Dick Armey: Unprovoked Attack on Iraq Un-American

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 – Leaders of Iraqi groups that oppose Saddam Hussein were meeting today with senior administration officials amid growing signs of unease on Capitol Hill over the prospects of war against Iraq.

The opposition leaders conferred with high-level State and Defense Department officials only hours after the House majority leader, Representative Dick Armey, warned that an unprovoked attack against Iraq would violate international law and undermine world support for President Bush's goal of ousting President Hussein.

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Mr. Bush said today he has not decided whether to order a military strike against Iraq and has not even given himself a timetable for deciding. "And if I did, I wouldn't tell you or the enemy," Mr. Bush told The Associated Press in a brief interview at his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

The remarks by Mr. Armey, a Texas Republican who is retiring this year, were the most prominent sign of Congressional unease that the administration is moving rapidly toward a war against Iraq and were especially striking coming from a leading conservative and a staunch Bush ally.

Mr. Armey's comments Thursday night came on a day when Mr. Hussein, celebrating the anniversary of the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war with a military parade, delivered a television speech in which he warned "the forces of evil" not to attack Iraq.

Mr. Armey, speaking to reporters in Des Moines during a campaign swing for a House candidate, said, "If we try to act against Saddam Hussein, as obnoxious as he is, without proper provocation, we will not have the support of other nation states who might do so."

"I don't believe that America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation," he said. "It would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a nation."

In response to a reporter's question, he said: "My own view would be to let him bluster, let him rant and rave all he wants and let that be a matter between he and his own country. As long as he behaves himself within his own borders, we should not be addressing any attack or resources against him."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was asked today whether he considered Mr. Armey's remarks "unhelpful."

"No, Dick Armey's a fine congressman and a good friend, and I think it's important for people to say what they think on these things," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And that's the wonderful thing about our country. We have a public debate and dialogue and discussion on important issues."

In response to another question, Mr. Rumsfeld said he hoped to confer with members of the half-dozen Iraqi opposition groups today or Saturday.

President Bush has repeatedly stated that the administration's goal is to overthrow Mr. Hussein, in large part because of the threat Iraq's suspected programs to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons pose to its neighbors as well as to American and allied forces in the region. Mr. Armey did not directly address the issue of what the United States should do if it was determined that Iraq was continuing to build weapons of mass destruction.

The White House had little reaction to Mr. Armey's comments. "The president has not decided on a particular course of action and is keeping all his options open," Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said Thursday. "Beyond that, it's speculating about hypotheticals."

Other prominent Republicans, including Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, have said recently said that the conditions for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq are not yet in place. They and other lawmakers from both parties have recommended other steps first, including stricter enforcement of the no-flight zones, and rallying support among allies in the Middle East and in Europe.

In his televised 22-minute speech, Mr. Hussein said that "the forces of evil" – a play on words alluding to Mr. Bush's inclusion of Iraq as being part of an "axis of evil" – would "die in disgraceful failure" if Iraq is attacked.

Mr. McClellan said the speech did not alter Mr. Bush's view of Iraq. "The Iraqi government needs to comply with the responsibilities it agreed to at the end of the gulf war," Mr. McClellan said.

Mr. Bush has carefully sidestepped the question of how and when the administration would accomplish its goal of ousting Mr. Hussein even as senior military commanders have presented options to the president and his top aides that range from invading Iraq with as many as 250,000 troops, to one involving 80,000 to 100,000 troops swooping in on Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and other military centers in hopes of quickly collapsing the government.

Mr. Bush pledged this week that he would consult with Congress before ordering any invasion, but he stopped short of promising to ask for a vote authorizing an attack.

Mr. Hussein has refused to deal with United Nations weapons inspectors since they left nearly four years ago, and Iraq remains under United Nations sanctions imposed at the time it invaded Kuwait in 1990. At the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war the lifting of those sanctions was linked to Iraq ending its programs of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and the development of missiles to deliver them.

Iraq recently sent letters inviting United Nations officials and members of Congress to visit Iraq for talks, but lawmakers and United Nations officials dismissed the offers, saying they were attempts to circumvent the existing conditions for the return of inspectors.

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said Thursday that the Iraqi government had not given "an inch" on complying with the conditions for a resumption of inspections. "I don't see any change in attitude," Mr. Annan said.

Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld have both said recently that the return of international inspectors to Iraq would not be enough to eliminate Mr. Hussein's hidden arsenal. Mr. Rumsfeld said Iraq's actions to conceal weapons laboratories deep underground and put them on mobile trailers might make inspections useless.

In his remarks Thursday night, Mr. Armey said the failure to resume international arms inspections inside Iraq would be insufficient grounds for war.

"In my estimation it is not enough reason to go in, that he does not allow weapons inspections," Mr. Armey said. "What if the French decided they wanted to inspect American military facilities?"

Mr. Armey said he had supported the Persian Gulf war, which drove Iraq out of Kuwait. But in this case, he said, basic principles of international law apply, and that attacking Iraq without a specific provocation would violate those norms.

"He has a right to hold dominion within his own national boundaries, as obnoxious as he is and as comical as he can be," said Mr. Armey. "He is what we in Texas know as a blowhard, he can't help himself."

This is the second instance recently in which Mr. Armey has challenged White House policy. Mr. Armey objected to an administration proposal to encourage taxi drivers, cable-television installers and other workers who jobs routinely take them through the nation's neighborhoods to report signs of terrorism to a national hot line.