Bush demands U.N. help for Iraq

NEW YORK — President Bush yesterday demanded that the United Nations step up to help rebuild Iraq, telling foreign leaders “the liberty that many have won at a cost must be secured.”

The president also urged Israel to impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts and “end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people,” while criticizing Palestinian leaders who “intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups.”

In a 25-minute speech to a somber chamber packed with leaders from the 191 U.N. member nations, the unapologetic president again scolded the world body for failing to confront Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for his repeated violations of U.N. resolutions demanding that he disarm or face “serious consequences.”

“The Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say ‘serious consequences,’ for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences,” Mr. Bush said.

“And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world,” he said, directly rebutting Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s recent charge that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was “illegal.”

Mr. Bush’s speech, which received polite applause only at its conclusion, followed one by Mr. Annan, who warned that “rule of law” is at risk around the world but did not single out the U.S. president’s action in Iraq.

On the first day of his two-day stay in New York, Mr. Bush also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who praised the president for his “courage” to do what the United Nations would not and urged foreign leaders to help his nation.

The Iraqi leader also said that despite a recent surge in violence in Iraq, it is “very important for the people of the world really to know that we are winning, we are making progress in Iraq, we are defeating terrorists.”

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday echoed those words, saying, “This sort of attitude that we are on the verge of defeat is absolutely wrong.”

“We knew it was going to be tough. … We have faced these kinds of difficult moments before. And this is the time to not take counsel of our fears and say everything’s falling apart,” Mr. Powell said on a morning talk show.

For his part at the United Nations, Mr. Bush sternly told the leaders 11 times what they “must” do, including his assertion that “peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy.”

Sen. John Kerry immediately criticized Mr. Bush’s speech, saying the president misled the United Nations in the four-month lead-up to war and charging that he “does not have the credibility to lead the world.”

“This president chose, personally, each time to spurn the United Nations, to spurn the help of other people, to make this more expensive for the American people. Not to tell the truth,” the Democratic presidential nominee said in his first press conference since Aug. 9.

“The president really has no credibility at this point. He has no credibility with foreign leaders who hear him come before them and talk as if everything is going well, and they see that we can’t even protect the people on the ground for the election” in Iraq, which is scheduled for January.

Mr. Bush made the same “credibility” charge against Mr. Kerry, criticizing the many positions he has taken on Iraq, from his Senate vote in favor of authorizing the use of force to oust Saddam to his most recent charge that the conflict is “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

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