Brief note: If you’re at work and want to see Bush’s address to the U.N. live, it appears that is providing a webcast.
Update: Watching now. Realvideo stream works great. And Bush is delivering an excellent speech. Very matter of fact; basically a thorough walkthrough of all the U.N. resolutions and pledges that Saddam has violated over the past decade.
I usually find Bush an uncompelling, even irritating speaker. But this speech is an exception.
Below are a few quotes I’ve been able to capture. Note that I’ve done my best to capture these accurately, but can’t promise 100% perfection, as I’m literally typing as I listen and have no way to recheck.
“By refusing to comply with his own agreements, [Saddam Hussein] bears full guilt for the hungry and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.”
“Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.”
“Delegates to the General Assembly, we have been more than patient. We tried sanctions. We tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of Coalition military strikes. But Saddam has defied all these efforts.”
“The first time we can be completely certain he has nuclear weapons is when, God forbid, he uses one. We owe it to our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.”
“Iraq has answered a decade of United Nations demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment… Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding? Or will it be irrelevant?”
“We will show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time… We must choose between a world of fear, and a world of progress… By heritage, and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand. And delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand as well. Thank you very much.”
Update 11:10am EST: Bush’s speech is now over; the link above no longer works. If I find an archive of the webcast I’ll post it here (and if anyone else finds one, drop me an email).
Update again: The link for the archived webcast is here, the full text of the speech is here.
And again: Martin Devon comments. (It’s all Martin links, all the time here at TTLB! )
How much would you pay now?: Listening to WBUR radio’s The Connection’s coverage of the speech, and I just had to rewind the audio stream because I heard one commentator say something I just couldn’t believe. Observe Stephen Walt (who was up against former CIA head James Woolsey), professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School for Government, as he explains to us why there’s no need to go after Iraq now:
“I don’t believe the compelling rationale is there. There’s this argument that Mr. Woolsey has advanced that if they had weapons of mass destruction or even nuclear weapons that this would cast a huge shadow. Again, Israel has had nuclear weapons, that hasn’t enabled them to dominate the Middle East. The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons and we were able to form very powerful and cohesive alliances against the Soviet Union. If Iraq ever tried to sieze territory from others again I think we would be able to assemble a coalition just as we did in 1991.”
You heard it here first, folks. No need to bother with all that examination of the evidence that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and is building more. Because it’s OK if he has them!
But wait! There’s more! : Will Saletan really had me worried that he had been kidnapped and replaced by a pod person with this piece today, but he comes through beautifully in the end with some insightful thoughts on the politics of appeasement.