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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John D. Negroponte delivers a speech to a standing room only audience at the George Bush Presidential Conference Center Monday evening. Negroponte has served as a diplomat for 43 years and received his first appointment in 1960 from President Eisenhower. (Photo by ART WRIGHT / THE BATTALION )

Negroponte: War in Iraq justified

By: Rhiannon Meyers

Posted: 3/9/04

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John D. Negroponte said Monday night that the United Nations, like the United States, is helpful in securing democracy worldwide.

"If the United States is necessary, but not sufficient to good things happening in the world, the same is true of the U.N.," he said.

Negroponte, who has been an ambassador since 2001, told an overflowing audience of 350 in the George Bush Presidential Library Conference Center that the United States never attempted to undermine the United Nations.

"A strong vigorous, democratically-disposed United Nations is in our national interest,"

Negroponte said. "This administration has never challenged the United Nations to weaken it; rather, it has challenged the United Nations in order to challenge it."

Negroponte said in a question-and-answer session that America was justified in going to war with Iraq without the U.N. resolution.

"(The resolution) did not say if we were to use force we have to go back for yet another resolution, it simply said that we would have to come back to consult the Security Council,"
Negroponte said. "As far as we were concerned, there were more ways than one that Iraq continued to not be in compliance."

Negroponte said that although no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, Iraq had missiles that were prohibited.

"I don't have any doubt in my mind that we were justified for what we did," he said.

Negroponte said U.S. troops that are now in Afghanistan and Iraq are defending the U.S. Constitution as well as democracy all around the world.

"We believe that not only is the national security of the United States good for us, it's good for the world, because we think democracy, modeled on our own constitution or not, is the best
guarantor of national security," Negroponte said.

Negroponte said one of the progressions that the United Nations has made is the support of President Bush's vision of peace in the Middle East.

"We are engaging in crucial work designed to bring about the democratization of Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.

College Station Mayor Ron Silvia said he enjoyed the speech and learned a lot about the United Nation's role in the world.

"I'm very concerned about world affairs, and I feel that the U.N. is playing a very important role in the world as we see it today," Silvia said. "I think this speech was a very significant
event."

Negroponte said the United Nations is pursuing the war against terror, supporting peacekeeping operations in Africa, contributing to the World Food Program, mounting an HIV/AIDS initiative worldwide and curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Negroponte said he thinks Japan should be added to the U.N. Security Council, because it pays so much of the United Nation's budget, but does not have a voice on the Security
Council.

"The Security Council is an institution that reflects the realities of 1945, but there has been pressure over the past 15 to 20 years so that it better reflects the reality of today," he said.

Negroponte said he was pleased with Afghanistan's adoption of the transitional administrative law on March 8, which will act as its constitution until it drafts one itself.

"I think it incorporates many important principles of democracy," Negroponte said. "I think the adoption of this transitional law was a step in the right direction."

Graduate student Jackie Mather worked with Negroponte last summer when she was employed at the United Nations, and said she enjoyed the speech and that he touched on all
the key current issues

"It doesn't matter who he meets or from what country they are from, he automatically makes them feel at ease," Mather said.

Negroponte said the United Nations is taking steps to ensure peace and democracy worldwide.

"We are making progress," Negroponte said, "not always newspaper progress, perhaps, but history book progress, the kind of progress you don't recycle, but you keep on your shelf."