Photo: Amb. W. vanden Heuvel (U.S. ret.), J. Leonard (U.S. ret.), R. Grey (US ret.); J. Granoff (GSI)

United Nations -- Former senior U.S. diplomats discussed the Iraq crisis and U.S. policy yesterday at UN headquarters here in New York at a press conference organized by the Global Security Institute (GSI) and the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA). More than 40 reporters from the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, Reuters and other domestic and international media outlets attended.

The focus of the press conference was the importance of multilateral cooperation in achieving security globally and with particular reference to Iraq and the extreme hazards created by unilateralism.

"The case has not been made that the U.S. should take action alone [against Iraq]," said director of GSI's Bipartisan Security Group Ambassador Robert Grey Jr. and former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, who as part of a distinguished foreign service career, was intimately involved in creating the multilateral coalition that prosecuted the first Gulf War. "What's at stake here is the system that we so patiently built up over the past 60 years. We are looking at long-term damage to treaties, damage far greater than Saddam."

Ambassador James Leonard, former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, emphasized the need for effective diplomacy. "Although in the end Saddam has got to go, strengthened diplomacy must first be pursued through the Security Council." As part of enhanced restraints on Iraq, he suggested that the Security Council endorse and extend no-fly zones in Iraq and reduce permitted range of missiles in Iraq below the current 150 kilometers.

Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel, former Deputy Permanent Representative of the U.S. to the UN and former U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, dismissed the President's recent statement about the UN risking making itself irrelevant as "demagoguery." As the Associated Press reported: "For those in the United Nations who refuse to support force," vanden Heuvel said, "we still have the option of going immediately to the General Assembly and putting it to a vote of the world." He was referring to the uniting for peace resolution, passed in 1950 to stop North Korean Communist troops from invading South Korea, which allows the General Assembly to meet in emergency session and vote on a course of action if the Security Council is unable to establish peace and security.

GSI President Jonathan Granoff, who was moderator of the discussion, asked, "how does the U.S. Administration plan to obtain the necessary cooperation needed to address environmental degradation, gender equity, global warming or the struggle against terrorism, if the U.S. doesn't build stronger international cooperation? Will we solve these crises alone?"

Let us not forget, he said, "President Bush is bound by the U.S. Constitution (Article 6, Clause 2) to act in accordance with ratified treaties, and the rules governing use of force, the constraints of the UN system, thus apply to U.S. conduct."

"Iraq is essentially about disarmament of weapons of mass destruction," Granoff said. "The U.S. is actually threatening to use nuclear weapons in response should Iraq use chemical weapons. According to the CIA, the likelihood of such use is heightened by a U.S. unilateral use of force. What kind of logic has led us to threaten to kill millions of innocent civilians -- 50% of whom are children -- in an effort to liberate them from the mafiocracy of Saddam Hussein? We should be working to eliminate not increase nuclear threats."

Vanden Heuvel pointed out that much of the "policy-making relating to the American position in the UN has been made by people who are fundamentally hostile to multilateral treaties and to the United Nations."

The event was extensively covered by international media.

Reported by Nadine Kjellberg.

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