Warning that Saddam Hussein poses a grave danger to peace, President Bush said Thursday that world leaders who have been reluctant to confront the threat must "move deliberately and decisively to hold Iraq to account."
"The just demands of peace and security will be met — or action will be unavoidable," Bush gravely warned. "And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power." "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's speech amounted to a challenge to the United Nations to live up to its responsibility. "Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance," Bush said. "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?"
Bush offered to work in concert with other states 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 Saddam.
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 U.S. leader 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 Saddam.
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 stated, "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."
Bush also 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 Saddam 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 Saddam.
"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.
According to AP, 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.
The senior U.S. official said the resolution would demand compliance within weeks, not months. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
