Martin Walker is editor in chief of United Press International. …

Martin Walker is editor in chief of United Press International.




            Bush v. Annan: Taming the United Nations
            Martin Walker


The wretched regime of Saddam Hussein,                        gressmen, and their intensely ideological
having inflicted wars on its neighbors and                    staffs, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News televi-
gruesome misrule and chemical weapons on                      sion channel and his New York Post, the Wall
its own citizens, is doing more damage from                   Street Journal's editorial page, the National
beyond the grave. The skill of Saddam Hus-                    Review, and some other organs of nationalist
sein's corrupting oil wealth and of his smug-                 conservatism, all calling for the head of
gling operations has exposed the administra-                  U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan.
tion of the United Nations to its enemies.                         Kofi must go, they thundered, because
And in President George W. Bush's Ameri-                      Saddam Hussein was allowed to steal over
ca, the United Nations has enemies in abun-                   $20 billion in the U.N.'s oil-for-food scan-
dance, and the complex but scandalous na-                     dal that happened on Annan's watch. This is
ture of the U.N.'s internal difficulties makes                a shameless exaggeration, but there were
it hard for the U.N.'s friends to defend it.                  abuses, and the blame spreads around a
The United Nations now stands at bay in a                     large number of people and institutions, in-
confrontation that is protean in the way it                   cluding the U.S. government bureaucracy as
sets the physical power of the world's only                   well as the U.N. administration that Annan
superpower against the moral power of the                     runs. But what really offends this conserva-
international body. This battle may yet have                  tive coalition is Annan's political effrontery
some rounds to be fought, but there is no                     during an American presidential election
doubting its scale, nor its global news value.                season. Annan twice publicly challenged the
Remarkably, not even the awesome devasta-                     Bush administration's foreign policy, first by
tion of last December's Asian tsunami could                   writing an appeal to halt the attack on Fal-
quite put the human rivalries over the                        lujah, and then by calling Bush's Iraq war
United Nations into their place; the con-                     "illegal." (In fact this was the fault of the
frontation spilled over into a diplomatic                     BBC, whose reporter badgered poor Annan
jostling match to decide who would take                       into using the word. Annan was asked the
responsibility, and possibly credit, for the                  same question repeatedly until he came up
reconstruction effort.                                        with what he thought was the rather less
     The struggle set the newly reelected                     provocative phrase, "illegal in terms of
president of the United States against the                    the U.N. Charter," which he now privately
lame duck secretary general of the United                     regrets.)
Nations, although it was their surrogates                          Republican senator Norman Coleman,
who took up the cudgels. Two of the world's                   after a committee investigation claimed to
most impressive spin machines then became                     have found evidence that the United Na-
locked in deadly combat. On the one side                      tions had let Saddam get his crooked hands
was the mob that Hillary Clinton once                         on $21.3 billion, demanded that Annan re-
called "the vast right wing conspiracy," a                    sign. This was accompanied by a resolution
group of conservative U.S. senators and con-                  before both houses of Congress demanding

Bush v. Annan: Taming the United Nations                                                                   9
that Annan leave office, backed up by a bill    these attacks, or whether this kind of media
that would enforce the will of Congress by      and congressional assault against the United
cutting 10 percent from the U.S. payment        Nations was just a force of nature that
next year, 20 percent the year after, and so    had to be endured. But some of the more
on, until the United Nations comes to heel.     thoughtful of Annan's supporters, who want
Some of the more outspoken local politi-        to avoid a lasting breach between the organ-
cians in New York were even cruder, sug-        ization and its American host, thought that
gesting that the United Nations should be       the best way to defend Annan was to go on
evicted to Europe. "Let the French deal with    the offensive, both in Washington and in
all the U.N. diplomats and their unpaid         New York, against the more vulnerable and
parking tickets," said Brooklyn's state sena-   unreformed aspects of the world body.
tor Martin J. Golden. "We have a U.N. here           Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. repre-
that has a tendency to just ignore us, insult   sentative to the United Nations in the Clin-
us, be a bad neighbor, and not do what it       ton years, organized a meeting at his New
should do. This guy Kofi Annan could have       York apartment on December 4 between
stood with us in Iraq, decided not to. He       Annan and some of the key figures in the
oversaw $21 billion being robbed from oil-      U.S. foreign policy establishment, who had
for-food." This figure is a ridiculous exag-    been asked to join a mission to "save Kofi
geration, as we shall see.                      and rescue the U.N." From the Council on
     On the other side is the great amor-       Foreign Relations came Holbrooke and the
phous mass of global liberalism, all clucking   council's former president Leslie Gelb; from
in unison that Kofi Annan is the best U.N.      the United Nations Foundation came former
secretary general since Dag Hammarskjold        U.S. senator and under secretary of state
(although a list that includes Kurt Wald-       Tim Wirth and Kathy Bushkin from Gary
heim and Boutros Boutros-Ghali is not           Hart's presidential campaign (their presence
much competition). Led by British prime         gilded by the generosity of CNN founder Ted
minister Tony Blair and the departing U.S.      Turner, whose gifts to the United Nations
secretary of state Colin Powell, and rein-      have been channeled through the founda-
forced by the governments of China, Russia,     tion); and from the Kennedy School of Gov-
Germany, and France, the editorial boards of    ernment at Harvard came John G. Ruggie, a
the New York Times and the Washington Post,     former U.N. assistant secretary general for
and the news bulletins of National Public       policy coordination and strategic planning.
Radio and the BBC, the international estab-     Also present were Robert C. Orr, the cur-
lishment has rallied to Annan as the first      rent holder of that post, and Nader Mousav-
African to run the world body, and as the       izadeh, Rhodes Scholar and a former editor
first secretary general to bring forward        at the New Republic, who was Annan's aide
thoughtful and even bold plans for U.N.         for six years before joining the investment
reform.                                         firm of Goldman Sachs.
     Kofi Annan must stay, they all cry, most        Annan, who was largely silent, heard the
of them thrilling to the symbolism of a         group warn that the United Nations was on
clash between President Bush, who proudly       the losing side of a public relations cam-
sports a small American flag in his lapel,      paign; that the critique of the oil-for-food
and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Annan,           affair would soon be followed by allegations
whose equally well-tailored lapel sports a      of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in
discreet dove, tastefully wrought in white      Africa; and that he had to address two seri-
enamel. Annan, who confided to friends last     ous problems immediately. First, the Re-
November that it was "a bit like a lynching,    publicans who ran the White House and
actually," was not sure how to respond to       Congress thought Annan had worked for

10                                                                WORLD POLICY JOURNAL   · SPRING 2005
their electoral defeat, and these were not the        All this started 15 years ago, when Sad-
sort of opponents who took prisoners. So         dam Hussein first invaded Kuwait, and the
Annan had to mend fences in Washington           U.N. Security Council imposed comprehen-
and learn to play the lobbying game, with        sive sanctions on Iraq. After Saddam Hus-
the secretary general becoming a far more        sein's defeat in the first Gulf war, the sanc-
visible presence in the city; the United Na-     tions were to remain in place until Baghdad
tions might even need to hire professional       satisfied the terms of various U.N. resolu-
lobbying help. Second, even though his re-       tions. These included accounting for the
forms of the lumbering U.N. bureaucracy          Kuwaitis who had disappeared during the
had not gone nearly far enough, Annan had        1990­91 invasion and occupation, restoring
to restore the morale of a wretched and mis-     the loot taken from Kuwait, and giving in-
erable U.N. staff, many of whom had little       ternational arms inspectors full rein in order
faith in their seniors. Some were palpably       to end Iraq's various weapons of mass de-
incompetent if not corrupt; others had be-       struction programs. Saddam Hussein was
come painfully controversial within the          less than forthcoming. But the sanctions,
U.N. family, like the High Commissioner          which were hurting Iraq's civilian popula-
for Refugees (and former Dutch prime min-        tion, became politically very difficult to sus-
ister) Ruud Lubbers, who was accused of          tain as Saddam Hussein's propaganda ma-
sexual harassment at a time when U.N.            chine artfully exploited the heartrending
peacekeepers in the Balkans and Congo            images of starving children and hospitals
faced formal inquiries into allegations of       without drugs.
sexual abuse. One key change was already in           There need have been no such suffering.
the works: Annan's longtime chief of staff,      Saddam was smuggling at least $2 billion of
Iqbal Riza, was about to be replaced by the      oil a year through Jordan, Turkey, and Syria.
dynamic former Economist journalist who had      On the Security Council, the United States
made a striking success of running the           and Britain were determined not to open
United Nations Development Program,              this question, which one British official pri-
Mark Malloch Brown.                              vately confided to this reporter was "a can of
                                                 worms." The Turks, a NATO ally who had
The Oil-for-Food Scandal                         suffered financially from the closure of the
The most dangerous part of the U.N.'s            oil pipeline from Iraq, were judged in
problem was the oil-for-food scandal, a topic    Washington to deserve compensation. Jor-
of labyrinthine complexity, involving bil-       dan also suffered from the sanctions, but the
lions of dollars, appalling mismanagement,       Clinton administration judged that its use-
and possibly some serious fraud. Most omi-       ful role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace
nously, because this is at least one part of     process deserved some form of reward. So
the affair that ordinary people could com-       the British and the Americans ignored the
prehend, Annan's son Kojo had until last         smuggling, while the Russians and the
year been taking small sums of money,            French shrugged and acquiesced, possibly
$2,500 a month in consulting fees, from a        with the assurance that this favor would
Swiss company that was meant to be moni-         someday be repaid. And then the Clinton
toring the oil-for-food deal. Annan did not      administration, focusing intently on the
know his son was still getting the money         Middle East peace process and Arab opin-
until early December, and then admitted to       ion, heard from its friends in the Arab
a press conference that this provoked "the       world that the sanctions against Iraq were
perception problem for the U.N., or the          inflicting real hardship on Iraqi civilians.
perception of conflict of interests and          Cunningly exploited by the Saddam Hus-
wrongdoing."                                     sein regime, the sanctions were provoking

Bush v. Annan: Taming the United Nations                                                      11
outrage; Washington accordingly agreed          appear to assume that this figure is reliable.
that something had to be done to stop the       It is not. According to the GAO, more than
Iraqi propaganda.                               half of that total--$5.7 billion--was the re-
     Thus in 1995 an oil-for-food scheme        sult of oil smuggling by Saddam, for which
was devised, under which the United Na-         the United Nations was not responsible.
tions would sell Iraq's oil and use the money   But individual members of the U.N. Secu-
to buy food and medical supplies that           rity Council were very much responsible for
would be handed over to Saddam's govern-        this. Reconnaissance satellites and British
ment for distribution. The program lasted       and American pilots who were enforcing the
for eight years, and involved the sale of an    no-fly zone that had banned the Iraqi air
average 2 million barrels a day of Iraqi oil,   force from flying over northern Iraq could
or roughly 5,840 million barrels over eight     see the convoys of tanker trucks heading for
years. At an average price of $20 a barrel,     Jordan and Turkey. And reporters for UPI
the total value of this oil amounted to some    wrote about the way the Kurds in northern
$116.8 billion. This is pretty close to the     Iraq took their share of the smuggling pro-
estimate of $111 billion reached by the         ceeds by charging a fee (usually $100, but
U.N.'s own internal investigation, run by       often collected twice at roadblocks set up by
the former head of the U.S Federal Reserve,     both the Talabani and Barzani factions) from
Paul Volcker, who was picked by Annan as a      every tanker truck heading for Turkey. Iraq's
man whose integrity would be unquestioned       oil smuggling was the most open "secret" in
in Washington.                                  the Middle East.
     The total sum that went through the             Senator Coleman's subcommittee hit
United Nations was far less than that, how-     the headlines by claiming Saddam's real take
ever. Although a firm total is hard to de-      was $21.3 billion. But that number in-
duce from the tangled calculations of the       cluded estimates of Saddam's oil proceeds
Volcker report, it seems that the amount        for the five years before the oil-for-food pro-
was close to $70 billion. The difference is     gram was started, most of which came from
explained partly by the periodic falls in the   smuggling, which took place with U.S.
oil price, partly by the transport and          and British acquiescence. Few critics of the
pipeline and commission fees, and partly        United Nations bothered to cite Iraq Survey
by smuggling. Between the end of the            Group head Charles Duelfer's modest esti-
Gulf War in 1991 and the start of the oil-      mate of Saddam's take from the oil-for-food
for-food program in 1995, the Iraqi regime      program of $1.74 billion, or $250 million a
"earned" over $10 billion, or more than $2      year. The Iraqi leader's likely take over eight
billion a year, from smuggling, according to    years from the U.N. oil-for-food program
Iraqi defectors and to U.N. estimates. And      thus lies somewhere between Duelfer's
it may have earned even more after 1995,        $1.74 billion and the GAO's estimated $4.4
judging from the anecdotal and visual           billion, or somewhere between $250 million
evidence of the boom in Iraq's Kurdish          and $600 million a year--around 3­6 per-
regions, the route for much of the smug-        cent of the total sum the United Nations
gling trade.                                    handled.
     All sorts of figures are being quoted,          It was long known that Saddam was try-
but many of them are meaningless. The           ing to skim some money from the oil-for-
U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) es-        food system, demanding that tanker owners
timated that Saddam Hussein illegally           pay in cash for the right to load the U.N.-
skimmed $10.1 billion during the period         sponsored crude oil, and trying to shake
when the $70 billion oil-for-food program       down the banks and oil trading companies
was in force, and many U.S. congressmen         that were handling the sales for the United

12                                                                WORLD POLICY JOURNAL   · SPRING 2005
Nations. Saddam could do so because the           ment agencies after Baghdad fell, called the
United Nations had to accept that Iraq was        oil-for-food affair "the biggest political
still a sovereign nation and could thus           bribery scandal in history." Chalabi and his
choose to whom it sold the oil and from           neoconservative allies in Washington might
whom it bought food and drugs. The money          have a political interest in discrediting the
was paid into a U.N. escrow account--but          French and Russian politicians who had
there were constant rumors that favored           helped sustain Saddam's regime, and also in
companies had to pay discreet commissions         undermining the United Nations, which
to Saddam. The United Nations itself took a       had firmly opposed any gesture of recogni-
total of $1.4 billion in administrative fees,     tion, far less legitimacy, to the interim Iraqi
and 30 percent of all the money received          authority of which Chalabi was a key mem-
went to reparations for Kuwaitis and other        ber. Last April, a British financial adviser to
victims of Iraq, as demanded by the U.N.          Chalabi, Claude Hankes-Drielsma testified
resolutions.                                      to a congressional committee of inquiry in
     When Baghdad fell in April 2003, the         Washington that the U.N.'s oil-for-food
regime's own paperwork became available           program had become Saddam's "convenient
and a list emerged of 265 beneficiaries of        vehicle through which he bought support
Saddam Hussein's generosity in handing out        internationally by bribing political parties,
oil vouchers to potentially useful friends.       companies, journalists and other individuals
These vouchers were legal titles of owner-        of influence."
ship in barrels of oil, and some of the bun-           The talk then was of some $10 billion
dles of vouchers given to favored friends of      being siphoned off by Saddam Hussein, and
the regime were worth millions. Among             four congressional committees began inves-
those listed were Indonesia's then president      tigations, which continued throughout last
Megawati Sukarnoputri; Russia's Vlad "The         year. In December, the publicity race was
Mad" Zhirinovsky; Charles Pasqua, a former        won by Senator Coleman, who rushed to
French interior minister; and Benon V.            judgment by claiming that the staff of his
Sevan, a Cypriot who ran the U.N.'s oil-for-      intriguingly named Permanent Sub-Com-
food program and is listed as having been         mittee on Investigations had established
granted 13 million barrels of oil. If so, Se-     that Saddam Hussein had accumulated at
van's share could have been worth around          least $21.3 billion by fooling the U.N.
$250 million. All the above deny any              sanctions operation and its oil-for-food pro-
wrongdoing, and these allegations must be         gram. Senator Coleman accordingly de-
treated with great caution. Britain's Daily       manded that Kofi Annan resign. The lead-
Telegraph lost a libel case to the leftist mem-   ing Democrat on the same committee, Sen.
ber of Parliament George Galloway, and had        Carl Levin of Michigan, said that wrongdo-
to pay nearly $400,000 in costs and dam-          ing had clearly taken place, but he had yet
ages after relying on these questionable          to see evidence that Annan was personally
Baghdad documents.                                responsible. Indeed, an analysis by Michael
     Moreover, the list itself and the support-   Pan, a researcher at the Center for American
ing documentation came from sources close         Progress, notes that all the trades in the oil-
to a man with no reason to like the United        for-food program had to be approved by a
Nations--Ahmed Chalabi, once Washing-             committee of the U.N. Security Council,
ton's favorite Iraqi exile and the Bush ad-       known as the 661 Committee, on which
ministration's initial nominee to run Iraq's      U.S., British, French, Russian, and Chinese
interim government. Chalabi, who was              officials sat. They raised no objections, even
quick to seize the files of the Mukhabarat        when U.N. staff flagged 70 separate transac-
secret police and other important govern-         tions as potentially suspicious.

Bush v. Annan: Taming the United Nations                                                       13
     "The United States and Britain, along      ernments turned a blind eye to "pricing ir-
with the other members of the UN Security       regularities" that benefited French and
Council, designed and oversaw the oil-for-      Russian banks, companies, and individuals.
food program," wrote Harvard's John G.          It was important to keep France and Russia
Ruggie in the International Herald Tribune      on the side of the increasingly unpopular
("What About the Log in Your Eye, Con-          sanctions regime against Iraq. If the price
gress?" December 8, 2004). "The United          was a certain laxity in standards, or a delib-
States alone had 60 professionals review each   erately relaxed oversight when a French
of the 36,000 contracts awarded--more           bank or Russian politician seemed to be
than twice the size of the UN oil-for-food      doing rather well out of the system, then
office's professional staff. America and        so be it. This may be squalid, but the
Britain held up 5,000 contracts, sometimes      squalor is not the fault of Kofi Annan or
for months, to ensure that no technology        the United Nations. And if U.S. congres-
was getting through that Saddam could use       sional investigators seek a focus for their
for weapons purposes. But they held up          outrage, they might inquire into the way
none--not a single solitary one--on the         some $8 billion was taken from the U.N.'s
grounds of pricing irregularities, even when    remaining escrow accounts for the "Iraq
alerted by UN staff."                           Development Fund" run by the U.S. pro-
     Some of these U.N. alerts became pub-      consul in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. American
lic. The New York Times reported Iraqi de-      promises (to the Security Council) that the
mands for "kickbacks and illegal contribu-      fund would be independently audited have
tions" on March 7, 2001, adding that An-        yet to be fulfilled, and U.N. sources suspect
nan's office had submitted a report to the      that much of the money went to Hallibur-
U.N. Security Council. In particular, An-       ton on noncompetitive contracts. Indeed,
nan's staff told the 661 Committee that         broad hints have been dropped in the corri-
"prices in a proposed contract between the      dors of the Security Council that if the U.S.
Al Wasel and Babel General Trading Com-         congressional inquiries start pursuing the
pany and Iraq appeared suspiciously high."      French bank Paribas, French and German
Nonetheless, the contract was unanimously       authorities will have their own inquiries to
approved by the Security Council. Accord-       pursue into the degree to which Hallibur-
ing to a U.N. press office statement dated      ton's subsidiaries in Europe ignored U.N.
January 30, 2005, "It was only in April         sanctions while Saddam Hussein was still
2004 that the U.S. Treasury Department          in power.
identified this company as a front for the          These concerns were being voiced some-
regime. This example demonstrates that          where above the competence of Senator
U.N. staff did report suspicious cases and      Coleman who thought it a good idea to
that while they were not mandated or            demand Kofi Annan's head. "Good old
equipped to check the backgrounds of all        Norm--it appears there's nothing he won't
suppliers, even those who could, such as the    do for a headline," commented Senator
U.S. Government, did not have all of this       Coleman's hometown newspaper. The paper
information until after the Oil-for-Food pro-   had a point. Senator Coleman is "outraged"
gram ceased to operate."                        that the United Nations would not hand
                                                over all the evidence that its own internal
Turning a Blind Eye to "Irregularities"         inquiry into the matter had uncovered, and
U.N. officials, speaking off the record be-     would not make its staff available for the
cause there are risks in leveling accusations   U.S. Senate committee to interrogate, de-
at powerful members of the Security Coun-       spite the convention that U.N. officials have
cil, suggest that the U.S. and British gov-     diplomatic immunity. But the Americans

14                                                                WORLD POLICY JOURNAL   · SPRING 2005
are equally guilty. The man assigned by           Sevan had a go-between, Fred Nadler, whose
Kofi Annan to run the U.N.'s own inquiry,         sister Leia is Boutros-Ghali's wife.
Paul Volcker, complains that the U.S. gov-             This line of inquiry is potentially devas-
ernment is not helping him in his inquiries.      tating for the United Nations, in suggesting
Volcker's final report is expected in July, but   that the mud from this scandal is already
in January he published an interim report,        splashing into the office of not just one but
based on some 50 internal U.N. audits,            two secretaries general. Volcker has already
which found that in the first batch of oil-       pledged to pursue the Boutros-Ghali matter
for-food contracts in 1996 "in each case, the     "as far as the documents take us" and also to
procurement process was tainted, failed to        give a full accounting of the role of Kofi
follow established rules designed to ensure       Annan's son in helping to secure other con-
fairness and accountability...and political       tracts. One corrupt secretary general can be
considerations intruded."                         explained as a bad apple; two would be a
     Volcker's report found considerable mis-     systematic problem. Three--let us not for-
management by the United Nations, an ex-          get the earlier scandal over the wartime
traordinary lack of oversight by the U.N.'s       record of Kurt Waldheim in Adolf Hitler's
Benon Sevan, and a number of questions            Wehrmacht--is an institutional disaster.
that Sevan must answer. His current expla-        And it does not much matter that the sums
nation, that his wealth comes from the            from the pillaging of the oil-for-food con-
generosity of an aunt in Cyprus, a woman          tracts were peanuts in comparison with the
of visibly modest means, is less than satis-      billions each year that came from Iraq's per-
factory. "The evidence is conclusive that         mitted smuggling operations to Turkey and
Mr. Sevan, in effectively participating in the    Jordan.
selection of purchasers of oil under the Pro-          The Volcker inquiry has also revealed
gram, placed himself in an irreconcilable         two glaring U.N. administrative problems
conflict of interest," Volcker concluded.         that had nothing to do with Saddam Hus-
     Perhaps even more serious is the ques-       sein. The first was serious mismanagement
tion Volcker has raised over the involve-         of humanitarian programs in Kurdish-con-
ment of Annan's predecessor as U.N. secre-        trolled northern Iraq, and the second was
tary general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a            more than $5 billion in overpayments by
French-speaking Egyptian Copt whose reap-         the U.N. Compensation Commission, a
pointment the Clinton administration ve-          separate body from the oil-for-food pro-
toed in the belief that he was anti-American      gram, which hands out compensation for
and had been demonstrably incompetent             Iraqi depredations in the 1990 invasion of
in Bosnia. The oil-for-food program was           Kuwait. The audit also suggests that Say-
launched during Boutros-Ghali's term, and         bolt International BV, a Dutch company en-
he appears to have been instrumental in           gaged to monitor Iraqi oil exports, over-
placing France's BNP (Banque Nationale de         charged the United Nations by inflating in-
Paris) on the U.N.'s approved list to handle      voices, billing for accommodation of work-
oil-for-food transactions, after he made what     ers provided by the Iraqi government and
the Volcker report called "a confidential ap-     exaggerating staffing and other expenses.
proach" to the French ambassador to the           The chairman of the International Relations
United Nations. Moreover, the Volcker in-         Committee of the House of Representatives,
quiry suggests that Benon Sevan assigned          Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican, cor-
contracts to a Swiss-based company, African       rectly said the audits appear to "show a sys-
Middle East Petroleum, which is run by            temic failure on the part of the U.N. to re-
Fakhri Abdelnour, Boutros-Ghali's cousin.         sponsibly administer the oil-for-food pro-
Telephone logs suggest that Abdelnour and         gram." But this was not the proof of con-

Bush v. Annan: Taming the United Nations                                                       15
nivance in Saddam's loot that the U.N.'s        ters from Blair, France's president Jacques
foes had expected.                              Chirac, and Russia's president Vladimir
                                                Putin, and the standing ovation Annan re-
A Visibly Weakened U.N.                         ceived from the General Assembly in the
But this whole affair is not entirely about     first week of December inspired a graceless
getting the facts, nor even about Kofi An-      American gesture. While President Bush
nan or Boutros Boutros-Ghali. For some          kept his silence, his representative to the
American nationalists, it is about taming       United Nations, former U.S. senator John
the United Nations as the only international Danforth, told reporters he was speaking for
institution with even the moral authority to the president when he declared: "We are ex-
make the United States pay a price for uni-     pressing confidence in the secretary general
lateral decisions like going to war against     and his continuing in office. Our view of
Iraq. For the internationalists and the inter- the performance of the secretary general is
national establishment, it is about restrain-   that he has done a good job, that he is do-
ing the White House and promoting the           ing a good job."
one institution with the prestige to do it--         But the White House's lack of confi-
witness the way that Bush's usually reliable dence in Annan and the United Nations was
Tony Blair rushed to Annan's defense. Sena- evident when the tsunami hit the shorelines
tor Coleman's Minneapolis Star Tribune put it of the Indian Ocean on December 26. Presi-
succinctly: "For months before the election, dent Bush's first public reaction to the dis-
the right-wing constellation of blogs and       aster was to announce the creation of a "hu-
talk radio was alive with incendiary rhetoric manitarian coalition" to coordinate relief to
about Annan and the oil-for-food scandal.... the stricken area. What he called the "core
This is really all about Annan's refusal to toe group," consisted of the United States, Aus-
the Bush line on Iraq and the administra-       tralia, India, and Japan, although the presi-
tion's generally unilateral approach to for-    dent invited other nations to join, under the
eign affairs. The right-wingers hate Annan      leadership of a U.S. official, Under Secretary
and saw in the food-for-oil program a possi- of State Mark Grossman. Suspicions at the
ble chink in his armor. They went after it      United Nations were so sharp that this was
with a venomous fury."                          immediately seen as an attempt by the Bush
    Not all did so. President Bush himself      administration to dominate global relief in
remained carefully above the fray, saying in    the biggest natural disaster in memory,
public only that the United Nations must        thus marginalizing the United Nations in
"get to the bottom of the matter." In effect, one of its major roles of coordinating inter-
the president was content for Annan to          national aid.
twist slowly in the wind while the conserva-         There was some logic to the president's
tive attack went on. There was little point     move. Only the United States had the air-
in Bush wasting political capital in demand- craft carriers and the instantly available mil-
ing the resignation of a secretary general      itary logistics and communications systems
with just two years left of his term when       that would prove crucial to the relief effort.
the rest of the Security Council (and at least But then Norwegian diplomat Jan Egeland
the 53 African member states) was likely to reminded the world of the "stingy" lack of
fight to keep him. But a Kofi Annan thus        generosity of many richer nations, provok-
savaged with accusations of corruption,         ing an egregiously harsh reaction from the
fraud, and mismanagement was a United           Bush administration. And Secretary of State
Nations visibly weakened. Still, the outspo- Colin Powell was perhaps making the reli-
ken support of Annan by over 120 of the         gious politics of American aid rather too
191 member states, including published let- obvious when he said at a press conference

16                                                                WORLD POLICY JOURNAL   · SPRING 2005
with the president of Indonesia: "I think it    might be needed and justified under inter-
does give to the Muslim world and the rest      national law.
of the world an opportunity to see American          But Annan and the wise men insisted
generosity, American values in action."         that some fig leaf of a U.N. mandate from
     If the Bush administration had sought      the Security Council must first be ob-
to seize the leadership of the aid effort, it   tained--which famously did not happen
failed. After several days of canvassing by     over Iraq. (But note that Annan, in an ear-
Secretary Powell and other administration       lier attempt to accommodate the realities of
officials only two other countries had come     American policy and its whims, went along
on board--New Zealand and Canada. When          with the 1999 Kosovo war, which had only
the Bush administration approached Britain      a NATO mandate, when it became clear that
and Italy--whose leaders Tony Blair and         Russia would use its veto to block a U.N.
Silvio Berlusconi are both staunch Bush al-     mandate for an attack on Serbia.) American
lies--they replied that the U.S. plan was       nationalists reject this as giving France,
widely seen as "divisive" at a time when the    Russia, and China a veto over America's
entire world wanted to display a united         right to defend itself and its allies against
front. Accordingly, at the tsunami disaster     nuclear 9/11s. That is the core of the prob-
donors' conference in Jakarta in January,       lem, not Saddam's looted billions, and that
Colin Powell announced that the U.S.-led        is why there is no guarantee that Annan will
coalition had been disbanded, and relief        serve out the remaining two years of his
would be supervised solely by the United        term of office, or that his successor will not
Nations. This announcement was greeted          come under similar American pressure, or
with cheers, and was seen by many as a          that the United Nations, as the custodian of
moral victory for Kofi Annan, who respond-      the multilateral principle, will ever be en-
ed gracefully, saying, "We have seen the        tirely at ease with an impatient American
world come together. We have witnessed a        superpower that can be so easily tempted to
response founded not on differences, but on     operate unilaterally.
that which unites us."                               At least Annan still has a sense of hu-
     So is it now over, and has Annan won?      mor. At a gala evening for the U.N. Corre-
Possibly; the irony is that Kofi Annan was      spondents Association at the height of the
installed at the United Nations by the          stormy demands in the U.S. Congress for his
Americans as their trusty when the Clinton      head, Annan began his speech by saying, "I
administration determined to ditch Boutros      have resigned." A stunned silence fell over
Boutros-Ghali. On the whole, Annan has          the assembly. Then Annan grinned and con-
performed to American satisfaction, getting     tinued, "resigned myself to having a good
some initial financial reforms through the      time this evening." This was greeted by
United Nations and ditching 350 years of        cheers and cries of relief, and lots of sud-
international law on national sovereignty to    denly gripped cell phones were slipped un-
assert that genocide or extreme wickedness      obtrusively back into pockets by the assem-
toward one's own people can on occasion         bled correspondents. But it may be Annan's
justify international intervention. At the      last agreeable evening for quite some time;
end of last year, Annan issued a historic       Volcker's final report is not expected until
report of a group of "wise men" which           June or July, and the moral authority of An-
retrospectively endorsed the Bush's admin-      nan and the United Nations will be at best
istration's principal argument--that the        clouded until then. And for the next six
combination of rogue states, superterrorists,   months, which could see some momentous
and nuclear weapons is so new and so dan-       decisions by the Bush administration on
gerous that preemptive military strikes         the nuclear weapons programs of Iran and

Bush v. Annan: Taming the United Nations                                                    17
North Korea, and on the nuisance value of       mined to wound the institution and weaken
Syria in the Middle East, Kofi Annan will       its ability to affect U.S. policy. For the mo-
not be strongly placed to warn, to mobilize     ment, the U.N. secretary general's office and
or even to comment. This is quite sufficient    the broader administration is scrambling to
for the American nationalists and unilateral-   defend itself, and the United Nations as a
ists. Even when they fail to take down their
chosen target, Annan's critics are deter-
                                                whole is effectively neutralized. ·




18                                                                WORLD POLICY JOURNAL   · SPRING 2005