Blair urges UN to stand up to terror threat

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, March 06, 2004

Blair urges UN to stand up to terror threat

British Prime Minister Tony Blair on March 5 urged the United Nations to stand up to threat from terrorism, calling for a shake-up of the world body.

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair on March 5 urged the United Nations to stand up to threat from terrorism, calling for a shake-up of the world body.

"It means reforming the United Nations so its Security Council represents 21st century reality and giving the UN the capability to act effectively as well as debate," Blair said in a speech at Sedgefield constituency in northeastern England.

"It means getting the UN to understand that faced with the threats we have, we should do all we can to spread the values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, religious tolerance and justice for the oppressed," Blair said.

In his speech, Blair suggested that international law should be changed to allow preemptive military strikes.

"It may well be that under international law as presently constituted, a regime can systematically brutalize and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do," Blair said. "This may be the law, but should it be?"

Blair, who sent about 45,000 British troops to the Gulf for the US-led war against Iraq, also told the audience that containment would not work in the face of the global threat.

"Emphatically I am not saying that every situation leads to military action. But we surely have a duty and a right to prevent the threat from materializing," Blair said.

Britain could not afford to "err on the side of caution" in the fight against terrorism, argued Blair, who also rebutted challenge to the legality of war in Iraq by claiming that the advice given by British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith before the war had been clear.

As no Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction has been found in the 11 months after the United States announced in last May that major military campaign in Iraq was over, Blair on Friday suffered another blow over the Iraq row as former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix told the British Independent newspaper that the Iraq war was illegal.

The threat allegedly posed by Iraq's banned weapons was the main reason cited by the British government for going to war against Iraq with the United States.

Source: Xinhua

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