Kissinger joins protests at Bush plan to attack Iraq

The Bush administration's plans to go to war against Iraq are causing growing disquiet among eminent members of the President's Republican Party, including congressmen, foreign policy veterans and one close confidant of the first President Bush who was deeply involved in the war against Iraq a decade ago.

The names who have come forward this week to express scepticism or outright opposition to a military invasion could not be more high-profile: Henry Kissinger, the primary architect of American foreign and security policy during the second half of the Cold War, who is considered something of a Delphic oracle by many Americans; Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser to George Bush Snr and is still close to the whole Bush family; and Lawrence Eagleburger, another veteran from the Reagan-Bush era who briefly served as Secretary of State after the 1991 Gulf War.

The congressional critics are no slouches either. They include Dick Armey, the influential House majority leader and noted Texas oil lobbyist, and Chuck Hagel, a senator from Nebraska seen as an expert on intelligence and security.

All of these voices are asking the same set of questions: whether the administration has thought through the knock-on effects of an invasion; whether an attack might make Saddam Hussein more inclined to use weapons of mass destruction – if he has them; and what plans, if any, have been drawn up for a post-war settlement to stop America being drawn into a colonial occupation.

All of them are pressing the Bush administration to make its case more clearly and rely less on demonising President Saddam, as Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, did in an interview with BBC Radio 4 this week. Mr Scowcroft, writing in The Wall Street Journal, was perhaps bluntest, saying a war risked undoing all the administration had set out to do since 11 September. An attack on Iraq "would seriously jeopardise, if not destroy, the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken". It also opened the possibility of an exchange of chemical and nuclear weapons between Iraq and Israel, he argued, warning of "Armageddon in the Middle East".

Because of his closeness to the first Bush administration, speculation is widespread that Mr Scowcroft was acting as an ambassador for the President's father, begging the younger George Bush to think again. The New York Times called his intervention "an extraordinary challenge to the Bush administration". The paper added: "Mr Scowcroft's concerns about attacking Iraq were the equivalent of a cannon shot across the White House lawn."

Almost as striking were Mr Eagleburger's remarks, which pointed to the lack of evidence that the Iraqis are close to having or using weapons of mass destruction. "I don't know why we have to do it [the invasion] now, when all our allies are opposed to it," Mr Eagleburger told ABC Television.

Mr Kissinger, writing in The Washington Post, was more sympathetic to the administration's desire to end President Saddam's regime, but he too had criticisms of the administration's apparent proclivity for solving geopolitical problems with military might alone. "America's special responsibility is to work toward an international system that rests on more than military power – indeed, that strives to translate power into co-operation," Mr Kissinger wrote. "Any other attitude will gradually isolate and exhaust America."

What effect such criticisms are having on the President's inner circle of advisers is not clear. Reports have been numerous that Colin Powell, the relatively moderate Secretary of State, has urged the President to develop a more detailed plan for a post-invasion settlement. But how much of the President's confidence Mr Powell enjoys is not certain.

* A federal judge has delayed the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to be charged over the 11 September attacks on the US, to give him more time to review the huge amount of evidence. District Judge Leonie Brinkema granted separate requests by Mr Moussaoui, who is defending himself, and his court-appointed lawyers, for a 60-day delay. Opening statements will now be taken on 6 January. He is accused of conspiracy. Officials suspect he was meant to be the 20th hijacker.