Differences at the United Nations over Iraq remained unresolved as the annual General Assembly debate opened with an uncompromising defence of the war by President Bush, a sharp rebuke for the US from President Chirac and a strong plea for radical UN reform by the Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan. Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, at the UN in New York.
President Bush implicitly criticised the Security Council for failing to follow through on its many warnings to Saddam Hussein, and claimed that "a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace and the credibility of the United Nations".
As a result, Iraq was free and he pointed to the presence of an Iraqi delegation at the General Assembly led by Mr Ahmed Chalabi, "favourite son" of some elements in the US administration.
Not only Saddam Hussein's statues, but the "true monuments" of his rule had been removed: torture chambers, rape rooms and prison cells for innocent children. "And as we discover the killing fields and mass graves of Iraq, the true scale of Saddam's cruelty is being revealed." Nodding to the critics of the war, Mr Bush said: "I also recognise that some of the sovereign nations of this assembly disagreed with our actions. Yet there was and there remains unity among us on the fundamental principles and objectives of the United Nations."
But he saw only a limited role for the UN, which "should assist in developing a constitution, in training civil servants, and conducting free and fair elections".
Implicitly rejecting calls by France and others for a rapid restoration of Iraqi sovereignty, Mr Bush said: "This process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis, neither hurried nor delayed by the wishes of other parties."
Afterwards, there was a stinging rebuke for the US administration from France's President Chirac, who told delegates: "No one can act alone in the name of all and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules."
He added: "The war, launched without the authorisation of the Security Council, shook the multilateral system."
The United Nations, he said, had just been through one of the most grave crises in its history. He called for an early transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people and proposed a Security Council summit to draft an action plan to fight the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and create a permanent corps of UN arms inspectors.
There was also some implicit but measured criticism of the US from the Mr Annan, who said unilateral action posed a "fundamental challenge" to the principles of the UN. This could lead a to "proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without justification".
But new threats, for example from terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, must be dealt with collectively by the UN and this required radical reform of its rules and basic structure.
"We have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded." Having rejected the notion of pre-emptive strikes by individual states, Mr Annan suggested such action might be acceptable if taken on a collective basis through the UN.
He said members of the Security Council "may need to begin a discussion on the criteria for an early authorisation of coercive measures to address certain types of threats - for instance, terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction".
Later, there was an enthusiastic welcome for the Secretary-General's remarks from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, who told The Irish Times it was "a hugely important speech".
Hinting that there would be strong support for Mr Annan in the Taoiseach's address to the General Assembly tomorrow, Mr Cowen said: "It is the right approach, he is asking the right questions."