EMERSON SAYS U.S ATTACK WARRANTED

President Clinton did "the right thing" in ordering a retaliatory missile strike on Baghdad in response to an Iraqi plot to assassinate former president George Bush, U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson said Monday.

But the Cape Girardeau Republican cautioned against comparing Saturday's cruise missile attack with Bush's actions in the Persian Gulf War.

"There is a vital difference in the magnitude and the issues of Desert Storm versus the very limited action that was taken on Saturday to deal with Baghdad," said Emerson.

"This bears absolutely no relationship to Desert Storm," he said. "This does not make President Clinton a foreign policy or military genius. It merely means in this one instance he did the right thing."

Emerson expressed doubt that the missile strike would aid Clinton in passage of a controversial budget bill or increase the Democratic president's standing with the American people. The congressman said the deficit-reduction legislation involving new taxes still remains an "onerous budget."

As to the military action, Emerson said: "I think it was measured and appropriate and that we could have done nothing else. I support the president in this action. He correctly summed it up when he said this threat on our former president is a threat on our country, and it cannot stand unchecked."

The congressman added that Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill are backing the president's action. "I haven't heard any dissent."

Emerson said he wasn't surprised by the U.S. action against Iraq. "I think he (Clinton) had to do something. This was what he could do without putting American lives in harm's way."

It's hard to predict whether the tough message delivered by the U.S. attack is getting through to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Emerson said. "Hussein is a macho-type person, very erratic in temperament and action.

"I think unless we do retaliate, as we have done in this instance, that he becomes emboldened by the lack of response," said Emerson.

Republican Senate leader Bob Dole has contrasted the U.S. response to Iraq with the lack of any concrete U.S. action in the civil war in Bosnia.

But Emerson said he would not compare the ethnic strife in Bosnia with the situation in Iraq. "The Bosnian situation is indeed more complex. The Bosnian situation has roots going back 600 years."

He said he doesn't believe the U.S. should act independently of its European allies in the Bosnian situation. By contrast, he said, the U.S. acted properly in proceeding on its own in the attack on Baghdad.