Washington: United States President George W Bush on April 16 called upon the United
Nations to lift the sanctions imposed on Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power.
Welcoming the decision of Iraqi representatives at their first meeting on April 16
to build Iraq as a Democracy, Bush, who was addressing Boeing workers building the F-
18 Super Hornet fighters in St Louis, said that having rid Iraq of an oppressive
regime, the United States is committed to helping Iraq build a future of freedom and
dignity and peace.
Bush said that for all the hardships of the transition, the lives of the Iraqi
people will be better than anything they have known in generations.
Saying "we believe that people across the Middle East and across the world are weary
of poverty and repression and yearn to be free", Bush pledged that all who will work
and sacrifice for freedom have a friend in the United States.
"Our country and our allies," he said, "are united by a great goal - we are working
to create conditions for peace. We are confronting the threats to peace from
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction."
On the war itself, Bush said that organised military resistance has virtually ended
in all the major cities the coalition forces have liberated, but "our work is not
done, the difficulties have not passed but the regime of Saddam
Hussein has passed into history".
"There is still scattered enemy resistance capable of doing harm to the coalition
forces and to the innocent but "we will stay focused...we will press on until our
mission is finished and victory is complete".
PTI
