Bush Gets Solid Backing From Congress : Deployment: Lawmakers say the threat of Iraq gaining control of world oil supplies justifies putting U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.

Congressional leaders lined up solidly Wednesday behind President Bush’s decision to deploy forces in Saudi Arabia, agreeing that the threat of Iraqi control of world oil supplies justifies putting U.S. troops at risk.

“American interests and our longstanding ties with Saudi Arabia make the President’s decision to help defend Saudi Arabia the correct one,” said Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.). “It is important for the nation to unite behind the President in this time of challenge to American interests.”

Even frequent critics of Bush Administration foreign policy were lavish in their praise. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) lauded Bush for having “skillfully worked with other nations to isolate Iraq and apply maximum diplomatic and economic pressure to reverse Iraq’s illegal seizure of Kuwait.”

Such unreserved endorsement contrasted sharply with other episodes in which the United States committed large troop contingents to defend its interests in the Middle East. In 1983, when President Ronald Reagan stationed more than 1,200 U.S. troops in Beirut as part of a multinational peacekeeping force, Congress and the White House wrangled for months, with lawmakers demanding a say in the issue and Reagan asserting his right to conduct foreign policy without interference.

Tensions between the two branches of government were at a boil when a truck driven by a terrorist exploded in October, 1983, killing 241 Americans who had been sleeping in a Marine barracks in Beirut.

Ultimately, the entire policy was regarded as a fiasco, and many in Congress regretted not having acted more forcefully to bring the troops home. Congress invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution for the first time, demanding that Reagan discontinue the operation or get congressional approval, and the President agreed to a timetable for withdrawing the troops.

Four years later, when Reagan provided U.S. Navy escorts to Kuwaiti oil tankers, many in Congress protested and both houses passed symbolic resolutions calling for a delay in the high-risk policy. However, critics of the operation failed to win approval of binding legislation.

No such doubts seem to have arisen this time, primarily because many lawmakers believe that the United States’ economic future may hang in the balance.

“Simply put, if we allow Saddam (Hussein, the Iraqi president) to control half the world’s oil reserves, he will control our economy--determining our rate of inflation, our interest rates, our rate of growth. He would have a knife to our jugular,” House Armed Services Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) said.

“Politically and economically, we cannot permit the vast resources of the Persian Gulf to be controlled by this one person,” Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) added.

For the time being, U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia are expected to act as a deterrent against an Iraqi invasion, giving economic sanctions time to pressure the Iraqi leader into withdrawing from Kuwait. However, some in Congress expressed concern about the vulnerability of U.S. troops if the Iraqis are not daunted by their presence.

“They’re a deterrent unless there’s an attack,” Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer (D-Pa.) said. “But then what happens? My concern is that if there is an invasion, what are the American troops on the ground going to be able to do?”

“If Iraqi forces attack American forces,” Aspin said, “then Iraq is at war with the United States, and that is a whole different ball game”--one that would require a much larger commitment of U.S. troops. Under those circumstances, Aspin added, he would advise the forces in Saudi Arabia now to “get in those jeeps and get out of there.”

Few seemed to expect the troops to be coming home soon. “The sanctions, the embargo and the economic stranglehold we hope to get around the neck of Saddam Hussein will take some time,” Hyde said.

Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee, told reporters that he is “very strongly” in favor of the troop deployment but added that he does not believe Bush is putting enough emphasis on diplomatic moves to enlist the aid of other Arab states.

While lawmakers expressed virtually unanimous support for Bush’s move, there was some dissent from other quarters, mostly conservative.

“It’s wrong for the President to put a moral spin on this issue as he tried to do today,” said Leon Hadar, an international relations professor at American University and a Cato Institute scholar who is writing a book on Middle East policy.

“This is not a part of a crusade for democracy. There are three things in the Middle East--sand, Arabs and oil--and our only interest relates to oil,” he said.

“The Administration is not paying attention to the way radicalism is now sweeping the Arab world,” continued Hadar, an American citizen of Israeli origin. “This can cause popular upheavals throughout the Arab world. And it could lead to a Jordanian-Israeli confrontation.”

Frank Gafney, director of the Center for Security Policy, said: “Bush was awfully late taking any action, but what he’s done so far has been sound. My only reservation is that it isn’t clear that Bush is actually going to implement what he said--to remove Saddam Hussein. Holding the line at the Kuwaiti border is not enough.”

Washington Bureau Chief Jack Nelson and staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.

RECENT U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS 1965 March 8-9--First U.S. combat forces in Vietnam. About 3,500 Marines joined the 23,500 other Americans serving as advisers in South Vietnam. April 28--President Lyndon B. Johnson sent 20,000 troops to Dominican Republic after civil war broke out. American forces, whose mission was ostensibly to protect American lives, fought against rebels. About 2,000 Dominicans and 20 American soldiers were killed before peace was restored and elections held. U.S. troops withdrew the following year. 1970 April 29--A military invasion of Cambodia, called an “incursion” by the White House. A combined U.S. and South Vietnamese force of about 50,000 crossed the border. 1975 April--Final pullout of U.S. troops from Vietnam. 1980 April 24--An attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran ended in disaster. Three of eight helicopters in the airborne operation failed. During the withdrawal one of the remaining helicopters collided with one of the six C-130 transports, killing eight and injuring five. U.S. sent military advisers to El Salvador to counter Cuban aid to leftist rebels as that nation slid toward civil war. 1982 Aug. 20--As part of a multinational contingent to oversee withdrawal of PLO fighters, about 800 U.S. Marines landed in Beirut. The Marines were withdrawn on Sept. 10, but they returned to Lebanon on Sept. 29 following massacres of hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps and a Lebanese request for assistance. The following year, suicide truck bombings in Beirut killed 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 French paratroopers of multinational force. 1983 Oct. 25--U.S. invaded the eastern Caribbean island of Grenada on pretext of rescuing American medical students. Hard-line junta that took power from another Marxist government in a bloody coup was ousted in the invasion. Initial U.S. forces involved 1,900 U.S. Marines and Army Rangers. Later reinforced with about 5,000 troops of 82nd Airborne Division. U.S. toll put at 19 dead, 115 wounded. All American combat troops were withdrawn within two months, and remaining advisers left in 1985. 1984 Feb. 7--President Reagan announced the withdrawal of U.S. Marines from Beirut. The troops were completely out by Feb. 29. 1986 March 24--A clash between U.S. and Libya occurred in the Gulf of Sidra after Libyan shore installations launched missiles at a U.S. fleet on maneuvers in the gulf. U.S. missiles damaged the Libyan missile site and destroyed two patrol boats. April 14--U.S. launched an air strike against Libya in retaliation for Libya’s involvement in a terrorist bombing of a West Berlin discotheque on April 5. Sixteen U.S. F-111s flying from Britain were joined by U.S. carrier-based fighter-jets in attacks on five military bases near Tripoli and Benghazi. 1988 April 18--In what President Reagan termed a measured response to renewed Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf during Iran’s war with Iraq--specifically a mine that seriously damaged the Navy frigate Samuel B. Roberts, injuring 10 sailors--U.S. naval units were ordered to destroy two oil platforms in the southern Persian Gulf. U.S. loss was a single Marine AH-1 Cobra helicopter with its two-member crew. 1989 Dec. 20--U.S. troops attacked military bases in Panama to oust Gen. Manuel A. Noriega and install a new government. About 14,000 took part in the invasion, joining the 13,000 already stationed there. Twenty-three American troops were killed. Compiled by: Los Angeles Times researcher Tom Lutgen Sources: Associated Press and Encyclopedia of American Facts & Dates