*EPF101 03/17/2003
White House Report, March 17: Bush to Address Nation on Iraq
(To avoid war, Saddam Hussein must leave Iraq, Fleischer says) (510)

President Bush will issue an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, telling him to leave Iraq or face military action, in a televised address to the United States at 8 p.m. March 17, Washington time, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters.

Fleischer made the announcement at the White House the morning of March 17, minutes after the United Nations ambassadors of the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain announced in New York that they would not call for a vote on the amended draft resolution they had offered to the United Nations Security Council on March 7.

That proposed resolution had sought to have the Security Council enforce the language in Security Council Resolution 1441 by saying that unless Iraq had cooperated fully with all U.N. disarmament demands by March 17, it would have "failed to take the final opportunity" to do so.

Fleischer told reporters, "The United Nations has failed to enforce its own demands that Iraq immediately disarm. As a result, the diplomatic window has now been closed. The president will address the nation tonight at 8 o'clock. He will say that in order to avoid military conflict, Saddam Hussein must leave the country."

The press secretary also reported that President Bush began his day with yet another series of phone calls. He spoke with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spain's President of Government Jose Maria Aznar. Bush also met with his National Security Council, Fleischer said, where he received an update from Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had been in touch with some six foreign ministers around the world and with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

When asked how much time Bush would give Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, Fleischer said, "I'm not going to get into every detail of what the president will say, but it will be accurate to call it an ultimatum."

He expressed the White House's confidence in the legal right of the United States to go to war even without a vote on the second U.N. resolution.

"There is no question, based on both international law and domestic law, that the President has that authority," Fleischer said in a briefing on Friday, March 15.

He read the following statement to reporters: "The United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 authorized use of all necessary means to uphold United Nations Security Council Resolution 660, and subsequent resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area. That was the basis for the use of force against Iraq during the Gulf War. Thereafter, United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 declared a cease-fire, but imposed several conditions, including extensive WMD related conditions. Those conditions provided the conditions essential to the restoration of peace and security in the area. A material breach of those conditions removes the basis for the cease-fire and provides a legal grounds for the use of force."

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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