Analysts pick apart Bush UN speech

8.30am

NEW YORK - Following are reactions from analysts to US President George W Bush's speech at the UN General Assembly this morning (NZ time).

In his speech, Bush defended his war in Iraq as justified by the discovery of mass graves and torture chambers and asked UN members to help rebuild Iraq, where US troops face regular attack and the UN headquarters in Iraq was attacked for a second time on Monday.

Bush spoke as the United States offered a new UN resolution that gives little independent power to the United Nations but says the United Nations has a "vital role" to play in Iraq in humanitarian and reconstruction.

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Mohamed Al-Sayed Said, Deputy Director of Cairo's Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies:

"His speech carried the same rhetoric as usual, no new arguments, even though new developments are really shaking traditional arguments, including even the arguments on Iraq, the arguments of weapons of mass destruction.

"His message to the Middle East, to the Arabs particularly, was very negative. He practically blocked any hope on dynamic policy, on diplomacy, on the Palestinian issue.

"There is nothing new, except more propaganda, more rhetoric, more 'moralising' -- because I don't think these policies are moral."

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Lee Feinstein, Washington Director of the Council on Foreign Relations:

"Kofi Annan gave the speech George Bush should have.

"The secretary general pointed out the need to update the UN and the global rules of the road especially dealing with the use of force and this is really the central question that's facing the UN and the world now.

"George Bush skirted those issues and instead gave a defensive speech that fell far short of his performance last year, which was one of the best speeches of his presidency."

"What the speech showed was a continuing ambivalence in Washington about what to do. The administration is still divided over how aggressively to pursue more foreign troops for Iraq and it's still ambivalent about the UN's role in Iraq."

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Ken Weinstein, Vice President of the Washington-based Hudson Institute:

"In some sense it is a return of the George Bush we saw in last year's UN speech, turning to the General Assembly wanting to work with the UN and with the UN member nations to push his agenda through.

"Human rights is clearly emerging as a core doctrine of Bush policy. ... Clearly the notion of compassionate conservatism is beginning to creep into his foreign policy."

"The UN unfortunately is still trapped in the mindset of weapons of mass destruction and resolutions and unfortunately less focused on human rights as a case for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, in part because the UN is composed of petty dictatorships that offer paler reflections of Saddam Hussein's own dictatorship."

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Guillaume Parmentier, Director, French Centre on the United States at the French Institute for International Relations:

"Frankly I think he's trying to get the United Nations on his side but I don't think he's giving a great deal to convince the countries that have been sceptical of US plans. He's saying nice things about the UN, which doesn't cost a lot of money, and after that he's not really making the right division between security, which should be handled by the occupying power, and the political future of Iraq, which should be handled by the UN"

"The Americans are not in a very triumphant mood and they have to wait for the goodwill of other nations to come forward. They are in more of a rush than those countries. Chirac has time on his side."

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Leon Charney, Adviser to President Jimmy Carter on the Camp David Accords and now moderator of a television talk show:

"He is trying to re-tread tires. It is going to be very difficult for George Bush right now. This is a political play by the Germans and the French in my opinion. They are ready to sabotage anything that George Bush wants to do.

"I think he is in a very tough spot."

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Robert Johansen, Professor, University of Notre Dame:

"Many of the arguments he raised were presented well and will be well received but there was one major omission: He failed to acknowledge the extent to which the United Nations was reluctant to see the United States initiate the war in Iraq.

"The main thing is he can't expect the world community to help the rebuilding if he refuses to allow the world community to have significant participation in how Iraq is being governed."

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Manuel Coma, Analyst, Spain's Royal Elcano Institute:

"There has been a certain evolution in the US discourse toward taking up humanitarian issues. During the run-up to the war this was only a modest part of the debate, but now it is a safe haven for the Americans because they have not found weapons of mass destruction. ...

"Regarding the role of the UN, this is a something of a concession to the countries that opposed the war, namely France, Germany and Russia. They are saying that the constitution and elections should be supervised by the UN and they have not gone that far before. But they are saying that security matters remain ours."

- REUTERS

George W Bush's speech to the UN General Assembly

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