Party rift widens

The warning, delivered by Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a graduation address at Tufts University, laid bare a widening rift between the president and moderate Republicans, who are increasingly concerned by the escalating conflict in Iraq and fraying US relations with traditional allies.

Bush rushed to Capitol Hill Thursday in a bid to persuade members of his party that, despite increasing violence, his Iraq policy will eventually bear fruit as well as to reassure them about sagging opinion polls, some of which show presidential approval ratings in the low 40s.

Tap Here to Add The Daily Star As A Trusted Source

But Lugar's speech Saturday indicated the pep rally did little to assuage the deep concern about the overall direction of US foreign policy harbored by the Indiana Republican.

"Unless the United States commits itself to a sustained program of repairing and building alliances, expanding trade, pursuing resolutions to regional conflicts, supporting democracy and development worldwide, and controlling weapons of mass destruction, we are likely to experience acts of catastrophic terrorism that would undermine our economy, damage our society, and kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people," the chairman warned.

Taking military action against terrorists and their supporters and improving homeland defence "are not the same as executing a global strategy designed to overcome terrorism," Lugar said.

"The war on terrorism will not be won through attrition -- particularly since military action will often breed more terrorists and more resentment of the United States," he admonished.

The comments appear to be in stark contrast with the doctrine of pre-emption laid out by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, under which success in the war on terror can only be achieved by taking it to the enemy.

Vice President Richard Cheney reaffirmed this approach just last Friday, saying at a fundraiser in Texas, "We will engage the enemy, facing him with our military in Afghanistan and Iraq today, so we do not have to face him with armies of firefighters, police, and medical personnel on the streets of our own cities."

But while he never challenged the administration directly, Lugar seemed to take issue with the doctrine as he decried what he called heavy reliance "on military options and unilateral approaches that weakened our alliances."