Senators demand vote before any troops deployed to Liberia

WASHINGTON -- The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday they want President Bush to get congressional approval before he sends any U.S. troops to Liberia.

At the same time, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said military leaders would prefer that West African armies take the lead in any effort to end the Liberian conflict and police the peace.

"We're always prepared, in case of U.S. citizens and our folks that are on official duty in the embassy and so forth, to do a noncombatant evacuation of those individuals," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers said.

"Beyond that, I think we'd really like to see the states in the region help with this particular problem," he told "Fox News Sunday."

Bush, who leaves today on a five-nation tour in Africa, has been under growing international pressure to send troops to participate in a peacekeeping force once the rebellion ends. West African nations have said they will provide 3,000 soldiers for the mission but have suggested the United States send 2,000 more.

Bush has said Liberian President Charles Taylor must cede power for peace to come to his country. Taylor accepted an offer Sunday of asylum in Nigeria but would not say when he would quit power. The Bush administration showed little enthusiasm.

White House spokesman Jimmy Orr said: "What the president has said is Mr. Taylor needs to leave and leave soon. He needs to leave so peace can be restored."

About 15 U.S. military civil affairs specialists from European Command headquarters in Germany were leaving late Sunday for Liberia along with a security detail of 10 to 15 more people from a U.S. naval base in Spain, a command spokesman said.

Master Sgt. John Tomassi said the civil affairs team would assess humanitarian needs in Liberia and report back to command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

Bush has set no deadline for a report back from the assessment team, administration officials said. Bush expects the team to talk to U.N. officials and representatives from Liberia and its neighbors, and to present the president with an idea of what kind of help would best aid the country, one official said.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unlikely Bush would decide before his departure this evening whether to send troops.

Sen. John Warner, the Armed Services Committee chairman, said that because of the chaotic conditions of the past few years in Liberia, "We've got to think through very, very carefully the insertion of U.S. forces in there.

"It's a presidential decision, but I would say to the Senate leadership, and most respectfully to the president, I would want a vote in the Congress before we begin to commit substantial forces into that region," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Warner said the size of the deployment would not matter.

"Whether it's 500 Marines, ... a thousand or 2,000, they're going into harm's way," he said. "I think Congress should be a partner and bear the responsibility of this very, very important decision."

The top Democrat on Warner's committee, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, said on NBC that he, too, was concerned about the risk.

"I think, however, that if this is a U.N.-authorized mission, that we surely ought to consider participating in it. But it would be wise, as Senator Warner has mentioned, for there to be a vote of Congress before that is done."

Congressional approval could benefit Bush by forcing lawmakers to share the responsibility for such a mission, but White House officials showed little enthusiasm for such a vote.

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Orr said. "This presupposes the president has made a decision to send troops. He hasn't."

Orr said the president "still has to collect additional information, and is not guided by any artificial timetable or deadline."

Another White House official pointed out that President Clinton did not obtain congressional approval before sending thousands of American peacekeepers to Kosovo in June 1999.

Clinton insisted that as commander in chief he had the authority to deploy troops in peacekeeping missions. Bush, then a presidential candidate, agreed with Clinton's assertion.

Myers, in an interview taped Thursday and broadcast Sunday, said only a few Americans who represent Washington were still in the Liberian capital, along with some other U.S. citizens. "Right now I don't think there's a threat to their well-being," he said.

Myers said if American troops were sent to Liberia, it "would be the hope that it would be of short duration."

Once Taylor has gone, he said, "there has to be some sort of political process then that replaces and provides a government for Liberia. And that probably is in the short term."

Taylor won office in 1997 in what the CIA World Factbook 2002 describes as "free and open" elections. But Bush has demanded that Taylor cede power and suggested that American military assistance was contingent on Taylor doing so.