Bush tells UN to get tough on Iraq or risk becoming a 'debating society'

US PRESIDENT George Bush yesterday pressed the UN Security Council to approve a tough new resolution against Iraq, saying the council would otherwise look like "nothing but a debating society".

Bush kept up the pressure on the United Nations, stating again the council must act or the United States will. Iraq declared American attempts for a new resolution "have bad intentions and wicked aims" and the United Nations should not be a platform for "launching aggression" against Baghdad.

But Bush, to raucous cheers from a boisterous crowd in an Army National Guard hangar, declared: "We will not allow the world's worst leaders to threaten us with the world's worst weapons."

Iraq's announcement a week ago that it would accept UN weapons inspectors without conditions has complicated Bush's attempts to persuade the Security Council to approve a new resolution demanding Iraq disarm or face possible attack.

Bush emphasised the threat posed by Iraq during a daylong trip to New Jersey to help raise $1.5 million for Republican Doug Forrester's campaign to unseat New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli in November 5 mid-term elections. Bush, who presented his case against Iraq to the United Nations the day after September 11 anniversary, said his message was that "either you can become a League of Nations, either you can become an organisation which is nothing but a debating society, or you can be an organisation which is robust enough and strong enough to help keep the peace across the world it's your choice.

"I want to see strong resolutions coming out of that UN, a resolution which says the old ways of deceit are gone, a resolution which will hold this man to account, a resolution which will allow freedom-loving countries to disarm Saddam Hussein before he threatens his neighbourhood, before he threatens freedom, before he threatens America and before he threatens civilisation," Bush said.