Congress not tough enough on Saddam says Bush

The White House today opposed an alternative congressional resolution authorising force against Iraq, saying it does too little to disarm President Saddam Hussein.

President George Bush summoned congressmen to the White House to spur progress on the resolution.

As the Senate prepared to open debate this week on the resolution authorising Bush to wage war, congressional budget experts said fighting Iraq would cost up to €10bn a month.

Congress, while generally supporting the president’s campaign against Iraq, has haggled with the White House over the wording of the resolution.

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and senior committee member Senator Richard Lugar circulated an alternative proposal that they said “helps the president attract strong bipartisan support in Congress.”

Their draft resolution would focus on authorising the use of force against Iraq as opposed to the entire region and make clear that dismantling Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would be the primary reason for using force.

It emphasises the importance of international support, but reserves the right to act unilaterally if the Security Council does not approve a new resolution requiring the timely elimination of Iraq’s weapons.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said “the administration has some real concerns” about the Biden-Lugar measure.

“The language as it is currently written is a pullback from existing UN Security Council resolutions,” Fleischer said. “It’s too narrowly focused.”

Fleischer said the measure “doesn’t say anything about urging Saddam Hussein to cease his support for terrorism, stop oppression of his people, or to cease threatening his neighbours.”

The office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said he would put off the start of debate until at least Wednesday, awaiting the outcome of staff-level negotiations and a breakfast Bush is hosting for top congressional leaders tomorrow.

The House is expected to take up the resolution some time next week.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continued to press the need for tough action against Iraq, citing 67 incidents in the past two weeks of Iraq firing on US. and British warplanes patrolling no-fly zones in the country.

“With each missile launched at our air crews, Iraq expresses its contempt for UN. resolutions” demanding that Iraq allow unimpeded weapons inspections and disarm, Rumsfeld said.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said uncertainty about the length and intensity of a war with Iraq made predicting the cost difficult.

But it estimated that deploying US forces to the Gulf would cost from €9.1bn to €13.2bn, and that the monthly cost of combat by either heavy ground or air forces would be €6.1bn to €9.1bn.