Bush Plans Unyielding Stance on Iraq War in Address to U.N.
By DAVID E. SANGER The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 President Bush (news - web sites) will tell the
United Nations (news - web sites) on Tuesday that he was right to order
the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) even without the organization's
explicit approval, and he will urge a new focus on countering nuclear
proliferation, arguing that it is the only way to avoid similar
confrontations.
Mr. Bush's unyielding presentation,
described over the weekend by officials
involved in drafting it, will come in a
22-minute speech to the United Nations
General Assembly. Mr. Bush will then
spend the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday
meeting with the leaders of France,
Germany, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan
(news - web sites).
According to the officials involved in drafting
the speech, for an audience they know will
range from the skeptical to the angry, Mr.
Bush will acknowledge no mistakes in
planning for postwar security and
reconstruction in Iraq. Privately, however,
many officials are acknowledging that the
Pentagon (news - web sites) was
unprepared for the scope and duration of the
continuing guerrilla-style attacks against the
American-led alliance and the newly
appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Since Mr.
Bush declared an end to active military
operations on May 1, more than 70
American troops in Iraq have been killed by
hostile fire.
In the speech, Mr. Bush will repeat his call
for nations including those that opposed the
Iraq action to contribute to rebuilding the
country, but he will offer no concessions to
French demands that the major authority for
running the country be turned over
immediately to Iraqis.
"We'll stay on the same schedule" of
drafting a constitution and holding national
elections, one senior official said in an
interview today. Mr. Bush will not discuss a timetable in the speech, but
his aides said in interviews over the weekend that completing the
process by spring or summer would be, in the words of one, "very
ambitious." That assessment is bound to anger European nations that
have demanded a far more accelerated transfer of power.
Mr. Bush made clear in a Fox News interview taped today, to be
broadcast Monday, that he would define a larger role for the United
Nations very narrowly. Asked if he was willing to give the United Nations
more authority in order to obtain a new resolution, he said, "I'm not so
sure we have to, for starters," according to excerpts released by Fox
tonight.
Mr. Bush added that the United Nations could help write a constitution
because "they're good at that." He also said that when it came time for
elections, the United Nations might oversee the process. "That would be
deemed a larger role," he said, but he made clear that he would not
allow any resolution "to get in the way of an orderly transfer of
sovereignty based on a logical series of steps. And that's constitution,
elections and then the transfer of authority."
In final drafts of the speech circulating in the White House, Mr. Bush
never mentions North Korea (news - web sites) and Iran by name, though
those two nations the other members of the "axis of evil" he first
described 20 months ago are racing to obtain nuclear weapons. Mr.
Bush will describe new steps to halt nuclear proliferation as one of the
"next big challenges facing the United Nations," a senior official said
today.
In recent weeks, some senior government officials had expected Mr.
Bush to use his speech to describe a new agenda for strengthening the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, changing provisions that Iran and North
Korea exploited to build up their nuclear capacity. But those proposals
are not ready they have not yet reached the desk of Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell, officials say and have been discussed only in general
terms in the White House.
"Nobody thinks they are ready for prime time," said one official today,
explaining why Mr. Bush will be far less specific about building new rules
for disarming other nations than he was a year ago about disarming Iraq.
Among the issues that the administration is still grappling with, midlevel
officials say, is how to deal with nations, including Israel, that have never
signed the nonproliferation treaty and whether it would be possible to
prevent signers that have built major nuclear infrastructures from leaving
the treaty. North Korea renounced it early this year, after ejecting
international inspectors.
Instead of dealing with the broader legal problems, Mr. Bush is expected
to focus on his Proliferation Security Initiative. That is an effort to recruit
nations willing to interdict internationally transported nuclear supplies,
using existing national laws. Several nations just completed the first of
10 scheduled exercises simulating the interdiction of nuclear shipments,
in waters near Australia.
By declining to make specific demands about the North Korean and
Iranian nuclear programs, Mr. Bush is signaling a very different approach
than the one he took last year, concerning Iraq. He has said repeatedly
that he wants a diplomatic solution to the North Korean and Iranian
problems.
White House officials have claimed some modest progress, including a
deadline of Oct. 31 set by the International Atomic Energy Agency for
Iran to allow full inspections of sites where it may be enriching uranium.
Around the same time, North Korea is expected to meet again with the
United States and four other countries South Korea (news - web sites),
Russia, China and Japan which the Bush administration is trying to
organize into a united front to force North Korea to abandon its major
nuclear projects.
Both Iran and North Korea appear much closer to producing a nuclear
bomb than Iraq was a year ago, when Mr. Bush used the annual speech
at the United Nations to issue a series of demands, and to make clear
that defiance would mean war. Even so, an aide said this year's speech
at the United Nations was intended to ensure that "we never have to do
another Iraq again."
About a third of the speech will discuss initiatives to combat AIDS
and human trafficking, particularly for prostitution. "We need
to make that globally illegal, like trans-Atlantic trafficking in slaves," said
one senior official, adding that Mr. Bush would press for prosecutions of
those caught selling people, particularly women and children, into
servitude.
Mr. Bush's descriptions of Iraq's future will receive the most scrutiny, and
he is expected to give little ground and admit no errors of judgment about
the reconstruction of the country. While he will call for international
financial contributions and more troops from around the world, he has so
far gained little of either since his speech to the nation two weeks ago
when he said it was the responsibility of other nations, including
opponents of the Iraq action, to contribute to both security and
reconstruction.
Turkey, India and South Korea have expressed deep reluctance about
sending troops, saying Mr. Bush's failure to obtain international approval
for the invasion makes it politically difficult to help now. |
