Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf Quotes

The U.N. can be very frustrating and at times impotent, but it can also be a valuable forum for discussion and resolution of world problems. We should not walk away from it just because it's failed to live up to its promise.

The best thing that most Americans can say about the UN is that it is ineffectual. That’s the best thing.

The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail, and to be seen to fail. If there is something you are expected to do, but don't want to do, or even have done for you, you can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.

There is an ongoing debate about the reform of the U.N. system.

The U.N. is one of many competitors in a marketplace of global problem solving.

We must never relent in our efforts to resolve conflicts through diplomacy and through all of the instruments bestowed by the Charter of the United Nations.

The United Nations will be at the heart of our international activities. France will assume its full responsibilities at the Security Council by putting its status at the service of peace, respect for human rights and development.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it.

The UN Commission on Human Rights, whose membership in recent years has included countries - such as Libya and Sudan - which have deplorable human rights records, and the recent Oil-for-Food scandal, are just a few examples of why reform is so imperative.

The key to U.N. reform is giving Americans a clearer picture of what the U.N. is and what it isn't, what it can be and what it can't be.

As New Zealanders, we've been in on the United Nations from the very beginning, played a role in the drafting of the charter - it means a lot to us that those processes are followed.

The U.N. guards the vital principles entrenched in its charter, notably the sovereign equality of states and the inadmissibility of interference in their internal affairs. It is precisely because the U.N. is the chief guardian of both these sacrosanct principles that it alone is allowed to approve derogations from them.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today's complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

In the euphoria after the Cold War, there was a misplaced notion that the UN could solve every problem anywhere.

To solve the problem of organizing world peace we must establish world law and order.

I'm a member of the US committee o the United Nations.

I have never participated directly or indirectly in any business related to the United Nations.

Now, the United Nations is an organization that I believe was founded with good intentions. As a matter of fact, a prominent Tennessean named Cordell Hull was very involved with it.

The purpose of the United Nations should be to protect the essential sovereignty of nations, large and small.

I would never play any role in anything that involves the United Nations for obvious reasons.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

Of course what is talked about in the U.N. General Assembly is very important. Officials, the leaders of nations, appear there to speak of the most important topics - what they perceive to be the most important topics.

I've been quite involved in a lot of U.N. operations over the years. I was a U.N. observer at the East Timor referendum in 2000. I've been very involved in that for a long time.

It is a commonplace that the League of Nations is not yet-what its most enthusiastic protagonists intended it to be.