President Bush called on the UN to rid itself of corruption and operate according to the standards it sets for others in a strongly worded speech at the opening of the world summit in New York today.

Standing before 150 world leaders and representatives from every UN member state, Mr Bush exhorted the organisation, dogged by the Oil-for-Food scandal and its perceived weakness in the run-up to the war in Iraq, to campaign for the causes it was founded to fight.

"The United Nations was created to spread the hope of liberty, and to fight poverty and disease, and to help secure human rights and human dignity for all the world’s people," he said.

"To help make these promises real, the United Nations must be strong and efficient, free of corruption, and accountable to the people it serves. The United Nations must stand for integrity and live by the high standards it sets for others."

Mr Bush, who recently appointed John Bolton, a stern critic of the UN, to become America's ambassador to the organisation, said that the UN must reform, improve its accountability and cut out excessive spending and waste.

The President cited the make-up of the UN Human Rights Commission, which has been dominated in recent years by countries such as Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, as a particularly unhappy example of UN hypocrisy.

"When this great institution’s member states choose notorious abusers of human rights to sit on the UN Human Rights Commission, they discredit a noble effort and undermine the credibility of the whole organisation," he said.

"If member countries want the United Nations to be respected and effective, they should begin by making sure it is worthy of respect."

Mr Bush was one of the opening speakers at the three-day summit at the UN, which has been described as the largest ever gathering of world leaders.

Convened for the 60th anniversary of the organisation, the summit is intended to revisit the UN's Millenium Goals, set five years ago, and to agree a plan to reform the body.

Speaking before Mr Bush, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, called the agreements made so far at the summit "a good start" but admonished delegates for their inability to find a way to achieve the ambitious reforms he drew up for the UN earlier this year.

"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," said Mr Annan, referring to In Larger Freedom, the plan he devised in March to restore the credibility of the UN.

"Our biggest failing is on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament," said Mr Annan. "We have allowed posturing and get in the way of results. This is inexcusable."

In a thinly veiled reference to America and the recent devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina, the Secretary-General called for unity and reminded the summit that no nation can succeed without multilateral support.

"Whether our challenge is peacemaking, nation-building, democratisation or responding to natural or man-made disaster, we have seen that even the strongest amongst us cannot succeed alone," he said.

On the positive side, Mr Annan, whose second five-year term as Secretary-General expires at the end of 2006, said an additional $50 billion per year had been released to fight poverty by 2015.

Speeches will continue this afternoon and for the next two days, as representatives from every member of the UN, from Andorra to Burundi, Iraq to the Vatican, take the podium for four minutes. Tony Blair will speak twice today, first on behalf of the European Union and later as Prime Minister.

Alongside the main action in the General Assembly Hall, there will be countless bilateral meetings taking place in hotels and restaurants across New York as the hundreds of leaders cross paths in the city over the coming days.

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