WASHINGTON, 17 March 2003 — US Democrats find themselves divided over the impending war against Iraq as they strive to maximize their party’s chances of regaining the White House in 2004.
The majority of their supporters are against disarming Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by force, especially without the support of the United Nations.
But the party’s standard-bearers for next year’s presidential elections voted in the Senate and the House of Representatives in October in favor of a resolution giving President George W. Bush additional powers to engage in military action against Baghdad.
The vote was aimed in part at preventing Republican attacks that would call into question the Democrats’ patriotism during the campaign for November’s legislative elections.
Most Democrats avoided bring up the war in their public appearances, including senators John Kerry and John Edwards and Representative Dick Gephardt, who supported the resolution. Only a small number have participated in peace demonstrations in the past few months.
Others, however, have openly declared their opposition to military intervention, including Representative Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the Iraq resolution in the House. Non-congressional candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are steadfast opponents to the use of force, such as Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont. Dean has accused Democratic officials of selling their souls in giving Bush free rein to attack Iraq.
Only Sen. Joseph Lieberman, former Vice President Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential race, has thrown his unabashed support behind Bush’s approach toward the war.
The rifts are readily apparent in Congress, where Democratic heavyweights like senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd regularly appeal to the Senate to denounce the race to war and its consequences.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, have focused their attacks on the United States’ isolation in the world. And they warn of deepening budget deficits in the event of war.
Daschle accused Bush of fiscal irresponsibility in proposing a nearly 700-billion-dollar tax cut program which Democrats charge favors the rich, and of flirting with a war whose estimated cost he refuses to reveal.
“What counts is not what happens today or tomorrow or six months from now, but what stands 18 months from now as we are approaching the presidential election,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
“If we go along and if it goes badly, then Bush has no cover, it’s Mr. Bush’s war and Bush will be over,” he predicted. But all Democrats can do now is wait. “The second the first missile is shot, everyone stands and salutes, the presidential campaign is put in the icebox, and you don’t dare politicize anything,” said Democratic consultant Dane Strother.
Meanwhile, a new opinion poll showed seventy-eight percent of Americans believe the United States should work with major allies and international organizations to achieve its foreign policy goals. The survey for Newsweek magazine indicated that only 17 percent of respondents thought the United States would be better off acting on its own. Seventy-nine percent of Americans also believe Washington should take into account the views of its major allies when deciding on its foreign policy, according to the poll, while 52 percent said it should cooperate fully with the United Nations.
Just 33 percent said that since the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, it should go its own way in international matters, not worrying too much about whether other countries agree with it or not. Sixty-two percent of respondents disagreed with that approach.
However, 56 percent of Americans approve of the way President George W. Bush is handling policies to deal with Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, and a large majority, 70 percent, approve of using military force against Iraq, the survey indicated.
More than half of those polled — 57 percent — said that Iraq should be given no more time than the end of this month to voluntarily disarm, including 38 percent who say the Iraqis should have only a few more days. At the same time, 82 percent predicted a US-led war against Iraq would inspire terrorist attacks against American citizens.
Bush’s overall job-approval rating dropped to 53 percent from 61 percent in early February — its lowest level since before Sept. 11, 2001, the Newsweek poll showed. The survey of 1,004 adults conducted March 13-14 had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
