WASHINGTON – President Bush yesterday gave the United Nations one last chance to stand up to Saddam Hussein, declaring: “The game is over.”
Underscoring the imminent threat of war, the State Department issued a new worldwide alert that warned U.S. citizens of the risk of terror strikes, and said there’s a “growing threat” of chemical and biological attack.
Speaking at the White House after meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Bush said he’d “welcome and support” a new U.N. resolution on Iraq as long it sticks to the U.N. Security Council’s demand last fall that Saddam must get rid of all his doomsday weapons or face “serious consequences.”
“Saddam Hussein was given a final chance. He is throwing that chance away,” Bush said, standing with Powell by his side.
“Now the Security Council will show whether its words have any meaning. Having made its demands, the Security Council must not back down when those demands are defied and mocked by a dictator.”
The president again vowed that if the United Nations balks, America, “along with a growing coalition of nations,” will take “whatever action is necessary” to disarm Saddam.
Bush spoke the day after Powell made the case against Saddam at the United Nations using satellite photos, defector accounts and intelligence intercept tapes of Saddam’s henchmen plotting to conceal “nerve agents” and “forbidden ammo” from U.N. inspectors.
U.S. officials gave no precise deadline for the Security Council to take up a new resolution on Iraq except to say, “Not very long.”
Nor would they discuss the exact wording except to say it must back up Resolution 1441 – which warns of “serious consequences.”
The Security Council has five veto-wielding members, and only Britain is solidly lined up with the United States. France, Russia and China all continued to talk about the need for more time even after Powell spoke.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair – Bush’s closest ally – yesterday predicted that a new resolution can be passed, saying, “I don’t think that we will get to the position of vetoes.”
Countries that don’t want to join in military action could also abstain, and that’s what many analysts expect China to do.
But French President Jacques Chirac – whose U.N. veto is France’s prime remaining source of diplomatic clout – yesterday repeated, “We refused to consider war as inevitable.”
A senior U.S. official said the push for a new U.N. resolution offers France an 11th-hour chance to line up with the United States.
“The French have a chance to do that,” the official said.
The White House over the past week has stressed that France and Germany – which doesn’t have a Security Council veto – don’t speak for Europe when they criticize the U.S. position, but, rather, risk finding themselves isolated and marginalized.
Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a key test comes with this weekend’s visit to Baghdad by chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who yesterday said that Iraq must show a “drastic change” in attitude.