Those expecting new proof to justify war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq would have been disappointed by President George Bush’s speech to the United Nations this week. If new evidence exists, it remains securely private; his speech was a recounting of U.N. resolutions Iraq has failed to meet. However, the president’s recognition of the ability of the United Nations to act to reduce the threat from Iraq was a positive change from the president’s earlier posture.

The president leaned heavily on the fact that Saddam has failed to allow weapons inspectors the ability to adequately verify the types and number of Iraq’s weaponry, particularly weapons of mass destruction in addition to his human-rights abuses. His speech forced the moment by demanding immediate compliance with the inspection rules, with prohibitions on aiding terrorists, persecution of Iraq’s civilian population and by demanding that Saddam Hussein “immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related materials.” The demands simultaneously appear to present an alternative to war and establish a final reason for it, although the president acknowledged yesterday that he did not expect Iraq to meet the demands.

This was not a speech President Bush could have wanted to give; and the assembly contained plenty of skeptics. But now the UN is presented with a challenge: to recognize that its demands for inspections mean something substantial or admit their failure, in the president’s words, “to be irrelevant.” “Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger,” Bush said. “To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence.

To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble.”

Members of Congress generally were encouraging of the president’s comments, but they have a responsibility to press him further in this argument. Specifically, they must ask what level of danger exists in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq now that did not exist two or four years ago. That is to say, what does the United States know about Iraq’s “gathering danger” that makes an immediate response so important? And how does this threat measure against the immediacy of the threat posed by al-Qaida?

Disappointingly, the president gave little attention to what he saw as the aftermath of a war against Iraq. If the Kurds use the opportunity of war as a means for splitting off parts of northern Iraq in an alliance with Kurds in Turkey or Iran, the United States would have more than nation-building to undertake. The speech was a chance for the president to express his commitment and detail his support for helping the Iraqi people develop a nation based on free elections and human rights. He mentioned it, but only enough so people could not say he failed to.

Congress should be next to act with a vigorous debate. If the president is sincere that he wants the issue decided in days and weeks and not months and years, there is not time to waste.