President Bush launches public drive on need to finish off Saddam Hussein

President Bush met with congressional leaders September 4 about his intent to finish off the regime of Saddam Hussein, pledging that he will work with Congress and “our friends in the world” before moving ahead.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair meets soon with Bush at Camp David, and the president will state his case before the United Nations next week, on September 12. “I am going to state clearly to the United Nations what I think,” he said.

“I will first remind the United Nations that for 11 long years, Saddam Hussein has side-stepped, crawfished, wheedled out of any agreement he had made not to harbor — not to develop weapons of mass destruction, agreements he’s made to treat the people within his country with respect. And so I’m going to call upon the world to recognize that he is stiffing the world. And I will lay out and I will talk about ways to make sure that he fulfills his obligations.”

While the White House has yet to issue a fact sheet outlining the president’s position, Vice President Dick Cheney did give two major policy speeches last week before veterans’ organizations, explaining the urgent “regime change” in Iraq. After speaking about health care at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) convention, Cheney made the case for ousting Saddam Hussein as quickly as possible.

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