Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Bush and Annan throw veiled insults at each other!
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UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US President George W. Bush traded fresh barbs over Iraq at a sombre meeting of world leaders held in the shadow of Iraq's ongoing bloodshed.
Opening the UN's annual debate, Annan said Iraqi prisoners had been "disgracefully abused" and made veiled references to the United States in a wide-ranging speech calling on all nations to obey the rule of law.
Bush fired back that the United States had enforced "the just demands of the world" by ousting Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in a war that has left world opinion still bitterly divided more than one year after the US-led invasion.
Aides had insisted Annan, an outspoken critic of the war who last week called it "illegal," would be keen to avoid re-opening old wounds. But he cited the prisoner abuse among "flagrant" examples of lawlessness across the globe.
"In Iraq, we see civilians massacred in cold blood, while relief workers, journalists and other non-combatants are taken hostage and put to death in the most barbarous fashion," Annan said with Bush in the audience.
"At the same time, we have seen Iraqi prisoners disgracefully abused," he said, drawing a parallel between the Iraq bloodshed and the prisoner scandal in a way destined to irk the US administration.
Annan has repeatedly been at odds with Bush's contention that the UN Security Council, which had passed a resolution threatening "serious consequences" for Saddam, had provided the legal basis for the war.
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