Posted on: Wednesday, September 24, 2003

EDITORIAL
Bush at U.N.: adamant even in seeking help

"If we're an arrogant nation," said candidate George W. Bush, "they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."

Speaking at the United Nations yesterday, President Bush urged its members to put aside their differences to help the Iraqi people build a peaceful and democratic country on their own timetable.

But the humility was still missing. He retreated not at all from his rationale for the war, nor did he apologize for its divisive effects and his nearly unilateral pursuit of it.

Speaking before Bush, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan voiced an opinion shared by a majority in that room: that Bush's logic of pre-emption "represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years."

That didn't keep Bush from threatening to act pre-emptively again to prevent attacks by terrorists.

Thus he continues to breathe life into the long-ago discredited assertion of a nexus between Iraq and terrorism. In Bush's formal notice to Congress on March 18, he said war with Iraq was "consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001."

One week ago, Bush allowed that "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with Sept. 11." Yet yesterday, before a most skeptical international audience, he continued to muddy this issue.

It's an approach that still plays well across much of America. But it's difficult to see how it's going to win much-needed international help for rebuilding Iraq.