Six months after the US invasion of Iraq, world leaders criticized US President George W. Bush's doctrine of "pre-emptive" war and voiced skepticism over his appeal for help to rebuild Iraq.
Despite conciliatory comments from several ministers, the scars from the diplomatic battle over the Iraq war were evident from Indonesia to Brazil on Tuesday, the opening day of the UN General Assembly's annual ministerial session.
And yesterday, Gerhard Schroeder, the first German chancellor since 1973 to address the assembly, said he and Bush had set aside past differences on Iraq and agreed to work together toward bringing stability to the country.
Schroeder's comments contrasted with those of French President Jacques Chirac, who chastised the Bush administration for taking international law into its own hands.
"The war, launched without the authorization of the Security Council, shook the multilateral system," Chirac said. "The United Nations has just been through one of the most grave crises in its history."
This year's two-week General Assembly ministerial debate, the first since the war, brought an unusually large number of high-level officials, including 85 presidents and prime ministers and 100 foreign ministers.
Bush, whose approval ratings have slumped partly due to the soaring costs of the occupation, offered no apology for the chaotic security situation or the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, cited as the main reason for the war.
"Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid -- and all nations of goodwill should step forward and provide that support," Bush said.
The US is rewriting its proposed Security Council resolution that calls for UN authorization for a multinational force in an effort to attract troops and other aid from countries unwilling to be part of an occupying force.
The draft, circulated early this month, says a timetable leading to Iraqi sovereignty has to be set by the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council. The document calls on the UN to assist the council in writing a Constitution and planning elections in cooperation with occupying powers.
Chirac wants an immediate symbolic act of Iraqi sovereignty and has demanded a timetable for handing over power within months in a process supervised by the UN.
He and Bush apparently failed to narrow their differences in private talks after their speeches, but France has said it would not veto the resolution.
However, several leaders said the gap between the US and France was not as wide as it seemed. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, a strong critic of the war, said all sides now shared the same goal of transferring power to the Iraqi people as soon as possible, while being realistic.
"The reality is the goals are the same for everybody and the means vary, but I don't think we will be locking horns for the sake of locking horns," he told reporters.
But even if differences are papered over in the resolution, nations were clearly uneasy about aiding Iraq while the country was under US-led occupation.
Bush received a polite ovation but it was Chirac who won sustained applause.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said the Iraqi crisis put into stark relief "the very future of the United Nations."
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva said that while a war can be won single-handedly, a lasting peace "cannot be secured without the support of all." And Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri said the war in Iraq created "more problems than those it intended to solve."
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