President Bush declared an abrupt end to United Nations diplomacy over Iraq on Monday, warning Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave the country or face a U.S.-led invasion.
The president delivered his ultimatum in a somber speech from the White House East Wing, saying, “All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.”
The president is expected to address the nation again to further make the case for why the United States, Britain and a handful of allies are launching a war even though the UN has not endorsed the mission, aides said. That speech could come as the invasion is getting under way.
The Department of Homeland Defense immediately raised the color-coded terrorism alert level to orange, which means U.S. government officials believe there is a “high risk” of terrorist attack. The level had been at yellow, or “elevated.”
Security at the nation’s airports, seaports and other critical infrastructure also was being increased, Bush said.
Bush spoke after the U.S., Britain and Spain decided not to seek a vote in the UN Security Council on their resolution authorizing war in Iraq. The three nations blamed France for dooming the resolution’s chances by promising to veto it, but the French said the resolution lacked support from most of the Security Council members, who wanted to give UN weapons inspectors more time to do their work.
In his 15-minute address, Bush stressed that diplomatic negotiations with Hussein over the dismantling of his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs have been going on since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. But at every turn, he said, “the Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage.”
Bush insisted Monday that he would push ahead without the UN because the U.S. was directly threatened by the possibility that Iraq would funnel weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. He said the U.S. has the “sovereign authority” to take such action.
“These governments share our assessment of the danger but not our resolve to meet it,” Bush said of the UN member states that oppose an immediate invasion.
“The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities. So we will rise to ours.”
Message to the Iraqis
Speaking directly to the Iraqi people, Bush gave assurances that the military coalition was targeting only Hussein and his military forces, not the populace itself. The president pledged that a flow of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid would begin quickly after the invasion began.
“The tyrant will soon be gone,” Bush said. “The day of your liberation is near.”
He also warned Iraqi military leaders that if they obeyed orders to use chemical or biological agents against U.S. and British forces or their own civilians, they would be tried as war criminals.
While a number of world leaders have urged Bush to give weapons inspectors more time to find and dismantle any weapons of mass destruction held by Iraq, Bush said such delays only play to Hussein’s advantage.
“We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater,” he said. “In one year or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over.”
Bush sought to heighten the sense of urgency over Iraq by alluding to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.
“In the 20th Century, some chose to appease murderous dictators whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war,” Bush said. Today, with authoritarian regimes possessing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, he added, “a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this Earth.”
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned Bush that an invasion of Iraq without an explicit endorsement by the international community would be a violation of the UN charter and possibly international law.
But Bush said Monday that UN resolutions dating to the 1991 gulf war, which authorized the use of all necessary means to defeat Iraq and then spelled out conditions for Iraq’s surrender, provided a legal basis for the invasion. Bush also noted that Congress approved the use of force against Iraq last year.
“This is not a question of authority,” he said. “It is a question of will.”
Diplomatic efforts end
Bush’s ultimatum to Hussein came 24 hours after he and his chief allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, met in the Azores islands to announce one final push for a diplomatic solution.
The three leaders said they would give the UN one day to act, but only hours later, on Monday morning, they declared that it already was clear that their proposed UN resolution was dead because France would not drop its veto threat. Bush had said two weeks ago that he would seek a vote on the resolution no matter what, but he decided Monday to withdraw the proposal.
The declaration that diplomacy was finished, and the implication that war preparations would begin in earnest, roiled the world diplomatic community and intensified tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Annan ordered more than 150 UN weapons inspectors and other humanitarian workers and employees to leave Iraq. The United States on Sunday had warned all non-Iraqis to leave Baghdad, saying it would be dangerous to remain.
“Almost every government, and the peoples around the world, had hoped that this issue can be resolved peacefully,” Annan said at the UN. “In the sense that we are not able to do it peacefully, obviously it’s a disappointment and a sad day for everybody. War is always a catastrophe.”
In London, Blair suffered a political setback when a senior Cabinet minister, Robin Cook, quit in protest of Blair’s decision to go to war without UN support. Britian’s Parliament is expected to vote Tuesday on Blair’s war plan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Bush that a war without UN support would be a mistake. France, Germany and other nations opposed to an immediate war said they would continue to press for a diplomatic solution at the UN, despite Bush’s declaration that the time for such action was past.
Turkey could help
In Turkey, officials of the newly elected government said they would reconsider a U.S. request to allow American troops to launch attacks on neighboring Iraq from Turkish soil. Discussions of a resolution granting such access are expected to begin Tuesday.
The Turkish parliament had rejected the U.S. request earlier, leaving military planners scrambling to find an alternative to a linchpin element of their war plans.
John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said a Security Council vote on the resolution authorizing force “would have been close.”
But, he added, “We regret that in the face of an explicit threat to veto [from France], the vote-counting became a secondary consideration.”
