Iraq war empowers the United Nations.(Ahead Of The Curve)

ITEM: In his January 20 State of the Union address, President Bush candidly described the Iraq War as a mission to bolster the United Nations: "Since we last met in this chamber, combat forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Poland and other countries enforced the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein, and the people of Iraq are free."

ITEM: In a January 25 news analysis commenting on the recent disclosures of chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay, Associated Press special correspondent Charles J. Hanley wrote: "Kay ... concluded that years of earlier UN inspections had 'got rid of' weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 'The weapons do not exist,' he told National Public Radio. That finding, if accepted in the corridors of power in Washington, may help revive a unified, UN-led strategy on arms proliferation.... "

ITEM: In a January 30 essay, National Review Online editor Kathryn J. Lopez suggested that President Bush--denounced by foes and lauded by supporters as a champion of American "unilateralism"--has done such a superb job of rehabilitating the UN that he should be appointed to the organization's highest office: "After he's won reelection and after he's served his second term as leader of the free world, President George W. Bush could do a world of good as United Nations secretary general. Yes, seriously.... In speaking about Iraq before the general assembly in September 2002, President Bush asked, 'Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?' In the administration's work on human-rights issues, the president has made the U.N. a better body, more responsive to today's crises of human dignity, and more relevant globally."

ITEM: In an essay entitled "Partnership and Principle" in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs (the house journal of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations), Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to dispel the idea that the Bush administration is a collection of unilateralist, anti-UN cowboys. "Above all, the president's strategy is one of partnerships that strongly affirms the vital role of NATO and other U.S. alliances--including the UN," wrote Secretary Powell, who went on to elaborate how the administration has worked through the UN in its "war on terror," and the invasion of Iraq: "President Bush went before the UN on September 12, 2002, to make his case for the UN's enforcing its own resolutions (16 of them in total) ... Security Council Resolution 1441--which warned the Iraqi regime to comply with its own obligations under previous UN resolutions--passed unanimously in November 2002 ... we tried for a further resolution to unite the international community in the months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began ... we went to the UN in May 2003 after Operation ...