Bush & Annan
following UN General Assembly address
The US President, George W Bush, has told United Nations General Assembly that unless it enforces resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm, action would be unavoidable.
In a speech at the opening of the General Assembly, Mr Bush said Iraq could have nuclear arms within a year. He said Baghdad had flouted a decade of UN demands by developing weapons of mass destruction.
He also said the US wanted a new resolution on Iraq, and he warned that if Iraq remained defiant, the world must move deliberately and decisively to hold it to account.
Mr Bush told delegates that the UN faced a difficult and defining moment. In a challenge to the organisation, he asked whether UN resolutions are to be honoured and enforced or cast aside without consequence.
The UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, addressed the UN Assembly earlier. In his opening speech, Mr Annan said countries which observed the rule of law at home must observe the rule of law abroad.
He stressed the importance of a multilateral approach to the world's problems, and he called on the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, to allow UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq
Earlier the White House said it would publish a compilation of evidence showing that Iraq has violated a series of UN resolutions seeking to end its nuclear, chemical and biological arms programmes.
A Downing Street spokesperson has said that the British government will release its promised dossier on Iraq on the 24 September. The release is due to coincide with the a House of Commons one-day debate on Iraq.
The dossier is expected to try and justify the need for tough international action against the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, whom Britain accuses of possessing weapons of mass destruction in defiance of UN resolutions.
