Here are the five conditions that Bush laid down in his 2002-09-12 address to the UN which he said that Hussein must meet. As Bush explained earlier in his speech, these five planks represented planks in the 1991 Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement, all of which Hussein had violated in the interim. In this speech, Bush stated that after 911, the world can no longer afford to permit Hussein to continue violating these planks. Here they are, in Bush's exact words:
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1. If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material.
2. If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it -- as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions.
3. If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkemens and others -- again, as required by Security Council resolutions.
4. If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues as required by Security Council resolutions.
5. If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq and it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis, a government based on respect for human rights, economic liberty and internationally supervised elections.
======================Did bush mention "democracy" here, to the UN? No. Most UN member nations are autocratic dictatorships, so he did not mention this part of his plan to this body. But he did list the ending of "minority oppression" along side the WMD requirement, and give it equal weight. According to Bush here, Hussein could not spare himself the invasion merely by satisfying the WMD requirement without also satisfying the human rights requirement.
5 comments:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/09/12/bush.speech.un/index.html
Here's a 2002-09-13 CNN.com article about Bush's speech to the UN, with a call-out box, listing three "Key points from Bush speech:"
One of course addresses the failure of Hussein to comply with the 1991 Cease Fire WMD requirement, the other Hussein's continued support for terrorist groups, and the third his domestic human rights violations.
How did Tom, Nadir, Penny Marshall, Larry David, Rosie O'Donnal, and Sean Penn ever come to believe that the only reason Bush claimed that he was invading was because he was 100% certain that Hussain had WMD?
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Saddam Hussein has not complied with numerous Security Council resolutions demanding he destroy weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam's regime continues to support and shelter terrorist organizations.
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has found that Saddam's regime continues to commit human rights violations and "all-pervasive" repression.
Israel has not complied with dozens of Security Council resolutions, but no US president (or reformed leftist) has advocated an invasion of Israel on behalf of the UN or the Palestinians whose land was taken. the UN Commission on Human Rights has also sharply criticized Israel and the US among others.
Why the double standard? You think that's okay? It's alright to kill the people we don't like when their govenment is accused of doing wrong, but when your friends or your own government does wrong, you look the other way?
OK, you can switch to a different topic. I assume then that you concede that Bush never made Iraq's possession of WMD his single justification for war, either to the UN or to the US congress and people.
Why not invade Israel, then, using the same rationale Bush used for invading Iraq? This is what you wish to discuss now?
1. Israel has never supported any of the groups that have practiced terrorism against the US. You of course believe that Israel itself practices terror against various other countries, such as Lebanon's. That argues then for Lebanon to lead an invasion of Israel, using among its justifications, implementing UN sanctions against Israel. So go join with the muslim dictatorships in organizing an invasion of Israel; I would not support that.
2. Israel already has a democracy. You of course claim it is no more democratic than Nazi Germany. Essentially none of the people who supported invading Iraq consider Israel to be a non-democracy. Most of us believe that its only non-democratic aspects arise only because people around them actively employ organized, state-sponsored violence in an effort to eradicate Israel. If you can convince me that Israel falls off the mark of democracy anywhere near as did pre-invasion Iraq, I would concede this point.
3. Israel does not wish that any of its neighboring states have their governments replaced by a new dictatorship controlled by them, and has never taken steps to enact such. Hussein's Iraq invaded Iran and Kuwait in order to replace those dictatorships with its own.
"Israel has never supported any of the groups that have practiced terrorism against the US."
Not true. Israel blew up the USS Liberty and has been caught spying on the US several times. There are theorists, no less credible than your current president was four years ago, who believe Israel had a hand in 911. I'm not saying I believe that, but the evidence is just as compelling as Bush's was.
"Israel already has a democracy."
You obviously still don't know the definition of a democracy if you still claim that Israel's apartheid state is such a government.
So why not invade Israel?
Bush offered other reasons for invading Iraq, but the supposed WMDs was the primary thrust and the imminent threat was the reason. You're rewriting history if you claim anything else is true.
Nadir: Start a new thread advocating the invasion of Israel and replacing it with a democracy. The people who supported and orchestrated Bush's invasion of Iraq as a response to 911 did so for reasons that included their belief that Iraq represented a brutal dictatorship that had supported for years anti-US terrorists; they also sought as part of the invasion the replacement of that government with a democracy. This is what Bush sold, and this is what his customers purchased.
You may disagree with his assertions; you may believe that Israel is today no more of a democracy than was Hussein's Iraq, that Israel represents a threat to the US as much as Iraq ever did, etc. Use these beliefs of yours to drum up support for a US-led invasion of Israel.
I conclude in this thread that you and Tom now agree that the certain existence of WMD never stood as Bush's sole justification for invading Iraq, that his list of justifications (documented in his speech to the UN, in his speech to the US, and in his legislation) includes several other planks, including the promotion of a democracy.
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