March 17, 2003

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

Last-minute efforts to salvage diplomatic agreement on Iraq failed this morning, and President Bush is scheduled to deliver a televised address this evening at 8 p.m. War against Iraq now appears certain.[Duh!--J.T.]

The president "will say that to avoid military conflict, Saddam Hussein must leave the country," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "The next move will be up to Saddam Hussein." Hussein has said repeatedly that he will not step down or go into exile, and he has ordered preparations for defense of Iraq against invasion.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said there is no possibility that Saddam Hussein could stave off the end of his regime by some last-minute offer of cooperation or compliance. "I cannot think of anything that Saddam Hussein can do diplomatically. That time is over," he said at a State Department news conference.

The ultimatum that the United States, Britain and Spain issued to the U.N. Security Council on Sunday to approve a new resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq produced only a further impasse as France and Russia refused to budge from their longstanding opposition to military action.

In the face of a renewed French threat to veto any resolution that the United States and Britain would have taken as authorization for a campaign to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the United States, Britain and Spain took off the table the text that they had been sponsoring. Given the commitment to disarm Iraq by force if necessary that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced on Sunday, no alternative to a start of hostilities has presented itself.

"We have had to conclude that [Security] Council consensus is not possible," British Ambassador to the U.N. Jeremy Greenstock said, announcing the withdrawal of the proposed resolution.

"A majority of the council confirmed that they do not want to authorize the use of force," said French Ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabliere. No use of force would be "legitimate" at this time because "inspections are producing results." France had proposed an alternative, which would have given Iraq another month to comply with U.N. disarmament demands, but Bush and Blair made clear Sunday that they would accept no further delay.

Powell said the Bush administration is "disappointed" in the outcome, but he noted that the resolution would not have changed the strategic situation anyway because it set a March 17 deadline--today--for Iraqi compliance. He said the time has come for Saddam Hussein to face the "serious consequences" threatened in the resolution passed by the Security Council 15-0 in November. Reeling off a long list of foreign ministers he said he had consulted last night and this morning, Powell said he had asked if any of them saw any prospect of breaking the impasse, for which he blamed France. Their answer was no.
[...]
Also the British government's top lawyer said war on Iraq would be legal on the grounds of existing U.N. resolutions, dismissing arguments that any attack without fresh U.N. backing would break international law. That opinion is politically important to Blair because the British public is strongly opposed to attacking Iraq without specific authorization from the Security Council.

"Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441," Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith said in a written parliamentary statement.

Ah, the niceties and diplomatic formalities of war....who knew it could be like this?
If the League of Nations meetings in the late 1930's had been televised and on the internet, it might have been something like what we've just witnessed, but it's the strangest run-up to war I've ever heard about or seen.
I wish Bush had hauled off and declared war on Iraq as the first of our bombs were falling on Saddam at least 6 months ago, but he didn't and far be it from me to try and tell the President what to do.
For whatever reason, he chose to go the UN/diplomatic route which brought us to this moment:
I hope that caring, thoughtful people all over the world will recognize that he, Blair and the other leaders on our side tried to work for peace and that we don't want to send our men and women to topple this snake Saddam, but he's got to be taken out and by force, because that's the way Saddam chose to "play" it.
The Liberal Left won't give Bush any credit for diplomacy but I will!
But I couldn't be more disgusted with the UN or France or the ambitions of failing nation-states like Russia to grab a little piece of their erst-while friend and often their benefactor, the United States.
Nothing like finding out who your real friends are when there's trouble.
I hate Life when it gets like this.
But thank you, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and the other nations of the New Europe 10 and the Vilnius Group!
You all stood by us when we needed you and we will remember.
France (and Germany and Russia), we'll remember your perfidy, too.