Senate Democrats seem
ready to adopt Iraq plan
Bennett Roth
Hearst Newspapers (U-WIRE)
WASHINGTON — President Bush
and House leaders Wednesday
agreed on a resolution that would
hand the White House authority for a
possible invasion of Iraq.
The White House has yet to strike
a deal with the Democratic-led Sen
ate, which is expected to debate the
issue as soon as Wednesday. A
House vote on the resolution is ex
pected next week.
Senate Democratic leaders have
sought to put a number of condi
tions in the resolution to ensure
that diplomatic avenues are ex
hausted in the United Nations be
fore any military moves.
But a number of moderate Democ
ratic senators broke with their leaders
Wednesday and endorsed the House
resolution, an indication that Bush
likely will get his way in the Senate.
Bush, surrounding himself with
lawmakers front both parties in the
Rose Garden, hailed the resolution
saying it “will show to friend and
enemy alike the resolve of the
United States.”
The president said Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein will he given a
chance to disarm, hut he added if “he
chooses to do otherwise, if he persists
in his defiance, the use of force mav
become unavoidable.”
Bush won over House Democratic
Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., by
making a number of minor conces
sions, such as agreeing to notify Con
gress of military strikes beforehand,
or at the latest within 48 hours after
the action. The notification would
certify that diplomatic and other
peaceful means were not adequate to
protect Americans from Saddam’s
weapons.
Bush also will update Congress
every 60 days about the Iraq situa
tion. He had offered earlier to report
every 90 days.
Standing with the president at the
White House, Gephardt said, “many
of us believe that we need to deal with
this threat diplomatically if we can,
militarily if we must.”
Lawmakers from both parties pre
dict broad bipartisan support when
the vote comes next week.
Democrats have been trying to ac
commodate a wide range of views on
Iraq among their members, some of
whom back the president while oth
ers believe Bush has not done enough
on the diplomatic front
Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle, D-S.D., who was not invited
to the Rose Garden event with Bush,
said he wanted the resolution to
more fully spell out the administra
tion’s strategy regarding Iraq.
“I continue to believe that the final
resolution should include greater
emphasis on eliminating Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction, a
stronger statement that operations
against Iraq will not undermine the
ongoing international effort against
al-Qaida, and a clear assessment of
the administration’s plans for ... a
post-Saddam Iraq,” said Daschle in a
statement issued by his office.
Senate Foreign Relations Chair
man Joe Biden, D-Del., has unsuc
cessfully been pushing a resolution
that would require that Bush work
through the United Nations before
launching mi attack.
However, Biden has been undercut
by others in his party, including Sen.
Joseph Licberman, D-Conn.. who in
troduced the House resolution lan
guage in the Senate and stood with
the president in the Rose Garden.
Lieberman said that while the Sen
ate will consider a number of alterna
tive resolutions, “in the end, this res
olution will pass in the Senate with a
very large, bipartisan majority.”
Lili’s winds reach 145 MPH
Mike Tolson
Hearst Newspapers
HOUSTON — As Hurricane Lili
gained speed and fury with each
passing hour, thousands of fright
ened coastal residents in Texas and
Louisiana fled inland Wednesday.
Unwilling to take their chances
with the second major storm in a
week to target the area, people from
Port Arthur to Lafayette, La., paid
heed to suggestions to evacuate.
Lili was expected to barrel ashore
today in south-central or southwest
ern Louisiana. Its steady winds of
145 mph earned it a Category 4 des
ignation — ripe with deadly and dev
astating potential.
Most of the Texas coast escaped se
rious concern. But officials in Orange
and Jefferson counties spent the day
overseeing evacuation efforts. High
ways in East Texas were clogged with
refugees in search of shelter.
Forecasters with the National
Hurricane Center predicted Lili,
compact and well-defined, would
gradually veer to the north and make
landfall this afternoon near New
Iberia, La.
It will be preceded by a storm
surge of 10-20 feet, they warned, as
well as by numerous rain bands
dumping from 6 to 10 inches on land
still soggy from last week’s Tropical
Storm Isidore.
Though less likely, a Texas landfall
near the Golden Triangle remained
a possibility. Gov. Rick Perry signed
a precautionary disaster declaration
late Tuesday to speed up state and
federal assistance to areas likely to
be affected by the storm.
“Hurricane Lili will cause a great
deal of damage wherever it hits,”
Perry said.
A hurricane warning covered a
stretch of the Gulf Coast from east of
High Island to the mouth of the Mis
sissippi River. Tropical storm Warn
er1 ^ ■ it» ^ m-m
ings went much farther, to Freeport
on the west and to the Alabama
coast on the east.
Unlike Isidore, a once-menacing
hurricane that was reduced to a mid
dling tropical storm by its journey
across the Gulf of Mexico, Lili has
grown in danger over the past 48
hours since sideswiping Jamaica and
clipping Cuba’s western tip.
The air pressure in Lili’s center —
one measure of a storm’s ferocity —
dropped to 938 millibars by mid-day
Wednesday, low enough to place it
among the top 20 of the most in
tense storms on record. Seas near
the storm were running 25 feet.
“This is going to be a very, very
dangerous hurricane,” said Krissy
Williams, a meteorologist with the
National Hurricane Center in Flori
da. “This is the type of storm where
everybody along the coast definitely
needs to evacuate, especially if you
are in low-lying areas.”
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