European leaders last night welcomed President Bush's proposal to work with the United Nations to force the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But they expressed reservations about the prospect of the United States acting alone if Iraq does not comply with a new Security Council resolution.
"Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger," Mr Bush told the UN General Assembly yesterday in a widely anticipated speech outlining US policy. "To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take."
After weeks of threatening to go it alone against Baghdad, Mr Bush said the US would work with the UN Security Council on a new resolution "to meet our common challenge".
But he warned that if the Iraqi regime defied the UN as it had done in the past, "the world must move deliberately and decisively to hold Iraq to account." Iraq, he said, could have a nuclear weapon within a year, and the first the world would know about it was when he used it.
If the Security Council resolutions were not enforced, he warned, "action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power." Iraq's UN ambassador, Mr Mohammed Aldouri, who sat expressionless through Mr Bush's speech, dismissed it as a long series of fabrications, motivated by "revenge, oil, personal ambitions and the security of Israel".
However, European leaders, many of whom have expressed alarm at the prospect of unilateral pre-emptive action by the US, welcomed the prospect that war could be averted by tough action taken by the United Nations.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said he welcomed the fact that "we are now operating within a UN framework," and that the matter could be resolved quickly if the Iraqi regime met its responsibilities to comply with UN Security Council resolutions.
"The role of the UN in this matter would be to seek compliance with existing resolutions," Mr Cowen said. "We are not in the business of regime change. What we want is to make sure to maintain international order." The debate was a "defining moment" for the UN, he added.
Mr Bush had laid down a challenge "and we want to take up that challenge."
Ireland, one of the 10 members of the 16-member Security Council without a veto, would consult other countries on the wording of a new resolution for the Security Council, he said.
The French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, said Mr Bush "stressed the central role the United Nations must play and this is a very good thing. We appreciate this. We have to act legitimately, collectively and responsibly."
However, the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, speaking in Germany, said his country would not take part in any attack on Iraq. "We need more peace, not more war. And that's why, under my leadership, Germany will not participate."
The Prime Minister of Norway, Kjell Magne Bondevik, said: "What was positive in his speech is that future action is rooted in the United Nations."
The UK ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said: "President Bush has clearly decided to take the issue once again back to the Security Council. That in our view is an important decision."
The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said he opposed unilateral action against Iraq. "When states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations," Mr Annan said.
He renewed a call for an early international peace conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.