Posted on 09/12/2002 12:38:40 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
President George W Bush told the 2002 United Nations General Assembly that the regime of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein today poses one of the gravest threats to international peace and security. Speaking before dignitaries from more than 180 nations, President Bush warned that the days of Iraq flaunting UN Security Council resolutions must end:
"My nation will work with the UN Security Council to meet our common challenge. If Iraq's regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately, decisively to hold Iraq to account. We will work with the UN Security Council for the necessary resolutions, but the purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced, the just demands of peace and security will be met or action will be unavoidable and a regime that lost its legitimacy will also lose its power."
Iraq's delegation, headed by its UN ambassador Mohammed Aldouri listened intently, taking notes throughout the speech. Baghdad's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, also in New York to attend the General Assembly, boycotted the session.
Sabri will address the United Nations next week.
Ironically, seated next to the Iraqis were the Iranians who nodded in agreement when Bush insisted that Security Council demands must be enforced.
Just behind them sat the Kuwaitis, whose foreign minister smiled when the President insisted that the fate of more than 600 Kuwaitis MIA's must be addressed by Baghdad.
Their fate has remained a subject of controversy for more than a decade.
In his address, Bush noted how Afghanistan met its terrorist challenges by rebuilding with a new democratically based government. That, Bush hinted, could be a model for a future Iraq.
Coincidentally, Afghan president Hamid Karzai was one of several heads of state who attended the Bush address.
The Bush speech departed from those of past UN presidential addresses in that it centered almost entirely on Iraq, rather than speaking on a variety of world issues.
As the President ticked off a list of repeated Iraqi atrocities, such as the use of chemical and biological weapons on its Kurdish population, the use of Scud missiles on Israeli and Saudi Arabian cities, the invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990 and the attacks on Shiites in southern Iraq, he warned:
"Events can turn one of two ways: If we fail to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq will continue to live in brutal submission. The regime will have new power to bully, dominate and conquer its neighbors, condemning the middle east to more years of bloodshed and fear......With every step the Iraqi regime takes towards gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons our own options to confront that regime will narrow."
Bush went on to raise the prospect of an ominous future with a defiant Iraq:
"If an emboldened regime were to supply these (unconventional) weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September 11 will be prelude to far greater horrors."
The somber 26 minute presentation, brought polite, but restrained applause from the assembly.
As Bush concluded his remarks, the U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State Colin Powell and White House National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice quickly exited the chamber to begin a round of high level meetings to follow up on the presidential address.
The foreign ministers of the Security Council's five permanent members: US, UK, Russia, France and China will meet privately on Friday to discuss the next steps to address the Iraq crisis.
F'em and the camels they rode in on ... they can live on camel dung as far as I am concerned.
Wow, tough talk. Saddam must be trembling in his boots.
Who elso might Bush be addressing besides Hussein?
Who else might Bush be addressing besides Hussein?
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