt a resolution delaying the return of inspectors until Baghdad provides a list of any nuclear, germ or chemical weapons and related material.

A draft of the resolution authorises a military strike and is under discussion by the five permanent U.N. Security Council members, but only Britain has backed the U.S. move so far.

Lantos, D-San Mateo, was said to have made the comments to a member of Israel’s Labor Party when she visited Washington last week to push for a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict, the Tel Aviv daily Ha’aretz reported Monday.

“You won’t have any problem with Saddam,” Lantos reportedly told MK

Collete Avital. “We’ll be rid of the bastard soon enough. And in his place we’ll install a pro-Western dictator, who will be good for us and good for you.”

Lantos told Avital that the “dictator” would rule Iraq for five or six years, until an Iraqi leader could learn to run the state, Ha’aretz reported.

After the United States removes regimes of evil, Lantos told Avital, it will go to Syria and tell “young Assad that’s what will happen if he doesn’t stop supporting terrorism,” Ha’retz reported.

Lantos denied making the comments and said he never talked to Akiva Eldar, the Ha’aretz reporter who wrote the column.

“I am amused by the comments Ha’aretz attributes to me, because they fly in the face of my lifetime of work,” Lantos said. “I am a firm supporter of democracy.”

Lantos said he would never support a dictatorship in Iraq.

Lantos is co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and the ranking democrat on the House International Relations Committee. He has been one of the Bay Area’s most hawkish legislators on Iraq.

The column titled “They’re jumping in head first,” discusses Lantos’ comments on Iraq and the possible aftermath of a U.S. war on the Middle Eastern country.

The comments angered Arab-American and Muslim groups, one of which called for Lantos to resign as chair of the Human Rights Caucus.

“Is he really fit for the job?” said Khalid Turaani, executive director of American Muslims for Jerusalem. “When he calls for a dictatorship, it really calls into question his work for human rights.” You can reach staff writer Justin Jouvenal at 348-4331 or by e-mail at jjouvenal@angnewspapers.com .

The administration’s comments, led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, apparently came in response to a Russian government statement earlier yesterday that enforcement of the no-fly zones is hampering negotiations for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, an assertion that Rumsfeld called ”nonsensical.”

”With each missile fired at our air crews, Iraq expresses its contempt for the UN resolutions, a fact that must be kept in mind as their latest inspection offers are evaluated,” Rumsfeld said at a briefing where the Pentagon showed grainy videotape of what were said to be Iraqi antiaircraft missile batteries firing at allied aircraft.

Rumsfeld said that Iraqis have fired on planes enforcing the no-fly zones 67 times since Iraq on Sept. 16 offered to allow weapons inspectors to return. He said that the 67 attacks represented an increase, but a Pentagon press officer said that the Defense Department tracked the frequency of antiaircraft attacks over similar periods and that the figure was meant to show continued Iraqi intransigence.

The defense secretary’s comments came as Congress prepared to begin considering a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq, a debate that could commence as early as tomorrow in the Senate. That debate will be informed by a new Congressional Budget Office report saying that even a quick war in Iraq could cost at least $22 billion.

Rumsfeld described the no-fly zones as ”implementing … relevant UN Security Council resolutions,” but there is disagreement about the basis for the flight restrictions. While the United States and its allies established the southern zone in 1992 and the northern one in 1997 to enforce UN resolutions calling on that country not to oppress its minorities and not to menace its neighbors, the United Nations Security Council never formally authorized the actions.

”There has never been a consensus in the Security Council about the status of the no-fly zones,” a UN official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ”There are two points of view in the Security Council. One led by, but not exclusive to, Russia has pointed out that there’s no explicit mention of the no-fly zones in any security council resolution.” The other point of view, held by the United States and Britain, is that the no-fly zones are necessary to support the resolutions. The Iraqi government has never recognized the legitimacy of the zones.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a new statement criticizing the zones and recent air attacks that the Pentagon has said were made to enforce them.

”Anglo-American bombing raids in `no-fly zones’ not only deepen the complicated atmosphere around Iraq but create obstacles in the search for a political-diplomatic settlement of the Iraq question,” the Russian statement said.

Rumsfeld responded that the Russians had it backward. ”It’s the shooting at the airplanes that cause[s] the response,” he said.

Thus far in 2002, there have been 406 incidents of provocative action – attacks on coalition aircraft or Iraqi jets violating the airspace – in the no-fly zones, according to Rumsfeld. No coalition planes have been shot down, according to the Pentagon.

Rumsfeld announced last month that the United States had shifted its strategy in responding to such provocations. Instead of striking specific targets that attacked coalition aircraft, the United States and Britain have systematically tried to destroy Iraq’s air defense system, which is one of the more sophisticated in the world. Asked yesterday how much the defenses have been degraded, he said, ”Not enough.”

Meanwhile, negotiation continued on the wording of a congressional resolution on Iraq. With staffers at the White House scheduled to discuss the issue tomorrow, Senate majority leader Thomas Daschle’s office said the Senate would not begin to debate a resolution until at least then.

Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who last week spoke out against using military action until all diplomatic efforts have failed, is trying to set up a meeting of Democratic senators to craft a unified proposal. A number of Republicans and Democrats have expressed reservations about the broad language contained in the Bush draft resolution.

Some lawmakers want to require the administration to consult with Congress more frequently than the once every 90 days that Bush agreed to in the latest draft his administration has released. Others want to explicitly limit where Bush would be authorized to take military action, and still others have demanded that Bush consult more with the United Nations before launching strikes.

Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, made it clear that he would vote against a resolution that did not require more consultation with Congress.

”My allegiances and responsibilities as a United States senator are not to the president of the United States or the party that I happen to belong to,” Hagel said in a speech in front of the National Press Club. ”My responsibilities are to the people who sent me to Congress and the people of this country.”

The Congressional Budget Office told lawmakers yesterday it would cost $9 billion to $13 billion just to deploy US troops in any war with Iraq. Fighting could run $6 billion to $9 billion a month, and it would cost another $5 billion to $7 billion to return the troops to their home bases at the end of any hostilities.

Further, the additional cost of occupying Iraq after a war would run from $1 billion to $4 billion a month, not including funding of reconstruction work or humanitarian aid, the CBO said.

The figures were based on two options, one calling for heavy use of ground troops, which would be more costly, and another relying more on air power. The options do not include the possibility that Iraq or other nations in the region would use chemical or biological weapons.

The CBO figures are lower than previous $100 billion to $200 billion White House estimates.

Wayne Washington and Sue Kirchhoff of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Robert Schlesinger can be reached at schlesinger@globe.com

This story ran on page A22 of the Boston Globe on 10/1/2002.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.