President Bush Calls the UN to Task
Jonathan Rhodes
September 12, 2002
Today, President George Bush went to the United Nations with a single purpose:
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"Yesterday, we remembered the innocent lives taken that terrible morning. Today, we turn to the urgent duty of protecting other lives, without illusion and without fear." |
Charter of the United Nations
CHAPTER I
PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES
Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace
He began with a reminder that the UN was created to prohibit another Hitler.
"The United Nations was born in the hope that survived a world war -- the hope of a world moving toward justice, escaping old patterns of conflict and fear. The founding members resolved that the peace of the world must never again be destroyed by the will and wickedness of any man. We created the United Nations Security Council, so that, unlike the League of Nations, our deliberations would be more than talk, our resolutions would be more than wishes."
And tied Saddam to that prohibition:
"After generations of deceitful dictators and broken treaties and squandered lives, we dedicated ourselves to standards of human dignity shared by all, and to a system of security defended by all. Today, these standards, and this security, are challenged."
President Bush then laid out Iraq's 10 year record of open, bold, hostile refusal to obey or conform to UN Resolutions: He then challenged the UN to fulfill its mission and have the fortitude to enforce its resolutions. [Full text, video]
The White House released a "white paper" report in support of the President's speech titled:
A Decade of Deception and Defiance:
Critics have complained that President Bush offered no "new" information. The fact is that President Bush's intention was not a media moment exposé but a factual call for the clarity of reality. President Bush spoke to the particulars of Saddam's violations of UN Resolutions and sanctions. This is wholly appropriate as he was addressing the UN.
Look at the specific facts in the above white paper. It is the unrelenting litany of an arrogant madman - Saddam Hussein.
Since 1990, Saddam has:
- Ignored or circumvented all 16 UN Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq and 30 UN Security Council Presidential Statements regarding Iraq;
- Continued to pursue WMD's;
- Practiced systematic human rights violations including intentional torture, rape, decapitation, political prisoner executions, ethnic cleansing, child abuse, torture forced military training, forced child labor; support, refuge and amnesty of international terrorists and terrorist groups; execution, torture and imprisonment of POW's
- Refused to respond to UN, Saudi and Kuwaiti requests regarding information on 605 Coalition POW's from Gulf War I, 5,000 Iranian POW's and 11,000 missing from the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
- Destroyed or refused to return military and personal property stolen from Kuwait during the occupation.
- Violated UN Economic Sanctions, diverted dual-use items obtained under the Oil for Food program for military and WMD construction purposes.
Essentially, President Bush told the UN it's credibility is on the line.
"The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?"
President Bush told the world the US will work with the UN:
"My nation will work with the U.N. 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 U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions. If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future. The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond. And we will show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time."
President Bush defined the resolve of the United States:
"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 has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power."
