“I DON’T HAVE TO STAY HERE and take this.” That’s what Sandy Berger, President Clinton’s I national-security adviser, said in exasperation during a February 11 meeting with Senate Republicans, who were berating him and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for shortcomings in the administration’s policy toward Iraq. Berger’s outburst illustrates the gulf that has developed over the past few weeks between the GOP and the Clinton foreign-policy team. The vast majority of Republicans, and many Democrats, have concluded that the administration is sorely unprepared to wage a military campaign against Saddam Hussein. And last week, the Senate scrapped its plan to vote on a resolution supporting the use of force against Iraq.
This is a dramatic change from just a few weeks ago, when Republicans were prepared to give the president total freedom in dealing with Saddam. Shortly after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, congressional Republicans were determined to pass a resolution supporting military action. Democrats agreed, prompting the Senate’s Republican and Democratic leaders, Trent Lott and Tom Daschle, to draft a statement urging the president “to take all necessary and appropriate actions” to frustrate Saddam’s weapons-building program.
The draft resolution encountered no objections from Senate Republicans and was expected to pass easily. But then Democratic senators Max Cleland and Richard Durbin charged that it resembled the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Cleland’s voice has particular resonance on these matters — he lost his legs and an arm while serving in Vietnam — and Lott and Daschle worked to craft a suitable compromise.
But soon after, support for the resolution began to evaporate. The turning point was a series of briefings the administration’s top foreign-policy hands gave to senators. The administration’s objective in these briefings was simple: to apprise senators of its strategy toward Iraq and to spell out the mechanics of a bombing campaign.
But the briefings didn’t go as planned. Indeed, they convinced senators from both parties that the administration had no long-term strategy for dealing with Iraq. Airstrikes and more airstrikes, was the simple message delivered by Berger, Albright, and defense secretary William Cohen. There didn’t seem to be much more to it than that.
Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, came away from the briefings believing the administration “doesn’t have a comprehensive plan to deal with Saddam Hussein.” Chuck Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, complained that “there was no clear objective and there was a lot of unfocused commentary. Everybody sobered up on passing a resolution.” Even John McCain, who furiously lobbied Senate Republicans to drop their objections to a resolution, conceded the briefings were “not very substantial.” Another senator, who preferred anonymity, said the briefings were the worst he’d attended since 1993, when Clinton officials had no answers for the deaths of 18 Army Rangers in Somalia.
Within days, Senate Republicans of all ideological stripes united in opposition to passing a resolution. This unity was reflected at the Senate GOP’s regularly scheduled weekly lunch, held on February 10. These lunches are usually casual affairs where not much business is accomplished and few senators bother to speechify. But this one was different. Roughly 20 senators spoke, and all but three blasted the administration and counseled against a resolution of support. Those speaking against a resolution included moderates like Arlen Specter, old bulls like Pete Domenici, and conservatives like Jon Kyl. The only senators to speak in favor were McCain, Lott, and Richard Lugar.
The sudden turn against the administration caught Lott off guard. Soon after the GOP lunch, he spoke to Albright, advising her that she should pay a visit to Capitol Hill as soon as possible.
Albright and Berger showed up the next morning, February 11, to meet with 10 Republican senators. In retrospect, the two might have been better off if they had stayed away. The 90-minute session, held in Lott’s office, was even more hot-tempered than the previous week’s briefings. One senator described it as “the frankest meeting I’ve attended since coming to Congress.”
The senators, using what one participant called “unvarnished, brutal language,” conveyed an array of grievances to Albright and Berger. Some charged that the president had failed since the State of the Union to build public support for a bombing campaign. Others complained the administration hadn’t sought funding for the campaign. Still others thought too much faith was being placed in the power of airstrikes.
One of the senators remarked to Albright and Berger that there was a strong sense among Republicans “that you’re the gang that can’t shoot straight.” Brash comments like this reflect longstanding GOP frustrations with the administration’s conduct of foreign affairs, from the 1996 airstrikes against Iraq — which Clinton’s CIA director later admitted had strengthened Saddam — to the president’s repeated broken promises to bring home U.S. troops in Bosnia.
After the meeting, Lott realized that a resolution supporting the administration would be premature and would cause an uproar among Republicans. (He’s still nursing wounds from his feverish work last year to pass the Clinton-supported chemical-weapons treaty.) McCain, however, was still lobbying for a resolution, and if Democrats had also been in enthusiastic support, Republicans would have been in a fix. But the dicey politics of the matter were mitigated by continued Democratic unease. Senate Democrats were far from united over how best to proceed. When Daschle spoke about Iraq from the Senate floor on February 12, he said he was in complete agreement with Lott’s decision to delay the resolution.
With Congress in recess until February 23, Daschle, Lott, Newt Gingrich, and Richard Gephardt all tried to compensate for the absence of a resolution by making statements that condemned Saddam and supported the president. But these could not paper over the fact that large numbers of Republicans, and many Democrats, lack confidence in the Clinton foreign-policy team at a time when military action is imminent. It’s a problem for the administration — and the country.
Matthew Rees is a staffwriter for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
