Washington ? Another senior Republican lawmaker voiced unease Wednesday about the rush toward war with Iraq and called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to defend the Bush administration’s rationale for military action when Congress returns next week from its monthlong recess.

Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued his call two days after Vice President Dick Cheney laid out the administration’s most forceful case yet for ousting Saddam Hussein, triggering alarm around the world. Cheney argued that the Iraqi dictator presents a clear and present danger of using weapons of mass destruction against the United States and its allies. But independent experts and most world governments including U.S. allies question whether there is evidence to back up those assertions.

“There appears to be a ‘gap’ in the facts possessed by the executive branch and the facts possessed by the legislative branch,” Warner said in a letter to committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., asking him to seek Rumsfeld’s testimony.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Rumsfeld looks forward to testifying before Congress in coming months.

The White House repeatedly has promised to “consult” Congress and U.S. allies before taking military action against Iraq, but has not said whether it wants lawmakers to vote on the question. White House lawyers maintain that Bush possesses the legal authority to attack Iraq and needs no approval from Congress. President George Bush, the current president’s father, asked for and won formal approval from Congress in 1991 to attack Iraq in the Persian Gulf War.

“We have and will continue to consult with Congress, as well as our friends and allies, as we move forward,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday at Bush’s Texas ranch. He said the White House welcomed Warner’s call for hearings, saying they would be “part of a healthy discussion on how we move forward in Iraq. We look forward to participating and being cooperative with Congress as those hearings are held.”

Levin said he had not yet decided whether to have hearings on Iraq.

Much of the skepticism on Capitol Hill about invading Iraq comes from the president’s fellow Republicans. Indeed, some of the strongest dissents have come from top former aides to his father, including former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State James Baker.

Scowcroft warned that attacking Iraq now would jeopardize the more-important global war on terrorism by angering needed allies, and he and Baker called for Bush to work instead with the United Nations to send new weapons inspectors into Iraq. “There is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time,” Scowcroft observed in a Wall Street Journal opinion article.