BY RON FOURNIER
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton struggled Wednesday with two of the most profound issues a president can ever face: war and impeachment.
In a blur of high-stakes meetings, Mr. Clinton ordered military strikes against Iraq while making last-resort plans in his effort to avoid impeachment in the House. The two tracks of crises converged in dramatic fashion for an Oval Office address Wednesday evening, as the president explained his decision and addressed skepticism about his motives.
“Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face them down.” They were wrong, he said.
Several Republicans didn't wait for the bombs to drop to accuse Mr. Clinton of manufacturing the showdown to boost his political standing at the brink of a House vote on impeachment. They risked a backlash by breaking with tradition to criticize an American military strike so quickly.
And Mr. Clinton risked emboldening Republicans if there is a widespread view that the strikes were politically motivated.
“It's certainly rather suspicious timing,” said Rep. Tillie Fowler, R-Fla. “I think the president is shameless in what he would do to stay in office.”
“He's playing politics with national security,” said GOP consultant Alex Castellanos.
“What he's doing here,” said leading conservative activist Paul Weyrich, “is more of an impeachable offense than anything he is being charged with in Congress.”
Without mentioning the critics, Mr. Clinton said the timing was driven by the need to catch Mr. Hussein by surprise and avoid military action during a Muslim holiday. He said twice that his entire national security team signed off on the decision. Defense Secretary William Cohen, a former GOP senator, said he was “prepared to put 30 years of public service on the line” to defend the attack.
Democrats were outraged that Mr. Clinton's motives were being questioned.
Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., called the GOP reaction to strikes against Iraq “as close to a betrayal of the interests of the United States as I've ever witnessed in the United States Congress. It's unforgivable and reprehensible.”
Americans showed some skepticism when the United States attacked alleged terrorist facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan days after Mr. Clinton's August grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky case. Polls showed about one-third of Americans suspected those attacks were diversionary tactics.
Yet independent pollster Andrew Kohut chalks those figures up to anti-Clinton voters who never trust him.
“I think people can keep the (impeachment) predicament and Iraq in separate sides of their brain,” he said.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said GOP leaders could lose momentum now that the vote scheduled for today has been postponed because of the airstrikes. Party moderates, falling one-by-one in line behind the pro-impeachment leadership this week, could get skittish about public opinion polls that already show little support for ousting Mr. Clinton.
In all of this, Mr. Clinton suffers from a lack of credibility. Did he lie under oath? Did he lie about the need for going toe-to-toe with Mr. Hussein?
“Both the timing and the policy are subject to question,” Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said, objecting to the military strike even after talking to Mr. Clinton and being promised that there was no connection between the day's twin troubles — impeachment and Iraq.
