In the weeks before war broke out, the Security Council chamber of the United Nations was a scene of debate for issues of dim concern to world peace-such trivialities as small arms in West Africa dominated Council discussions. France, one of five nations seated in prominence at the Security Council, assured that any discussion of war with Iraq was left out of the Council chambers.
I stood in that hallowed room on Monday, March 17, peering through the early dusk of a quickly approaching world night. It would be only a few hours later that the great Security Council of the United Nations would split and force the world into immediate war. And history has already recorded that France alone is responsible for that split and the failure of world diplomacy.
Let me take you back in time and impress upon you for a moment the significance of Security Council resolution 1441 which passed unanimously on Nov. 8, 2002, and initiated the now-infamous weapons inspections regime.
All 15 Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution, all 15 ecognizing the threat [of] Iraq's noncompliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,"" confirming that each nation has evidence of Iraq's weapons program and fears for world peace. Vowing ""to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution"" they invoked ""Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations"" authorizing the use of force to restore international peace, warning ""Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations.""
Let these words sink in deeply upon all of you who call the current war an illegal war. Clearly the war is now justified and demanded by international law. The resolution confirms that all nations believe Iraq is a danger to the peace. Even France agreed that Hussein is an immediate danger to the world and must be disarmed by force.
That is why at the Azores conference a few weeks ago, three key nations drafted a resolution nearly identical to 1441. The single variation the draft resolution provided was a date before which Iraq must disarm. The concept is simple: should Iraq comply with the U.N. weapons inspectors-something it could do in a single day should it desire to-war would be averted; should it not, then the world must go to war.
There is in this draft resolution not an end to diplomacy, but the final stone diplomats may toss-the ultimatum. No nation denies today that Iraq failed to comply with weapons inspections; not even the weapons inspectors themselves will deny that Iraq failed to comply.
However, before the resolution was offered for discussion in the Security Council Monday morning where I stood witness, a single nation used its powers to throw the world into immediate war. France informed the Council that it would ""veto any ultimatum no matter what the circumstances."" Before the draft resolution could be offered to the Security Council, before it was even offered to Iraq, France promised to kill the final diplomatic effort.
In doing so, France contradicted its own previous statement claiming that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the world and should face ""serious consequences"" should it fail to comply with weapons inspections.
Thirty years from now, historians will look back on the Second Gulf War and ask the question historians ask of all wars: Why did diplomacy fail? And this sad question will be answered with certainty: Because Saddam Hussein sought to threaten the world with terror and because France ignored international opinion and defied international law; through its weakness it split the Security Council and permitted a tyrant to defeat peaceful diplomacy.
The nations of the Azores, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States will long be remembered as the champions of international law, who undaunted by a single nation's defiance took arms against an aggressor and chose the harder road of courage and justice, maintaining ""international peace and security.""
The purpose of my argument here is not to condone war, nor is it to pass judgment on the United States. I am only stating what is obvious to anyone who takes the time to read the resolutions and to understand the final days of diplomacy in the Security Council. France defied the international law codified in its own resolutions. And as far as the Security Council is concerned, as far as international law is concerned, the United States is engaged in a just war.
