The Gulf It's All in the Wording

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Though approval of a resolution appeared likely, it was uncertain whether the language would be as timely or as forceful as Bush and Baker would like. Bush would go no further than to say that "there is a chance" the resolution will be adopted this week. If so, it would give a boost to his policy on the home front as well. The Senate Armed Services Committee opens hearings on gulf policy this week, to be followed shortly by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and, next week, by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congress has been demanding a voice in any decision to fight Iraq; 45 House Democrats went so far as to file a lawsuit asking the federal courts to enjoin Bush from committing U.S. forces to combat without prior authorization from Congress. A U.N. use-of-force resolution could encourage Congress to grant such authorization. "It would have some significant impact if the United Nations granted such a resolution," said House Speaker Thomas Foley, one of several leaders who accompanied Bush on his Thanksgiving visit to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Senate Republican leader Bob Dole, another of that group, said if the U.N. resolution passed, he would urge Bush to call the full Congress into special session to vote a domestic version. There is a serious question, however, about just what the U.N. resolution would say. Spanish Foreign Minister Francisco Fernandez Ordonez, speaking to reporters at the CSCE, disclosed that the U.S. was seeking a two-part resolution: the first part would set a deadline for Iraq to comply with previous U.N. demands that it get out of Kuwait; the second would authorize member nations to use "any means necessary" to compel compliance if the deadline is not met. When Bush broached the idea of such a resolution to him, French President Mitterrand declared, "I said yes." But Mitterrand added that there would and should be no "automatisme" about the resolution. The apparent meaning: rather than starting to bomb without further ado once the deadline passed, the U.S. would be obliged to consult, presumably with the U.N.'s military staff committee, about what kind of military action to take and when.

The Soviet attitude is even more unsure. U.S. and Soviet officials canceled a Bush-Gorbachev press conference that they had scheduled in Paris, obviously because the two Presidents, dining together, had failed to agree on a use-of- force resolution. Both sides then scrambled to deny any impression of a ( serious split. Bush declared that he and Gorbachev "see eye to eye," and any differences are "extraordinarily minor." Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze both said the Security Council needed to take further action against Iraq, but neither would use what journalists have begun to call "the F word." At a hastily scheduled press conference back in Moscow, Gorbachev dismissed talk of a rift with Bush and suggested, with a smile, that U.S. reporters were "trying to find some crack" in the coalition. Nonetheless, the Soviet President continued to dodge questions about whether he would support a use-of-force resolution.