President Bush addressed nearly 200 nations gathered for the annual General Assembly of the United Nations yesterday.

He warned that if the UN doesn’t enforce the resolutions demanding Iraq to disarm, the United States will take action on its own.

He said: “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.”

Bush also said: “the United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people.” As London Independent reporter Robert Fisk points out, President Reagan said the US “had no quarrel with the Libyan people” before the US bombed Libya in 1985. Bush the First used the words again, before he bombed Iraq in 1991. And George W. Bush used those words before he bombed Afghanistan.

President Bush outlined a series of complaints against the Iraqi government. He said Iraq has violated UN resolutions, committed human rights violations, and lied about its weapons program.

But Bush offered no new evidence that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq’s UN Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri said President Bush had delivered the “longest series of fabrications that has ever been told by a leader of a nation.” He said the speech was an attempt to divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and that the US is out to target any independent nation that refuses to adhere to US policy. He said the speech is a pretext for invasion.

Tape:

• President Bush, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly.

Guests:

• Robert Fisk, reporter, London Independent.
• Hans von Sponeck, former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq.
• Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector.
• Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois.
• Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va