Bush, Annan Speeches Show Divisions on Iraq (claim law, then abide by it)

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bush22sep22.story
Bush, Annan Speeches Show Divisions on Iraq (claim law, then abide by it)
Addressing the U.N., the president again defends the invasion, and the secretary-general warns that those who invoke the law must abide by it.
By Maura Reynolds and Maggie Farley
Times Staff Writers

September 22, 2004

UNITED NATIONS — For the second time in two years, President Bush on Tuesday defended the invasion of Iraq before the U.N. General Assembly and appealed to other countries to join the United States in spreading "freedom" and "human dignity" in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in a pointed rebuke, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that countries that hoped to instill the rule of law must first abide by it themselves.

The two addresses at the opening session of the 59th annual meeting invoked values such as democracy and the rule of law, and both Bush and Annan only briefly mentioned the schism of the last two years over the invasion of Iraq. But the war was the clear context for both leaders' remarks, as it was last year, and the two sides seemed not to have moved closer in the interim.

"When we say 'serious consequences' for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences," Bush said, referring to language in a Security Council resolution warning Iraq to eliminate any weapons of mass destruction. "And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world."

Annan insisted that "every nation that proclaims the rule of law at home must respect it abroad." Although the secretary-general did not name the United States, to the scores of world leaders listening in the vaulted chamber, the target of his comments was obvious.

"Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it," he said, "and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it."<snip>

[wtmusic]

1. The law is a bitch, ain't it?

:silly:

[othermeans]

2. The law is a cruel mistress