On May 2, 2003, five of the biggest UK aid agencies and their Muslim counterparts said that troops cannot deliver food and stability and are asking for the UN to administer post-war Iraq. Broken water plants and sewage systems threaten to spread disease epidemics, and hospitals are struggling to cope with serious outbreaks of disease. According to them, occupying forces are failing in their duties under the Geneva Convention to ensure humanitarian assistance. The EU agrees with the Charities and wants the UN to pass a new resolution that creates a clear international legal framework for post-war Iraq. A plane chartered by the EU and carrying first aid material was prevented to land in Baghdad last night. On the other hand Richard Branson flew into Basra airport with one of his plane carrying 60 tonnes of medical supplies and an UN ship brought 14,000 tonnes of rice in Umm Qasr. Would it be the Americans who create problems with humanitarian aid?

On August 24, 2003, Boutros Ghali, a former UN General Secretary, said that the UN is in crisis because it is seen as being run by the Americans. This created deep resentment in the developing world. Big changes are required to rebuilt trust in the UN across the world. Denis Halliday, a former UN assistant secretary general, gave more or less the same comments.

The UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, asked for reform of the organisation on September 8, 2003, after the divisions about Iraq. He called for a new commitment to legitimate international intervention in other countries' affairs and the expansion of the 15-members Security Council to make it more representative of the present world.

On February 8, 2004, The Observer told us that Britain helped the USA to conduct an illegal spying operation at the UN before the invasion of Iraq at the beginning of 2003. At least a permanent member of the UN Security Council -probably France or China- was targeted in violation of the Vienna Conventions on diplomatic relations that prohibit spying on diplomats. The information was for US Secretary of State Colin Powell before his intervention at the UN Security Council of February 5, 2003, on weapons of mass destruction. On February 14, Chile and Mexico provided new evidence that their missions at the UN were spied on by the British and the Americans a few days before the invasion of Iraq. The former Mexican ambassador to the UN, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, added that the USA intervened in March 2003, days before the invasion, to stop secret negotiations for a compromise resolution to give UN weapon inspectors more time to finish their work. The Americans and British could only have heard of it by spying a meeting of diplomats of six nations working on a compromise resolution. A young British woman translator, Katherine Gun, working at the GCHQ surveillance centre at Cheltenham, Gloustershire, revealed the first indication of the illegal spying. On February 19, it looked like her case will be dropped because the trial could reveal details of the spying operation that the secret services prefer to keep in the dark. One of the reasons why the case will be dropped is due to the fact that the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, would have been asked to release his advice on the legality of war. Was his advice negative?

On February 27, 2004, both former chiefs of the UN Inspectors in Iraq, Hans Blix and Richard Butler, as well as Mr Kofi Annan predecessor as UN Secretary General, Boutros-Boutros Galli, said that they believed that their office and home phones had been bugged too. They expected to be bugged by the Iraqis, but certainly not by the USA and Britain. Hans Blix described this behaviour as "disgusting when it comes from people on the same side". Moreover it is contrary to the Vienna conventions signed by both the USA and Britain. All said that they tried to protect their privacy by having UN counter-intelligence team sweep both phones for bugs, and by going to a public phone when they had sensitive matters to discuss. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said that Blix mobile phone calls were monitored from Iraq and the transcript shared by the US, British and Australian intelligence services. Blix said that he did not think that the bugging took place in Iraq because he did not use his mobile phone there fearing that the Iraqis would listen to it as well as bugging his office. The USA and Britain have now reached a very low level and anything they say cannot be trusted anymore. They are cheats and liars. Dr Blix will soon publish a book on his experience as head of the inspector team in Iraq. It will be interesting to read what he has to say. Mexico's UN ambassador, Enrique Berruga, revealed that Mexico had asked the US and Britain already in December 2003 if the rumour saying that these two countries had bugged their diplomatic calls were true. No reply has been received yet.

Iraq's first post-Saddam ambassador to the United Nations formally presented his credentials on Friday September 17, 2004, but he cannot vote until Baghdad pays $14.5 million in back dues. The credentials ceremony came as the 191-nation UN General Assembly this week opened its 59th session at its New York headquarters. Iraq has had no UN ambassador since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government last year. Mohammed Aldouri, its top envoy in the period running up to the US-led invasion, fled New York just before the conflict began in March 2003.

The Kyoto accord, which aims to curb the air pollution blamed for global warming, has come into force February 16, 2005, seven years after it was agreed. Some 141 countries, accounting for 55% of greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified the treaty, which pledges to cut these emissions by 5.2% by 2012. But the world's top polluter - the US - has not signed the treaty. The US says the changes would be too costly to introduce and that the agreement is flawed. Large developing countries including India, China and Brazil are not required to meet specific targets for now.

The board of the World Bank voted unanimously on March 31, 2005, to approve the appointment of Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as the bank's next president, installing one of President Bush's closest lieutenants to run the influential anti-poverty agency. The nomination of Wolfowitz, a chief architect of the Iraq war, brought dismayed reactions in Europe and elsewhere when it was announced two weeks ago. Since then, however, opposition from allied governments has receded. After the vote, announced at a board of directors meeting, Wolfowitz issued a statement stressing his intention to collaborate with others in the bank's work of funding development projects for poor countries.

Reconstruction efforts in Iraq worth $20bn are being hampered by inefficiency and insurgent attacks we were told on May 2, 2006. The audit findings were published three years after President Bush declared an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq. Mr Bush said Iraq had finally "turned a corner", but faced more tough times.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Baghdad on March 22, 2007, on a previously unannounced visit, his first since taking office, for talks with Mr Maliki.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lent support on Tuesday July 17, 2007, to President George W Bush on Iraq, saying violence there was a problem for all countries. As Bush hosted Ban at the White House, the UN chief also welcomed the president's plan to hold a high-level meeting on the Middle East peace process in the autumn.

The UN Security Council agreed unanimously on Thursday August 7, 2008, to extend for one more year the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). The 15-member Council stressed that "the security of UN personnel is essential for UNAMI to carryout its work for the benefit of the people of Iraq."

The UN Security Council on Monday December 22, 2008, formally recognized the end of the mandate of the US-led multinational forces (MNF) in Iraq at the end of this month as requested by the Baghdad government. The UN mandate is expiring after the United States, which supplies 95 percent of foreign troops in Iraq, recently signed an agreement with the Baghdad government which allows its combat forces to remain in the country until the end of 2011.