Bush Criticizes Draft Congressional Resolution on Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, October 02, 2002

Bush Criticizes Draft Congressional Resolution on Iraq

US President George W. Bush on Tuesday criticized a proposed alternative draft congressional resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq, saying the draft resolution would tie his hands.

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US President George W. Bush on Tuesday criticized a proposed alternative draft congressional resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq, saying the draft resolution would tie his hands.

"I don't want to get a resolution which ties my hands," Bush told reporters after meeting at the White House with US lawmakers on terrorism insurance.

The alternative draft resolution proposed by US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and senior Republican Senator Richard Lugar would limit the use of force on Iraq by US president.

Bush criticized the draft resolution as weaker than 1998 legislation that declared that US policy for Iraq is regime change and said a congressional resolution should send "a clear signal that this country is determined to disarm Iraq and thereby bring peace to the world."

He said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein poses a greater threat now than he did in 1998 so "there needs to be a strong, new resolution for us."

"All of us recognize a military option is not the first choice," Bush said. "Disarming this man is because he poses a true threatto the United States, and we have just got to work together to get something done."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters Bush believes that the Biden-Lugar draft ties his hands, "because it pulls back from many of the provisions that Congress itself cited in 1998, such as requiring or demanding of Iraq to cease their support for terror, to stop oppression of his own people, to cease threatening his neighbors."

"Those are three of the specifics that have been in previous contained bipartisan drafts what the Congress passed and also what the United Nations has spoken to and supported that would not be found in the too-narrow Biden-Lugar proposal," Fleischer said at a White House press briefing.

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