On September 12, President Bush called on the United Nations to live up to its founding purpose and confront the “grave and gathering danger” of Saddam Hussein’s outlaw regime. To do otherwise is to “hope against the evidence” – including the systematic defiance of 16 UN Security Council resolutions.

The Security Council was created to ensure that UN deliberations would be more than talk and UN resolutions would be more than wishes. Now, Saddam’s repeated failure to meet his obligations to the Security Council threatens the authority of the United Nations.

President Bush announced the United States will work with the United Nations to craft a new resolution to meet our common challenge.

• This resolution must decisively hold Iraq’s regime accountable; and
• This resolution must be backed by the UN’s determination to see it through.

The President also shed new light on the debate over multilateralism. “We want the resolutions of the world’s most important multilateral body to be enforced,” he said. “Right now these resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime.”