Watch the debate over Iraq at the State of the World Forum

Nizar Hamdoon, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, rejected allegations from UN chief weapons inspector Richard Butler that Baghdad had refused to fully and truthfully disclose its weapons programmes.

He said: "We have had our agreement with Kofi Annan for six months. We have opened up all the presidential sites and Unscom found nothing."

Mr Butler said Iraq's denial was "too pathetic for words". The seminar, broadcast by BBC World, was recorded before the latest crisis between the UN and Iraq.

A gun to my head

Asked whether the Iraqis had co-operated, Unscom inspector Scott Ritter said: "They put a gun to my head and said they would kill me if I went any further. Is that co-operating? It isn't."

Mr Ritter resigned from the inspection team earlier this year and has since criticised both Unscom and the UN Security Council. The debate brought him face to face with his former boss Mr Butler for the first time since he left.

He said the recent unanimous resolution by the Security Council to suspend any review of sanctions against Iraq was a "joke".

He said it misrepresented the true position and was achieved only after the votes of France, Russia and China had been "bought through a promise of a review made through the office of the secretary general."

'Don't cry wolf'

The Forum discusses India and Pakistan's nuclear tests

Peace activist Bianca Jagger protested that the United Nations was undermining its credibility by issuing ultimata to world leaders that werre not followed through.

She said they gave a clear signal to the world's dictators that they could "get away with murder".

She said final threats were issued by the US and Nato over and over again to both the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Such empty threats undermined the credibility of the US, Nato and the Contact Group on the former Yugoslavia, she said.