UN OPERATING AT "THE WORKING LEVEL"

Iraq's neighbours, he added, "see the UN playing a supportive role in political terms but also in the reconstruction of democratic institutions respectful of the human rights of the Iraqi people," who currently face widespread lawlessness.

Insecurity, he pointed out, was "further aggravated by the decision Saddam Hussein took in October of last year of emptying his prisons - obviously not of political prisoners - of common law criminals, so what you have is tens of thousands of criminals on the loose in Iraq and particularly in large urban areas." Those people, he noted, "are responsible for attacks against women, for robbery, for assassinations."

"It will take time to resolve this problem," he stressed, "because you know as I do that the Iraqi police has collapsed - it was ineffective anyway - and a new security force needs to be created and this does not happen in a matter of weeks."