"We call upon you to put an end to this war and to call for the immediate withdrawal of invading forces," the Arab League's representative to the United Nations, Yahya Mahmassani, said.

"The credibility of the council, the credibility of the whole international system, is collapsing under the bombing of Basra and Baghdad," he warned.

The meeting, the council's first on Iraq since the war began, was called at the request of the Arab League and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Speaking on behalf of the NAM, Malaysian deputy ambassador Yahya Zainuddin said the US government's assertion of the right to pre-emptive action "is not acceptable and threatens the basis of the international law."

Iranian ambassador Javad Zarif dismissed the implicit claim in the military code-name Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein.

"Democracy is not something that can be imposed by tanks and helicopter gunships," Zarif said.

"The Iraqi people may resent their government, but as they have shown in the past several days, they do not accept their liberation through foreign occupation."

Zarif accused both Iraq and United States of violating the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. "All countries, be they big or small, benefit from the principles of international law," he said.

Zarif and his Turkish counterpart, Umit Pamir, said their countries -- which both border on Iraq -- were threatened by a flood of refugees from war.

"We cannot allow an influx of refugees into Turkey to take place as it did in 1991," Pamir said, referring to the US-led military campaign to expel invading Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

"We are not convinced of the reasoning that is brought forth to explain why such an influx would not happen this time," he said, and added: "Any refugee movement should be met inside Iraq and the people provided with shelter, food and security."

The United States and Britain invaded last week after giving up efforts to secure the votes for a council resolution to strip Iraq of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes by force.

Several speakers noted that the majority of council members had supported proposals to disarm Iraq peacefully by pursuing and intensifying UN inspections which began on November 27.

But Kuwaiti ambassador Mohammed Abulhasan said the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had only itself to blame for the war.

It had persistently rejected council resolutions dating from 1991, when "the Kuwaiti people languished under a brutal and abhorrent Iraqi occupation for seven months," he said.

"The occupying power at the time did not allow international media or the Red Cross to enter the occupied zone" to witness its abuses of human rights, he added.

By contrast, the US and British forces had permitted "unprecedented media coverage" of their actions, Abulhasan said.

The ambassadors of Australia and Poland, both of which have forces siding with the US troops in Iraq, also blamed Iraq for refusing to disarm and the Security Council for failing to enforce its resolutions.

A total of 63 speakers were scheduled to take the floor in the debate, but council rules allow other speakers to add their names to the list after a meeting begins and the session was expected to continue on Thursday.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opened the debate with an appeal to council members to recover their shattered unity.

"All of us must regret that our intense efforts to achieve a peaceful situation through this council did not succeed," Annan said.

"We have all been watching hour by hour on our television screens the terrifying impact of modern weaponry on Iraq and its people," he added.

Annan said he hoped council members would put aside their differences over reactivating the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, which was suspended on Tuesday last week after he ordered the evacuation of all international UN staff.

Earlier, council members on both sides expressed optimism that they would rapidly reach agreement on a draft resolution to reactivate the programme for 45 days.

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