UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a world summit on Wednesday that United Nations members had failed to achieve the profound reform the global organisation needed on its 60th anniversary.
Opening a three-day summit of some 150 kings, presidents and prime ministers, Annan hailed as a breakthrough an agreement on the responsibility to intervene to protect civilians against genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
But a declaration agreed after months of wrangling failed to agree a common approach to the spread of weapons of mass destruction or a new definition of terrorism and fell short of poor nations' hopes on trade and aid.
"Let us be frank with each other, and the peoples of the United Nations. We have not yet achieved the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required," Annan told a sprawling gathering overshadowed by a scandal over abuses of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq. US President George W. Bush referred obliquely to the damaging scandal, saying the United Nations must be "free of corruption, and accountable to the people it serves" and practice the high moral standards it preached.
In a combative speech, Bush focused on his priorities of spreading democracy and eliminating barriers to free trade, as well as using military force, to defeat terrorism and transform the troubled Middle East.
Addressing a world body whose members are still deeply divided over the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, he insisted Iraqis were on the road to building a model democracy despite yet another day of bloodshed in Baghdad in which more than 150 people were killed.
While Bush emphasised the fight against terrorism and extremist ideologies, Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, one of the co-chairmen, said the main point of the summit should be "to get the fight against world poverty back on track".
Many of the world's poorest countries were falling short of the ambitious goals to halve world poverty by 2015, combat disease and promote development agreed at the 2000 UN Millennium summit, he said.
"If we allow this to happen, millions of lives will be lost and we will pass on a more unfair and unsafe world to the next generations", Persson said.
Annan said preparatory negotiations for the summit had opened up more development aid and debt relief, triggered the creation of a UN Democracy Fund and led to a convention against nuclear terrorism. But he called "inexcusable" the second failure in a year to reach agreement on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
In a paper in March entitled "In Larger Freedom", Annan set out challenges for the 21st century that required collective action: alleviating extreme poverty, reversing the AIDS pandemic, global security, terrorism and human rights.
But after protracted negotiations over the last few weeks, nearly every bold initiative suffered cutbacks in the final 38-page document approved by the General Assembly on Tuesday for endorsement at the summit.
Still, the somewhat weakened document saved the summit from failure. UN officials highlighted initiatives, including the establishment of a new human rights body, a peacebuilding commission to help nations emerging from war and perhaps most significantly, an obligation to intervene when civilians face genocide and war crimes.
Human rights, anti-poverty and other advocacy groups expressed disappointment at the outcome.
Nicola Reindorp, head of Oxfam's New York office, said in a statement, "We wanted a bold agenda to tackle poverty but instead we have a brochure showcasing past commitments."
According to Nancy Soderberg of the International Crisis Group research group, the developing world seemed stuck in the 1960s while the United States was fighting its own "ideological hot buttons" on climate change, disarmament and levels of development aid.
Among the side events on Wednesday were a special Security Council meeting that adopted a British-drafted resolution urging governments to adopt laws to curb incitement to terrorism.
Presidents Hu Jintao of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin of France as well as Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were among the leaders of nations with seats on the 15-member council.
For many New Yorkers, Manhattan turned into a traffic hell. Streets closed. Armored motorcades glided by as commuters sat in traffic while snipers stood guard on rooftops.
Even at the United Nations, security was unable to deal with the crush, keeping journalists with credentials in lines for hours.