"...some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced that they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq..."

Stanley Hoffman (New York Review of Books):
"...Colin Powell stated that Jacques Chirac had said that France wouldn't go to war against Iraq "under any circumstances." In fact, as Powell must have known, and as I have been told on very good authority, the French President had earmarked French forces for war if the inspectors, after a limited number of weeks and after having followed a series of "benchmarks" not dissimilar from those Tony Blair had demanded, concluded that Iraq did have forbidden weapons and could not be disarmed peacefully. French diplomacy could be faulted for not making its positions clearer; but Chirac's statement referred only to the text of the second resolution drafted by the US and Britain for submission to the Security Council, and then withdrawn. On March 16, after the US turned down Chirac's proposal to consider using force if the inspectors reached an impasse in Iraq in thirty days, he told Christine Amanpour on 60 Minutes that if "our strategy, inspections, were failing, we would consider all the options, including war."..."

"...citing "an interesting phenomena taking place here in America about the French . . . a backlash against the French, not stirred up by anybody except the people."..."

"...Iraq under Saddam has defied U.N. resolutions to give up its WMDs and to disarm for 4,199 days, Bush noted. U.N. weapons inspectors were kicked out of Iraq in 1998, and Bush pointed out that the Iraqis had "blocked effective inspections of so-called presidential sites..."

"...signalled that he did not believe that a second resolution was absolutely necessary, and warned the Council that if it sits idle, he will lead a coalition of nations to disarm Iraq by force. "I've never felt we needed a resolution; 1441 speaks very clearly," he told reporters...."

Cheney for Bush

"...Last November, the U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations and vowing serious consequences in the event Saddam Hussein did not fully and immediately comply. When Saddam Hussein failed even then to comply, our coalition acted to deliver those serious consequences..."

Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger (The Guardian):
"...International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law. 
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable..."

Bush

"...We'll see whether or not the United Nations will be the United Nations or the League of Nations when it comes to dealing with this man who for 11 years has thumbed his nose at resolution after resolution after resolution after resolution...My intent, of course, is for the United Nations to do its job...The choice is up to the United Nations to show its resolve.  The choice is up to Saddam Hussein to fulfill his word.  And if neither of them acts, the United States, in deliberate fashion, will lead a coalition to take away the world's worst weapons from one of the world's worst leaders..."

Fleischer for Bush

"...If the UN weapons inspectors "go in under the current regime, it is a fool's errand to call them inspectors," Fleischer added.  "They will be nothing more than tourists who get a run-around," he said..."

Bush

"...The credibility of the Security Council is at stake..."

"..."After 11 years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more...Clearly, to actually work, any new inspections, sanctions, or enforcement mechanisms will have to be very different," he added..."

Note: The U.N. has been very relevant for decades without explicitly authorizing many of the United States' military operations in other countries. War is not the only aspect that the U.N. was set up for. One of it's goals is world peace.

Joe Conason (Salon):
"...Has everybody seen the videotape of Colin Powell's remarks about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction on Feb. 24, 2001?...Here is what Powell told reporters on that day in Cairo at a press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa. Asked about angry local reaction to his visit because of American policy toward Iraq, the secretary of state sought to explain: 
"We had a good discussion, the foreign minister and I and the president and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was 10 years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."..."

David Corn (The Nation):
"...UN Security Council Resolution 1441 promised there would be "serious consequences" if Saddam Hussein did not comply with its disarmament orders. It did not define these consequences. What Bush has been saying is that unless the Security Council embraces his definition of "serious consequences"--war right now--it is a pointless body. "The credibility of the Security Council is at stake," he maintained. But what if the Security Council were to decide to toughen up the inspections and conduct them for another five months? Why would that be evidence of its meaninglessness? Indeed, it is Bush who is placing the Security Council in a position of irrelevance. Should he ignore the deeply-felt sentiments of its member-nations (and the populations they represent) and launch a war unsupported by the Security Council, it will be he who is declaring--and proving--that the United Nations does not really matter..." 

AFTER DAVID KAY'S REPORT

Kay for Bush

"...What I was not saying is that sanctions were working..."

Cheney for Bush

"...Twelve years of diplomacy, more than a dozen Security Council resolutions, hundreds of U.N. weapons inspectors, thousands of flights to enforce the no-fly zones and even strikes and against military targets in Iraq, all of these measures were tried to compel Saddam Hussein's compliance with the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire. All of these measures failed..."

Fleischer for Bush

"...If the UN weapons inspectors "go in under the current regime, it is a fool's errand to call them inspectors," Fleischer added.  "They will be nothing more than tourists who get a run-around," he said..."

"..."After 11 years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more...Clearly, to actually work, any new inspections, sanctions, or enforcement mechanisms will have to be very different," he added..."

Bryan Bender (Boston Globe):
"...David Kay, the Bush administration's chief weapons investigator in Iraq, said yesterday he believes United Nations inspections and international sanctions put in place after the 1991 Gulf War were more effective in frustrating Saddam Hussein's plans for weapons of mass destruction than the United States had realized...Kay told reporters that the 1,200 members of his Iraq Survey Group have been surprised "at how often" top Iraqi scientists and policy makers "refer to the impact of sanctions" in their interviews with the Americans. Kay added that it "may be necessary to reassess what we thought" about the effectiveness of the UN effort...
Blix, in an interview with BBC, said he doubted that Iraq could have easily developed weapons of mass destruction.
"I think one should have some caution there, because the Security Council had never intended to abandon long-term monitoring, so the Iraqis would not have been left alone to proceed with whatever they had started," he said. "If they can develop weapons of mass destruction in five years or 10 years, well, that certainly is not imminent."
David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector and now director of the Institute for Science and International Security, said: "Iraq did not comply, and I support the Bush administration statements to that effect. But the administration has not been able to substantiate its claim that the threat was imminent. I think Hans Blix and ElBaradei deserve an apology."..."

Bob Drogin (The New Republic):
"..."I think, by and large, that's close to where we are now," Kay had replied in his soft drawl when asked directly if U.N. sanctions had stymied Saddam's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD). "I don't know if it's close to where we will be. We have been struck, in probably three hundred interviews with Iraqi scientists, engineers, and senior officials, how often they refer to the impact of sanctions and the perceived impact of sanctions in terms of regime behavior," Kay had gone on. "So it may well be necessary to reassess what a lot of us ... quite frankly thought was the eroding impact of sanctions over the years." 
Now, at the end of a 90-minute conference call with reporters on October 3, Kay clearly was having second thoughts--or had been urged to have them...
"What I was not saying is that sanctions were working," he declared, reversing his earlier statement. Kay said his progress report--most of which remains classified-- indicates that Saddam had concluded by late 1999 or early 2000 that he could work around U.N. sanctions and that convincing the U.N. Security Council to lift them "was no longer the most important thing."
Then Kay tacked back again. "So it's going to be a difficult thing to finally assess the impact of sanctions," he admitted. American intelligence officials, he added, "probably did not adequately assess the psychological impact over the years that sanctions may have had on decision-making" in Baghdad. Kay groped his way to a conclusion. "This is one that we're going to have to deal with in the final report because it is key to a lot of issues," he said.
As I listened to Kay that day, I felt a bit sorry for him...Kay found no evidence that Iraq had taken significant steps to build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material after 1991. No evidence that aluminum tubes had been used to enrich uranium. No proof that two trucks carrying laboratory equipment had been designed to produce biowarfare agents, as the president had claimed. No smallpox, anthrax, or VX. No chemical or biological weapons ready to fire in 45 minutes--indeed, no poison gases or germ weapons at all. At worst, Saddam had "aspirations and intentions" to acquire WMD. Even Pat Roberts, the dour Kansas Republican who chairs the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and is usually a staunch supporter of both the Bush administration and the CIA, announced he was "not pleased" with the results..."

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, presented a different view in his congressional testimony last week. For example, he said: "Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW [chemical weapons] munitions was reduced -- if not entirely destroyed -- during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N. inspections." ..."

James Pinkerton (Newsday):
"..."All of these measures failed," Cheney said.
No, actually, all those measures succeeded, which is why we haven't found anything resembling a weapon of mass destruction in Iraq..."

Council for a Livable World:
"...However, the inspectors were very effective in eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.  From 1991 to 1998, UNSCOM, the U.N. inspection agency, destroyed 38,537 chemical munitions, 690 tons of chemical warfare agents, 3,275 tons of precursor chemicals, biological growth media, the Al Hakam biological warfare facility, 48 missiles, 50 warheads, 20 tons of missile fuel, 5 combat mobile launchers, 56 fixed launch sites and 75 components for 350mm and 1000mm guns.  (Appendix I, 13th Quarterly Report of UNMOVIC, May 30, 2003)..."

"...And because there were consequences, because a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace and the credibility of the United Nations, Iraq is free..."

Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger (The Guardian):
"...International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law. 
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable..."

Compassiongate:
Should I say something about "defend the peace"? Nah, the compassion there is obvious.

Cheney for Bush

"...Another criticism we hear is that the United States, when its security is threatened, may not act without unanimous international consent. Under this view, even in the face of a specific stated agreed-upon danger, the mere objection of even one foreign government would be sufficient to prevent us from acting. This view reflects a deep confusion about the requirements of our national security. Though often couched in high-sounding terms of unity and cooperation, it is a prescription for perpetual disunity and obstructionism...So often, and so conveniently, it amounts to a policy of doing exactly nothing..."

Compassiongate:
The VP's use of words like "unanimous international consent" is very compassionate indeed. The U.S. has acted militarily several times in the past without "unanimous international consent" - so that wouldn't be something new in itself (what would be "new" is fake compassionate pre-emption). When there was risk that the U.N. would not work, NATO has been used successfully to drive military action in Kosovo. The point is that when there was no imminent threat of an attack by Saddam, when there was no evidence whatsoever that Iraq was involved with 9/11, when there was no real evidence of a working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, when two of the countries most significantly involved in 9/11 and with Al Qaeda (other than Afghanistan) were Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (and they are being treated like bosom buddies), when Iran and North Korea are/were building a nuclear program that actually posed a much greater threat (unlike Saddam), there was no case for invading Iraq. Period. So the "deep confusion about the requirements of our national security" emanates not from the critics of the administration but from within the frauds in the compassionate administration itself.  
Not to mention that the U.N. did not advocate doing "exactly nothing". It advocated stringent inspections under a threat of force, based on President Bush's prodding.

(just being extremely compassionate here)

Rice for Bush

"...Had any one of these examples [in David Kay's report] been discovered last winter, the Security Council would have had no choice but to take exactly the same course that President Bush followed: to declare Saddam Hussein in defiance of Resolution 1441, and enforce its serious consequences.."

Powell for Bush

"...said his colleagues and Annan's staff were exploring with council members "language that might call on member states to do more."..."Perhaps additional language and a new resolution might encourage others," Powell said. "There is a willingness to come together to help the Iraqi people.."

Bush (Sep 2003)

"...All the challenges I have spoken of this morning require urgent attention and moral clarity: helping Afghanistan and Iraq to succeed as free nations in a transformed region, cutting off the avenues of proliferation, abolishing modern forms of slavery. These are the kinds of great tasks for which the United Nations was founded [CG emphasis]...
The founding documents of the United Nations and the founding documents of America stand in the same tradition. Both assert that human beings should never be reduced to objects of power or commerce, because their dignity is inherent.
Both recognize a moral law that stands above men and nations which must be defended and enforced by men and nations. And both point the way to peace, the peace that comes when all are free. We secure that peace with our courage, and we must show that courage together [CG emphasis]..."

Billmon/Whiskey Bar:
"...The Bush administration has abandoned the idea of giving the United Nations more of a role in the occupation of Iraq as sought by France, India and other countries as a condition for their participation in peacekeeping there, administration officials said on Wednesday ...
"The administration is not willing to confront going to the Security Council and saying, 'We really need to make Iraq an international operation,"' said an administration official. "You can make a case that it would be better to do that, but, right now, the situation in Iraq is not that dire."
U.S. Abandons Plan for Greater U.N. Role in Iraq New York Times
August 13, 2003..."

Richard Perle (The Guardian):
"...Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The "good works" part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order [CG emphasis]. As we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions...
...is the security council capable of ensuring order and saving us from anarchy? History suggests not...
This new century now challenges the hopes for a new world order in new ways. We will not defeat or even contain fanatical terror unless we can carry the war to the territories from which it is launched. This will sometimes require that we use force against states that harbour terrorists, as we did in destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The most dangerous of these states are those that also possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one, but there are others. Whatever hope there is that they can be persuaded to withdraw support or sanctuary from terrorists rests on the certainty and effectiveness with which they are confronted. The chronic failure of the security council to enforce its own resolutions is unmistakable: it is simply not up to the task. We are left with coalitions of the willing. Far from disparaging them as a threat to a new world order, we should recognise that they are, by default, the best hope for that order, and the true alternative to the anarchy of the abject failure of the UN..."

Powell for Bush

"...said at the United Nations that the United States would oppose any dilution of the hallowed  principle of "unity of command," which is a critical point for the U.S. military..."

"...The U.S. has "overwhelming worldwide political support," Fleischer said, from countries representing 1.18 billion people and $21.7 trillion in combined Gross Domestic Product..."

Cory Oldweiler (The American Prospect):
"...(Yes, the United States is included in the count; otherwise, when Ari Fleischer recently bragged about the combined GDP of the coalition, it would have only been $11.6 trillion, instead of $21.7 trillion.) But in the past our government has tried to buy support of "allies" by breaking the law -- remember the Iran-Contra scandal? Which brings us to the last member of the coalition: Nicaragua (46)..."

Also see: eRiposte opinion poll summary

"..."We've got a huge coalition," Bush said...going so far as to argue that "the coalition that we've assembled today is larger than the one assembled in 1991 in terms of the number of nations participating."..."

Wolfowitz for Bush

"...“In the event that force must be used, our deployment will have the support in one form or another of a formidable coalition,” he said. “The number of countries involved will be in the substantial double digits.”..."

Jonathan Wright (Reuters/Yahoo):
"...U.S. officials have named 33 countries which support the U.S. invasion of Iraq but this includes countries which are providing overflight and basing rights and which are giving only diplomatic or political support for the invasion. President Bush (news - web sites) said on Wednesday that 35 countries have chosen to "share the honor" of supporting the campaign but U.S. officials could not name more than the 33. They say some 15 other countries are cooperating with the U.S. war effort behind the scene, mostly by giving access to bases and airspace, but they do not want to be named. In 1991 the United States and its allies did not count countries which provided overflight rights or political support because the campaign had the overwhelming support of the U.N. Security Council, which had voted 12-2 for the use of force..."

Joe Conason (Salon):
"...Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense for Ronald Reagan, has referred to the coalition of the willing as "window-dressing."..."

Dan Balz and Mike Allen (Washington Post):
"...The countdown to war with Iraq intensified yesterday, with administration officials issuing a list of 30 countries that have publicly stated their support for the U.S.-led conflict to disarm the Iraqi government...Secretary of State Colin L. Powell released the names of the countries included in what the administration calls the "coalition of the willing." Powell said 15 more nations privately support military action to remove Hussein. The list was shorter than previously suggested by administration officials, who recently said the coalition supporting the United States was in the "high two digits," and it included such nations as Eritrea, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Colombia and Ethiopia, which have little to offer beyond moral support. Only a handful will contribute to the U.S. military effort in the Persian Gulf region..."

Also see: Daily Howler

"..."We've got a huge coalition," Bush said...going so far as to argue that "the coalition that we've assembled today is larger than the one assembled in 1991 in terms of the number of nations participating."..."

Jake Tapper (Salon): 
"...Even those nominally included in the coalition are bashing the war, however much President Bush thanks them for their support. Portugal was added to the coalition list on Thursday, but somebody forgot to send the country's president the talking points. "Given that there is no mandate from the United Nations, ... Portugal will not form part of the military coalition which will be built up," Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio said on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse. "We will, however, allow our allies transit rights, just as other countries have done, including some which have expressed strong opposition to any military action against Iraq." On Wednesday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had moved Portugal, Singapore and Bulgaria from the column of those that didn't want to be named to those in the Coalition of the Willing...It might serve him well to do so, though, because Portugal isn't the only State Department-labeled "Willing" country having trouble deciding whether or not it's in the coalition. Angolan Radio Ecclesia reported on Wednesday that all 30 members of the Angolan National Assembly spoke against the war; M.P. Joao Melo said that U.S. behavior was "unilateralist" and "imperialist."..."We are not having any kind of involvement," a spokesman for the Eritrean Foreign Ministry said to AFP, while backing the U.S. action. Eritrea is also a member of the Coalition of the Willing...Another significant difference between the coalitions of '91 and '03 is that the 36 total countries in the 1991 coalition -- including those that didn't send troops -- ponied up some serious coin...Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on May 14, 1991, Eugene J. McAllister, assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs...said that other countries kicked in "$70 billion in total financial contributions," including $54.6 billion in military responsibility costs. Saudi Arabia pledged $16.8 billion, Kuwait $16 billion, Germany $6.6 billion, the United Arab Emirates $4 billion, and Japan $10.7 billion. "We made a profit last time for heaven's sake," Korb says. "It didn't cost us a nickel." Conversely, this time "nobody's giving us any money, as far as I can see."..."

Dan Balz and Mike Allen (Washington Post):
"...Even some of those on the list released by the State Department, however, were surprised to be included. A senior diplomat at Colombia's embassy in Washington seemed unaware that his nation had been listed. Asked what support Colombia would contribute, the diplomat referred to a statement issued by his government Monday expressing support for stopping "the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction" and prevention of all forms of terrorism "in a timely manner."..."

Also see: The Guardian

"...You're asking about an attack on Iraq, and the president has said repeatedly that he has no plans and nothing has crossed his desk. So that enters into the area of hypothetical."..."