President George W. Bush will deliver a toughly worded challenge to the United Nations later today in an effort to convince them of the need for action against Iraq.
"The world is a dangerous place, and the president is going to make clear that . . . this regime [Saddam's] and this dictator is the most dangerous, and he'll lay out all the reasons," said a senior administration official.
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Implicit in Mr Bush's message to the UN General Assembly will be that the United States stands ready to act on its own, but aides involved in preparing the speech said the president would not be delivering an ultimatum, essentially giving the United Nations a last chance to act.
In contrast, UN. Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan will challenge Mr Bush's policies on Iraq and argue that only the United Nations could authorise the use of force in cases that go beyond straightforward self-defence.
"When states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations," says Mr Annan's speech, which his office released last night.
In what sounded like a reference to Iraq, Mr Bush said last night at New York's Ellis Island that "we will not allow any terrorist or tyrant to threaten civilisation with weapons of mass murder".
Mr Bush said the United States was joined by a great coalition of nations to "rid the world of terror". He said the United States will never live "at the mercy of any foreign plot or power." He did not specifically mention Iraq.
"This nation has defeated tyrants, liberated death camps, and raised this lamp of liberty to every captive land. We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history's latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power".