President Bush addresses the United Nations on Tuesday.
NEW YORK, Sept. 23 — President Bush on Tuesday sought international support for rebuilding Iraq in an address to the United Nations, saying, “The nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid — and all nations of good will should step forward and provide that support.” But the president resisted pressure to speed up a transfer of power to an Iraqi government and indicated that the United States would agree to give the United Nations a less substantial role than critics of the U.S.-led war in Iraq had sought.
IN TEXT of his remarks released shortly before he began delivering them, Bush played down the dispute in the United Nations that divided the United States from many longtime allies before the war.
“The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted...