Bush Plans Unyielding Stance on Iraq War in Address to U.N. (More Info)

[Khephra]

Bush will tell the United Nations on Tuesday that he was right to order the invasion of Iraq even without the organization's explicit approval, and he will urge a new focus on countering nuclear proliferation, arguing that it is the only way to avoid similar confrontations.

Mr. Bush's unyielding presentation, described over the weekend by officials involved in drafting it, will come in a 22-minute speech to the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Bush will then spend the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday meeting with the leaders of France, Germany, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

According to the officials involved in drafting the speech, for an audience they know will range from the skeptical to the angry, Mr. Bush will acknowledge no mistakes in planning for postwar security and reconstruction in Iraq. Privately, however, many officials are acknowledging that the Pentagon was unprepared for the scope and duration of the continuing guerrilla-style attacks against the American-led alliance and the newly appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Since Mr. Bush declared an end to active military operations on May 1, more than 70 American troops in Iraq have been killed by hostile fire.

In the speech, Mr. Bush will repeat his call for nations — including those that opposed the Iraq action — to contribute to rebuilding the country, but he will offer no concessions to French demands that the major authority for running the country be turned over immediately to Iraqis.

"We'll stay on the same schedule" of drafting a constitution and holding national elections, one senior official said in an interview today. Mr. Bush will not discuss a timetable in the speech, but his aides said in interviews over the weekend that completing the process by spring or summer would be, in the words of one, "very ambitious." That assessment is bound to anger European nations that have demanded a far more accelerated transfer of power.

Mr. Bush made clear in a Fox News interview taped today, to be broadcast Monday, that he would define a larger role for the United Nations very narrowly. Asked if he was willing to give the United Nations more authority in order to obtain a new resolution, he said, "I'm not so sure we have to, for starters," according to excerpts released by Fox tonight.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/international/22PREX.html