UN told to join US or become irrelevant

The United Nations risks becoming as irrelevant as its predecessor, the League of Nations, unless it does what it resolved to do and enforces a decade of demands it issued to Saddam Hussein.

That’s what President George W. Bush warned in an electrifying and historic speech to the General Assembly on September 12. His basic message to the world was that the U.N. must do its job and prevent future terrible wars by acting quickly against the Iraqi dictator.

In his most effective policy statement yet, Bush cited U.N. resolution after U.N. resolution, chapter and verse, to explain the world’s casus belli against the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad.

To remove any doubts about American moral leadership, the President of the United States didn’t ask the United Nations for permission to act.

Instead, he told the General Assembly that the U.S. will act alone with necessary, and that the U.N. had the responsibility to go along: “We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather. We must stand up for our security, and for the permanent rights and the hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand. And, delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand, as well.”

AP: Bush mocks US lawmakers who want to follow UN rather than lead: “Democrats waiting for the U.N. to act?” Bush asked with chuckle. “I can’t imagine an elected … member of the United States Senate or House of Representatives saying ‘I think I’m going to wait for the United Nations to make a decision’.” Bush added, “It seems like to me that if you’re representing the United States you ought to be making a decision on what’s best for the United States.”

Click here for the text of the president’s U.N. speech.

Click here for White House fact sheets on the president’s case against Saddam: “A Decade of Deception and Defiance”