DEBATE DELAYED?

December 16, 1998
		On the eve of a scheduled House impeachment vote, the president ordered a military attack against Iraq. After a background report, NewsHour analysts Mark Shields and Paul Gigot assess the implications of the president's decision on the impeachment proceedings.

Full coverage of the impeachment hearings. Full coverage of Strikes Against Iraq. Nov. 25, 1998: A discussion on ousting Saddam Hussein. Dec. 11, 1998: Shields & Gigot react to the impeachment hearings. Dec. 4, 1998: Shields & Gigot on the impeachment hearings. Dec. 1, 1998: The House impeachment inquiry focuses on the consequences of perjury. Nov. 27, 1998: President Clinton answers questions about the Lewinsky matter put to him by the House Judiciary Committee. Nov. 27, 1998: Shields & Gigot on the 81 questions. Nov. 25, 1998: A discussion on ousting Saddam Hussein. Nov. 20, 1998: Shields and Gigot on the impeachment hearings and the resignation of Sam Dash. Jan. 22, 1998: The presidential scandal in historical context. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Shields & Gigot, the White House, and Strikes Against Iraq.   Independent Counsel Impeachment Report U.S. House Of Representatives Impeachment Inquiry White House The U.N. Office of the Iraq Programme UNSCOM	MARGARET WARNER: And for more on this story we go to Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. First of all, Paul, what do you tell us about the House and tomorrow, are they going to go ahead with this or not?
	Vote postponed?
	PAUL GIGOT: Well, as of now they are, but I would be surprised, frankly, if after tonight they - later tonight they didn't decide to postpone it at least until early next week. I think a lot of the Republicans feel that it would not do them any good or the debate any good to go on when Americans are in harm's way. It's certainly in the beginning stages of the campaign. MARGARET WARNER: Do you think the president made a politically persuasive case, Mark, a case that the public and the members of Congress will accept, but the timing here of the attack had nothing to do with the looming impeachment vote? MARK SHIELDS: I think that's an awfully uphill fight for him at this point, Margaret. I think the whole atmosphere in Washington has been poisoned; there's no question about it. I've never seen such open skepticism toward any presidential decision as I heard today. And I think it's a tough sell. Now, the sight of it is one that Joe Lieberman was making, that - this is a president who was a smart, adroit, political figure. His harshest critics stipulate that, and he certainly took that into consideration when he made this decision that there would be such skepticism. PAUL GIGOT: The president, I thought, made a good case about - on the behalf of bombing Iraq. He made a much less persuasive case for doing it now. I mean, the allies were for it six months - six weeks ago. The military was in line six weeks ago. A lot of things were in train - his advisers had told him to go ahead six weeks ago, and he didn't, and I think that's where you see the enormous skepticism just below the surface and sometimes with Senator Lott bubbling up above the surface. MARGARET WARNER: Gerald Solomon, who's chairman of the House Rules Committee, congressman from New York, he went so far as to go before the cameras today and actually accuse the president of deliberately delaying this to get more leverage, but could this actually backfire politically on the president?
	Skeptics.
	MARK SHIELDS: I don't think so, I really don't - I think that John McCain, the Senator from Arizona, backed the president on this. I think there is initial skepticism. There was no question; there was momentum building in the House to push to this impeachment vote, all the momentum is with the Republicans, this is - Jerry Solomon is a guy who's known for his outbursts - and he is not one of the more restrained members of the Republican caucus. But I think he was speaking for several members when he said it. PAUL GIGOT: I would go a little bit beyond that, because Trent Lott's statement is more significant because he is a leader of the Senate, and his statement was not rash. He had - MARGARET WARNER: There's much more measure than in Solomon's. PAUL GIGOT: And also he had thought about it for a time. He was first and started to talk with Secretary Cohen, Secretary of Defense Cohen on Monday, that something like this might be in line. He talked to the president earlier today, and then Senator Lott had a conference call with fellow members of his leadership, where he told them this is what I'd like to do, this is a statement I'd like to release, and apparently found not enough persuasive resistance to stop him, so he went ahead and did it. And I can't remember - at least in the time I've been in Washington - where a leader of the Senate - the majority leader of the opposite of the Senate in advance said, I don't support this policy. It's a really unusual event. MARGARET WARNER: And why? Why did he say it - why did he feel the need to say it as opposed to say taking the approach that Senator Warner just did with Jim, which was to say, of course, we'll discuss the timing and that bears some discussion but we don't - we're not going to question it right now?
	Sen. Lott's statement.
	PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think he wanted to get that statement out first before the bombing started, so that he - now that it's started, I think you'd see him sound a little bit more like Senator Warner. But I think he reflects the deep, deep mistrust that exists in the entire Congress right now about this president's decision and about the timing of this decision. He was speaking to those people and I think he was also speaking to the substance of the policy, wondering why haven't we seen this before, and is this going to be just a 72-hour bombing, or is it going to be something that's sustained and that will really make a difference in Iraq. MARK SHIELDS: I think - I think - I disagree with Paul here, quite frankly, but if you're talking about the president not going to war earlier, I think there's always an argument against - against going to war. And I think that that's finally a president's decision. He had uniform backing for the military on this. He is, I think, quite frankly, in a difficult position, but he has the backing not only of the United Nations but of our allies on it, and there's no question that Saddam has run out the string, that he's exhausted all world - any world opinion in his favor. And I don't think six weeks - six weeks - I think it's a question right now of the United States is - and men and women are at risk. Trent Lott will be mute from this point forward, I can assure you. He will be reminded of this statement, but he will not say a word about it, because when Americans are at risk and especially those who have not been at risk themselves, are well served by keeping quiet. MARGARET WARNER: How bad did it look for the White House before this, in other words on the impeachment front, and to ask a crass political question, will this delay help the president? PAUL GIGOT: Your last point - I don't know if it will or not - MARGARET WARNER: Given more time on this.
	Slowing the momentum?
	PAUL GIGOT: Certainly it shakes things up a bit. It stops what had been the momentum - strong momentum towards a majority for impeachment. There was not, however, a numerical majority of declared pro-impeachment vote, so numerically, the president could - could still prevail. But the momentum, especially among the fence-sitting Republicans, was such that it would be very hard. It was going to be very hard for him to prevail, and I don't know if four days or six days makes a difference. MARK SHIELDS: 99 percent of the votes for impeachment will be Republicans; 99 percent of the votes against impeachment will be Democrats. It is a totally partisan process. It is not going to change. I don't think that's going to change the votes for the president. I think if Henry Hyde and some of those who were urging - according to my best reporting today - to postpone the vote I think probably served the party well, because you don't want to be voting this, in spite of Bill McCollum's infelicitous statement that the Congress from Florida - that Congress should be able to walk, dance, and chew gum at the same time, or they could impeach the president at the same time he was commander-in-chief. I think that was an inappropriate and probably unhelpful remark for his party, but I don't think it's going to change any votes, and I don't think the President's position is going to change any votes on the Democratic side. MARGARET WARNER: Do you think, Paul, that if the bombing continues over several days, many days, the House would hold off until the bombing's stopped, or do you think that they give it a little window and then go ahead? PAUL GIGOT: I think it's going to be very hard for the Congress to vote on this if there's still a campaign going on, to be honest. Now, if it extends - if he's going to do this right to the end of when the Congress ends, which is in early January, then I think it may be a different story, because, remember, then the whole Congress changes and they have five fewer votes. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thank you both very much.