UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - US President George W. Bush defiantly told the United Nations that the war in Iraq was justified and demanded more UN action to help end the deadly chaos that has followed the US-led invasion.
Despite the collapse of his two principal justifications for the war, Bush showed no contrition as he told the UN General Assembly in a speech to step up support for Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi`s fledling government.
"The government of Prime Minister (Iyad Allawi) has earned the support of every nation that believes in self-determination and desires peace," Bush said Tuesday in his annual speech to the assembly.
"The UN and its member nations must respond to Prime Minister Allawi`s request and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal and free," Bush said to a tepid response from the chamber.
At the same time, the US leader warned that "we can expect terrorist attacks to escalate" as Afghanistan nears elections scheduled for October and Iraq approaches a vote set for January 2005.
"The work ahead is demanding, but these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat; it is to prevail," he said.
Bush offered no new strategies to overcome violence in Iraq and made no explicit mention of the failure to find vast arsenals of weapons of mass destruction or evidence of close Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda -- his two main justifications for launching the war without explicit UN approval.
Instead, the US president tipped his hat to the roughly 40 nations that backed the invasion, which he said had "enforced the just demands of the world" that Saddam Hussein disarm.
"My nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator," said Bush, who had derided the United Nations as a "debating society" for failing to endorse the invasion.