Bush urges action against Iraq
Posted on 09/12/2002 10:17:44 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Bush urges action against Iraq
09/12/2002
UNITED NATIONS - President Bush demanded Thursday that world leaders force Saddam Hussein to destroy his weapons of mass destruction, saying the lives of millions of people will be at risk and the United Nations "will be irrelevant" unless it confronts Iraq.
"The just demands of peace and security will be met -- or action will be unavoidable," Bush warned. "And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power."
AP President Bush addresses the United Nations General Assembly. |
"We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather," Bush told the U.N. General Assembly. "We must stand up for our security and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind."
Bush made his case against the backdrop of widespread hesitation among U.S. allies -- and American lawmakers -- to use force against Baghdad. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan cautioned the United States against taking action on its own without Security Council backing.
Bush's speech amounted to a challenge to the United Nations to live up to its responsibility.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri sat in Iraq's seat in the General Assembly chamber, headphones on, listening to Bush's speech.
 Click to read the White House document outlining Iraqi violations of U.N. mandates. ( Adobe Acrobat Reader required) |
Bush offered to work in concert with other nations on a resolution "to meet our common challenge." And, he said, "if the Iraqi regime defies us again the world must move deliberately and decisively" against the Iraqi leader.
Bush's expression of willingness to act through the United Nations appeared to respond to a growing chorus of opposition to unilateral U.S. military action to topple Hussein.
A senior U.S. official said Secretary of State Colin Powell would work on Friday with the four other permanent members of the Security Council -- Russia, China, France and Britain -- on a resolution that would set a deadline for Iraq to comply with demands that it admit weapons inspectors.
A failure to act, Bush said, would mean betting the lives of millions in a reckless gamble. "And this is a risk we must not take," he declared.
"By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand," the president said. "Delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand, as well!"
Bush said that if Iraq defies a new U.N. resolution demanding the return of inspectors, "the world must move deliberately and decisively" against Hussein.
Before Bush spoke, Annan warned against unilateralism and said any action against Iraq required the legitimacy of U.N. approval.
The senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not say what deadline would be set in a new resolution. But he did say the resolution would demand compliance within weeks, not months.
Already, U.S. military forces are being moved into position to strike against Iraq. Core staff of the U.S. military command responsible for operations in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia will be shifted from their headquarters in Florida to the Gulf nation of Qatar in November, defense officials said Wednesday.
In his speech, Bush denounced Iraq for a decade of defiance of U.N. resolutions calling for weapons inspections and disarmament. "The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace," he said.
On a personal note, Bush said that Iraq's violence and terrorism led to the attempted assassination of his father, former President George H.W. Bush and the emir of Kuwait in 1993.
"Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself," Bush said.
Reflecting long-standing impatience among some Americans with U.N. inaction on various fronts, Bush said, "We created a United Nations Security Council so that -- unlike the League of Nations -- our actions would be more than talk."
In fact, Bush said, "We want the resolutions of the world's most important multinational body to be in force. Right now these resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime."
On another front, Bush reiterated his commitment to establishment of a Palestinian state and "to human dignity challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease" around the world.
Bush backed his call on the other nations to pressure Iraq to comply with a hefty document accusing Hussein of a decade of deception and defiance of 16 U.N. resolutions.
His administration has made clear it feels justified in going it alone if necessary and contends it does not need new legal authority to use force to try to oust Hussein.
"For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein has deceived and defied the will and resolutions of the United Nations Security Council," said the document, circulated in advance of Bush's speech.
It warned that Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb. In the past 14 months, it said, Iraq has tried to purchase thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes that officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to help produce weapons-grade uranium.
Bush wants the nations of the U.N. -- there are 190 of them -- to pressure Hussein to readmit international inspectors after a lapse of more than 3 1/2 years. He wants inspectors to look for hidden arms and then to compel Hussein to disarm.
These demands are rooted in resolutions adopted during and after the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war -- policy declarations which forced Iraq to reverse its annexation of Kuwait. Iraq denies that it is developing weapons of mass destruction.
In a speech to the nation Wednesday night, Bush said, "We will not allow any terrorist or tyrant to threaten civilization with weapons of mass murder."
U.N.-Iraq talks since March have failed to get Hussein to agree to the return of inspectors, who left in December 1998 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes to punish Hussein's government for not cooperating with inspections.
Iraq said it wants to continue the dialogue -- but with a broad agenda on outstanding issues which Annan has rejected.
Britain is solidly in the U.S. camp. But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has dismissed military action as an "adventure" and other foreign leaders have expressed doubts.
At home, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Wednesday that he did not think the time had run out for diplomacy. Moving alone against Iraq would be the worst option, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.
"I will be extremely disappointed if the president goes and enunciates a unilateral approach: 'The world be damned, here we go.' That is not in our interest," Biden said told the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
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