UN General Assembly
2003

people rebuild their country on the principles of justice and security. What, I think, makes Iraq so important was the way in which it tested the role and purpose of this institution over more than a dozen years. Throughout that period, the international community remained in agreement that the regime of Saddam Hussein posed a Chapter VII threat to international peace and security by its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction programmes and its unparalleled defiance of the will of the United Nations. Yet, earlier this year, sadly, we divided on when and what action was necessary to deal with the Iraqi threat. Of course, I acknowledge the controversy over the military action which the United Kingdom, the United States and others took and the heavy responsibilities we now bear, but I firmly believe that the decisions we took were the right ones. The authority of the United Nations was at stake. Having given Saddam Hussein’s regime a final opportunity to comply with the United Nations, what would have happened if we had simply turned away? Would the