Annan Challenges U.S. Doctrine of Preventive Action.."Global Free-For-All"

[ElsewheresDaughter]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0923-01.htm

Global Free-For-All
Annan Challenges U.S. Doctrine of Preventive Action

by Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned President Bush that his doctrine of preemptive military intervention posed a fundamental challenge to the United Nations and could lead to a global free-for-all.

In a speech to be delivered shortly before Bush addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Annan declared that the Iraq crisis had brought the United Nations to a "fork in the road" as decisive as 1945 when the world body was founded.


United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan speaks at the opening of the 58th United Nations General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 22, 2003. Annan warned President Bush that his doctrine of preemptive military intervention posed a fundamental challenge to the United Nations and could lead to a global free-for-all. Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters

Without mentioning the United States by name, Annan spoke as states in the 191-member world body were struggling to heal deep rifts caused by the war on Iraq, in which the United States acted without U.N. Security Council approval.

Annan questioned U.S. arguments that nations have the "right and obligation to use force preemptively" against unconventional weapons systems even while they were still being developed.

"My concern is that, if it were to be adopted, it could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification," Annan warned in a text of his speech released in advance

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