Bush to speak with U.N. today

WASHINGTON -- Before President Bush goes before the United Nations to make the case for action against Iraq, his administration is facing a tough audience closer to home: Congress.\nSecretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff met for three hours Tuesday with Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander who would lead any military campaign in Iraq. Meanwhile, a push by senior Bush administration officials, including Capitol Hill meetings Tuesday with CIA director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, hasn't convinced key lawmakers that a war is needed.\n"I set the mark very high," House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said. "I will need to see a plan before I will cast a vote. I will need to see it is necessary, and there is a plan that I personally think is fair to the courage we ask of these young people."\nAn important part of any overall plan to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, many lawmakers say, must be that the United States not act alone in its fight against Iraq. On Thursday, Bush will tell the United Nations it cannot stand by while Saddam defies it by barring weapons inspectors and develops chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.\nUnder the agreement that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War and several U.N. Security Council resolutions, Iraq is forbidden to develop weapons of mass destruction and under orders to allow any already in its arsenal to be destroyed.\n"I believe this is an international problem, and that we must work together to deal with the problem," Bush said during an appearance Tuesday at the Afghan Embassy.\nBush linked his goal of toppling Saddam to the war on terror he began after the Sept. 11 attacks a year ago.\n"I'm deeply concerned about a leader who has ignored the United Nations for all these years, refused to conform to resolution after resolution after resolution, who has weapons of mass destruction," Bush said.\nThe administration believes that it has the legal authority under existing U.N. resolutions to take action, but that it needs the political cover of a new resolution, a senior administration official said Wednesday.\nFrench President Jacques Chirac has proposed a pair of U.N. resolutions, one of them giving Iraq a three-week deadline to allow the return of U.N. weapons inspectors with a free hand to do their job. But U.N. chief arms inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council behind closed doors Tuesday that it would take six weeks to get inspectors back into position in Iraq, this official said.\nChirac's second proposed resolution to decide whether to use force would be considered if Iraq refused the first, and would put to the Security Council the question of whether to use military force.\nThe Bush administration favors a single resolution -- one setting a deadline for the return of inspectors, and threatening unspecified action if Iraq refuses, the official said.\nThe "date certain" in the U.S. resolution has not been decided yet. It would permit time to launch an attack, however.\nAnother proposal circulating within the administration would have troops near Iraq ready to pounce immediately upon the rejection of inspectors. But this has not received serious consideration, a senior administration official said.\nBush does not plan to offer new information about an Iraqi threat or recommend any specific actions in his Thursday speech, a senior White House official said on condition of anonymity. Lawmakers said Tenet and Rice gave no new information in the private Capitol Hill meetings.\nOutside experts and U.S. officials say Iraq probably has stocks of chemical and biological weapons and could make a nuclear bomb if it could obtain enough nuclear material. Iraq denies having weapons of mass destruction.\nIn an interview with AP Radio and AP Television News, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said "Sept. 11 should have brought home to us … that you may not have a clear case after the fact." He said "the nature of terrorism is that it operates in the shadows, and it could be a way for a country that wants to do us harm to do it in a semi-anonymous way."\nMany lawmakers say they have yet to be convinced that Iraq poses enough of a threat to justify a pre-emptive strike.\nSen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., gave Tenet a letter asking for a report outlining the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.\nCIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency is studying the senator's request.\nLeaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent Bush a letter that said, "Based on what we have heard to date, there is not yet a consensus on many critical questions."\nThose questions include whether Iraq would be likely to use weapons of mass destruction, what links it has to terrorist groups and whether Iraq could be disarmed without the use of force, said the letter by Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the senior Republican.\nThe senators urged Bush to seek broad international support and to be candid with the American people that Iraq requires a long-term commitment by the United States.\nBush met Tuesday with the prime minister of NATO member Portugal, who cautioned him against acting alone.