--- category: International Organization created: 2026-05-14 location: New York City, New York summary: 'The United Nations is the international organization founded in 1945 that appears throughout this vault primarily as an institutional arena for Cold War conflicts and covert operations: the Security Council veto dynamic that constrained collective responses to U.S.- and Soviet-backed proxy wars, the Oil-for-Food scandal that implicated international figures in Iraqi sanctions evasion, and the UNSCOM weapons inspection program.' tags: - Organization - International - UnitedNations - Intelligence - ColdWar updated: 2026-05-17 --- The United Nations is an international organization founded on October 24, 1945, by 51 original member states following [World War II](/events/world-war-ii/). Its founding charter established six principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. The Security Council holds primary responsibility for international peace and security; its five permanent members ([United States](/places/united-states/), United Kingdom, France, [Russia](/places/soviet-union/), and China) hold veto power over substantive resolutions. Headquarters is located in [New York City](/places/new-york-city/).[^1] ### Cold War Role The UN Security Council's veto structure largely paralyzed the organization as a collective security mechanism during the Cold War, as the United States and Soviet Union each blocked resolutions adverse to their clients. The United States used its veto to protect [Israel](/places/israel/) from resolutions censuring its occupation policies; the Soviet Union used its veto to protect clients including [Cuba](/places/cuba/), [Syria](/places/syria/), and [Vietnam](/places/vietnam/). This dynamic meant that most of the proxy conflicts documented in this vault - the Contra war in [Nicaragua](/places/nicaragua/), the covert operations in [El Salvador](/places/el-salvador/) and [Guatemala](/places/guatemala/), Soviet operations in [Afghanistan](/places/afghanistan/) - proceeded without effective UN constraint.[^1] ### UNSCOM and Iraq Inspections Following the Gulf War, the UN Security Council established the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) under Resolution 687 (April 1991) to verify the elimination of Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs and ballistic missiles. UNSCOM operated in [Iraq](/places/iraq/) from 1991 until December 1998, when [Saddam Hussein](/people/saddam-hussein/)'s government expelled the inspectors. The inspections were technically groundbreaking but operationally compromised: UNSCOM's executive chairman Richard Butler and earlier chair Rolf Ekeus later acknowledged that the [Central Intelligence Agency](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) had used UNSCOM's communications infrastructure to conduct intelligence collection beyond the mandate of weapons verification.[^2] UNSCOM was succeeded by UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) in 1999. UNMOVIC inspectors under Hans Blix were in Iraq when the United States and United Kingdom invaded in March 2003, asserting that [Saddam Hussein](/people/saddam-hussein/) retained prohibited weapons programs. No such programs were found. ### Oil-for-Food Scandal The Oil-for-Food Programme, established under Security Council Resolution 986 (1995) and operational from December 1996, permitted Iraq to sell oil in order to purchase food and medicine under UN supervision. A 2004-2005 independent inquiry chaired by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found that the programme had been corrupted by systematic kickback schemes in which Iraqi officials collected surcharges on oil contracts and suppliers inflated invoices. The inquiry identified approximately 2,200 companies and individuals from 66 countries as having paid surcharges to the Iraqi government, including officials at UN member states and individuals connected to Benon Sevan, the programme's executive director, who was found to have received allocations.[^2] ### Other Relevant Bodies The United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC), a precursor to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, received funding from sources connected to the CIA-backed anti-narcotics efforts that intersected with the Contra resupply networks. [UNICEF](/organizations/unicef/)'s institutional name was exploited by the [CRIES](/organizations/cries/) pedophile network in Belgium, which used a UNICEF umbrella for operations until the connection was exposed in 1986. [^1]: "United Nations," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations [^2]: Volcker, Paul, et al. *Report of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme.* 2005.