Geo. Bush's Must-See TV

From the Wash. Post:

Bush to Issue Ultimatum in Televised Address Tonight
President Expected to Say That Hussein Needs to Leave to Avoid War

By Scott Lindlaw
Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 17, 2003; 10:18 AM

Abandoning diplomacy, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein a final ultimatum Monday to leave Iraq or face a U.S.-led war.

Bush planned a White House address at 8 p.m. EST to explain his decision.

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Read the whole thing.

Comments

[SHE]

Agreed Brian, if the U.S. pulled away from the UN, especially in funding this would have been a good strategy.

However, watch the games continue....

[Brian]

No doubt.

[The Mountain Goat]

Mouchon, if "Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441"...

Let's not use shorthand Those resolutions are U.N. resolutions. Not U.S. resolutions, nor U.K. resolutions. And yet the U.N. has decided to handle this without bombs. The U.N may have the authority to use force, and it has chosen not to.

Bush and Blair would like us to think that two countries are carrying out the U.N.'s directives rather than vetoing them.

The U.S. can any time declare a war and wage one. Instead it wants resolutions where war becomes the default. How preposterous.

[Anonymous]

I think you miss the point of why war was set as the default for failure to comply. You cannot trust Saddam. He is motivated only by force. What would you have suggested in lieu of war as the default Mr. "Mountain Goat"? The reason that the UN resolutions failed is because Saddam called the bluff. The so-called axis of "weasels" never wanted to back up the resolutions with actions. It is no wonder that Saddam was so defiant to the UN. Evil like Saddam only behave when they are afraid of not behaving. Is there anything to fear from an organization that needs only one veto to become an impotent threat? In a perfect world, peace wouldn't come by threat of war. Unfortunately though, evil spreads when it is not checked.

[Tuning Spork]

This might seem out of left field, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Bush/Blair/et al are enforcing the UN resolutions that the UN itself (read: France, Russia, Germany, China) is unwilling to enforce; not to destroy the UN but to SAVE it.

"Wha...?" you say?

The UN either means something or it doesn't. If res 1441 is allowed to go unenforced then the UN is finished. The US, UK, Poland, Bulgaria, Australia, etc are going to demonstrate to the world (in particular; Security Council's two-faced backstabbers) that UN resolutions mean something.

If the UN is too duplicitous and wishy-washy to mean what it says then it will kill itself. Talk talk talk; take some notes; keep a journal; blather on and on for the benefit of being noted in the meeting's minutes. Chirac can hissyfit all he wants, but the coalition that will liberate Iraq this week will put the spine back in the notebook. 1441 (and the relevant earlier resolutions) will then be meaningful, not just the jack-stain of tortured academic diplomacy.

Well, I think so, anyways...

[David]

"Abandoning diplomacy, President Bush gave Saddam..."

WTF? The President did not "abandon" diplomacy...the brutal tyrant of Iraq is the one who has snubbed his nose at diplomacy of every sort, for years and years.

[Mouchon]

Well, here we are then.

I have read the Bush/Blair/Aznar-ultimatum to the UN described as "War, or else... War". I think this is a pretty accurate reading.

I still do not understand why Bush did at all try to get a UN resolution leading to war against Irak. If "Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441", then why have they (Blair) been working so hard on another resolution authorizing attack on Iraq?

It is in any case amazing to see how little the pro-wars makes of the UN : "We have had to conclude that [Security] Council consensus is not possible", read : therefore we will attack without.

In any case I can appreciate once more the enormous trans-atlantic gap, as debates are still raging in Europe (and as some web sites attest, to some degree in the US), while the US administration has long ago made up his mind. The whole diplomatic negociations were a farce. Bush was warning a few weeks ago that the UN would loose its credibility.
Now Bush is saying: if the UN expresses an opinion (ie a STRONG signal that no war-resolution would be accepted) which we don't agree with, then just disregard it. Now if THAT doesn't destroy the credibility of the UN...

One good thing: now we can see how it's going to go, and which of the "easy win" and "worst case" theories will prove right. My opinion : worst case...

[Brian]

>>Now if THAT doesn't destroy the credibility of the UN...

Mouchon:

There are some here in the States that would argue that diminishing the prestige/power/influence of the UN is precisely why the Bush administration took the time to go through the UN...or at least to give the appearance thereof. Personally, I'm not sure that the administration's approach is really that sophisticated or thought-out, but it is an interesting arguement.

For my part, I would like to see the US back away from the UN, not because of Iraq, but because the UN has rendered itself almost comically irrelevant. An organization that would put Lybia in charge of human rights and Iran and Iraq in charge of disarmament is simply not to be taken seriously.

I have no problem the US asserting its soveriegnty to the UN; I just wish it would be done without starting a war.

[The Mountain Goat]

Okay, so Saddam can't be trusted, and called the U.N.'s bluff. Okay, the U.N. is spineless. Tell me again how that makes it our fight?

Saddam didn't do 9-11. Whatever help you think he gave terrorists is dwarfed by the help from Saudi Arabia.

If Saddam is a problem, he is a problem to his neighbors, not the U.S. And his neighbors don't seem to care as much as we do. I think its all for daddy.