UN Trying to 'Charm' The US?

[Annie]

I could not believe this article from Germany!

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,346506,00.html

Turmoil at the UN

Kofi's New Tack

By Georg Mascolo

Under fire following a year of scandals, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is seeking to appease his worst enemies.

That would be the US...

But his own employees fear he is kowtowing to the United States in a way that will undermine the global body. And even if his charm offensive works, his days could still be numbered.

The UN's Kofi Annan is currently conducting a charm offensive with the White House and Congress.

You can see the weariness in Kofi Annan's eyes these days -- and even his boyish smile does little to hide the wear caused by what the United Nations Secretary General himself has called an "annus horriblis." But things could get even worse in what is expected to be Annan's most trying year yet at the helm of the international body.

Already, he's been plagued by UN sex scandals and corruption surrounding the "Oil for Food" program in Iraq -- a deal that allowed Saddam Hussein's regime, despite the embargo placed on Baghdad by the international community, to make billions of dollars. Revelations that UN employees, including the official charged with overseeing the program, and his affiliates were taking cuts from the profits has led to one of the institution's worst crises ever. The next chapter in the scandal is expected to come this month when a UN investigative commission will determine whether Annan's enterprising son Kojo was part of the scam. If the allegations against his son are proven, the episode could spell the end of Annan.

"Come Christmas, Kofi won't be in office," an American Senator said at a security conference held in Munich one month ago.

See it's the American's doing, not Kofi's.

Officially, Nobel laureate Annan still has two years left in office, but he knows his gig could be up before then. A resolution is currently making its way through the United States Congress calling for him to get the ax. He has even fewer friends down the street at the White House. Since his criticism that the Iraq war was "illegal" during the presidential campaign, Annan has been accused of having sought to thwart George W. Bush's re-election.

See above comment.

A wolf in a sheep's clothing

John Bolton

My new hero

will soon run the US mission to the UN. He's got a bushy mustache and little love for the United Nations.
And last week, Bush named former Undersecretary of State John Bolton as his new UN ambassador. The hardliner, feared for his abrasive manner, has never made any secret of his contempt for the UN. "If the UN Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories," he once famously quipped, "it wouldn't make a bit of difference." But the UN's modernist masterpiece headquarters isn't the only thing Bolton would like to see trimmed: Another famous position he holds is that the Security Council should only have one permanent member -- the United States. Commenting on Bush's tapping of Bolton for the position, the left-leaning German daily Die Tageszeitung compared it to "asking Iran to take over chairmanship of the UN Commission for Women's Rights."

Well they would know, they put Libya and Iraq as chair's for the Human Rights Commission.

Annan, however, would like to complete his term. After all, he wants to be remembered as the man who reformed the UN.

At the end of the month he will present his report on the restructuring of the UN, which is expected to include a major overhaul of the Security Council. His advisors fear that if he buckles under pressure from the United States, it could be the death knell for the UN.

There goes the evil US again!

At the same time, Annan knows he can't challenge Bush while pushing for the world body's reform. So, these days, he's marching to the tune of rapprochement with even his most bitter opponents in Washington. In doing so, he appears to be following the advice of former President Bill Clinton's ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, who offered Annan some job-saving tips at a secret meeting in December. "The UN," he was quoted as saying, "cannot succeed if it is in open dispute and constant friction with its founding nation, its host nation and its largest contributor."

Charming their socks off

The placative gestures on Annan's part that have followed the meeting have been nothing short of astonishing. So much so, in fact, that some in New York are already comparing his charm offensive to the one Bush conducted to cement trans-Atlantic relations in recent weeks.

"It's crucial that relations with the US be restored," said Annan's new British cabinet chief, Mark Malloch Brown -- who is considered to be the man really pulling the strings inside the UN right now. Brown, a talented communicator who previously led the UN Development Program, immediately went to Washington after his appointment, where he promised members of Congress a rigorous and thorough investigation of the Iraq scandal.

In his office on the 38th floor of UN headquarters in New York, Brown now receives journalists almost every day -- and he's often critical of the institution for which he works. The corruption scandal, he says, is "full-blown," before adding: "We have to restore the trust of the American people in the moral integrity of the UN."

I can't wait to see that attempt.

The stakes are high, too: Bush has threatened to freeze payments from Washington, the UN's largest contributor, if the scandal is not fully resolved.

Can't come a minute too soon.

The Brit has been just as active inside the UN as outside. At the end of February, after an employee came forward and accused Ruud Lubbers of sexual harassment, Brown gave the then-UN High Commissioner for Refugees an ultimatum: He could either resign of his own accord or Annan would fire him. The former Dutch prime minister left on his own will.

Still, Annan's new tack has disquieted many inside the UN, where veteran diplomats complain that he is bowing before the US on his knees.

"Many people here are really irritated," says Peter Hansen, who will be leaving as head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees at the end of the month. There are many signs that the US is cynically using the investigations currently underway at the UN as an opportunity to question its entire existence and that angers many.

They cannot believe that the US actually is so irritated at not only the scandals, but also that the UN has been the vehicle of a concert arrangement against the US.

Even today, only the misconduct of UN diplomats is being probed -- despite the fact that the US not only knew the Iraq embargo was being broken but also sanctioned it. According to classified US government documents, in the interest of "national security interests," Washington allowed billions of dollars in oil deliveries to go to its allies Jordan and Turkey. Officials in Amman and Ankara claimed they couldn't do without Saddam's cheap oil. Even Malloch Brown doesn't let any opportunity pass to remind people about the US's involvement in this major part of the scandal.

But he doesn't want let anything generate another serious row with the US. "I think a lot of the poison that was sprayed earlier will now vaporize," he says.

But they forget that the people in the US did know and were getting very angry at these oil shipments. Prior to the bombing of the USS Cole, several major newspapers had already begun investigating, knowing the money was going somewhere. This was a story in the summer of 2001, but it was overshadowed by Chandra Levy.