UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has told the Security Council he has ordered the evacuation of all UN staff from Iraq and suspended the oil-for-food programme there.
Mr Annan announced that he regarded the mandates of the six-year-old oil-for-food programme, the UN arms inspectors and the UN peacekeeping force on the Iraq-Kuwait border as "suspended".
More than 300 UN international employees are still in Iraq. They include some 135 UN inspectors and their support staff as well as humanitarian workers and oil monitors.
A spokesman for chief arms inspector Dr Hans Blix said he received a letter from the US government last night advising him to pull out his team of more than 200 people.
In Baghdad earlier, diplomats said they expected the arms inspectors to leave tomorrow.
AFP