United Nations, Sept 26: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Thursday defended the Iraq war and urged the world community to come together in helping to rebuild the country. "I firmly believe that the decision we took was the right one. The authority of the United Nations was at stake," Straw said on day three of the UN General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting. He said he acknowledged "the controversy over the military action we took" but insisted that nations had to come together over post-war Iraq.
"We have a shared interest in helping Iraqi citizens to embrace the rights and freedoms which they have been denied for so long and for which this institution was founded," he said. "Let us not lose sight of what has been achieved and what is taking shape. Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is over," Straw said.
Siding decisively with closest ally Washington, the British Foreign Secretary also rejected calls from France and Germany to speed up the end of the occupation and the handover of power to Iraqis.
"The timetable should be driven by the needs of the Iraqi people and their capacity progressively to assume democratic control, rather than by fixing arbitrary deadlines," he said. Bureau Report