"Today, despite the best efforts of the international community and the United Nations, war has come to Iraq for the third time in a quarter of a century.
Perhaps if we had persevered a little longer, Iraq could yet have been disarmed peacefully, or - if not - the world could have taken action to solve this problem by a collective decision, endowing it with greater legitimacy, and therefore commanding wider support, than is now the case...
Over the past weeks, the peoples of the world have shown what great importance they attach to the legitimacy conveyed by the authority of the United Nations. They have made clear that, in confronting uncertainty and danger, they want to see power harnessed to legitimacy. They want their leaders to come together, in the United Nations, to resolve the problems shared by all humanity."
"Statement by the Secretary-General on Iraq," Statement by then Secretary General Kofi Annan, United Nations website, Mar. 20, 2003
[Editor's Note: Kofi Annan was head of the United Nations at the time of his Con statement above.]
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