Bush links UN funding to oil-for-food investigation
By Mark Turner at the United Nations
Published: December 2 2004
news.ft.com
President George W. Bush on Thursday linked future US funding of the United Nations to clear accounting of what went on under the multi-billion dollar oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
“In order for the taxpayers of the United States to feel comfortable about supporting the United Nations, there has to be an open accounting, and I look forward to that process going forward,” he told journalists.
When asked whether Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, should resign over revelations that Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi leader, was able to subvert UN sanctions and raise billions of dollars illicitly, Mr Bush offered less than a ringing defence.
“I look forward to the full disclosure of the facts, a good, honest appraisal of that which went on,” he said. “It's important for the integrity of the organisation to have a full and open disclosure of all that took place with the oil-for-food programme.” His comments were made amid a mounting US attack on the UN at a time when the organisation is trying to reform in order to meet new security challenges. A reform package, written by 16 veteran world dignitaries, was made public on Thursday. Mr Annan hopes it will stimulate debate on collective security. He plans to issue his recommendations next March, and a summit will discuss UN reform next September.
However, the initiative has been overshadowed by the calls of two senior Republican senators for Mr Annan to resign. Senator Norm Coleman, who chairs the Senate permanent subcommittee investigating the oil-for-food scandal, has said that the UN “cannot root out its own corruption while Mr Annan is in charge”.
On Thursday, the New York Post claimed that Kojo Annan, his son, had “used his father's worldwide connections to wheel and deal with heads of state, at UN gatherings”. Fred Eckhard, the UN spokesman, on Thursday would not comment on the article.
Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder, the leaders of France and Germany, called Mr Annan after an informal summit at Lubeck on Thursday to “send him a message of friendship and support for his work in the service of peace, development and the United Nations reform”, Reuters reported.
Senator Carl Levin, a senior Democrat who has worked closely on the UN oil-for-food investigation, said Mr Coleman's call for Mr Annan's resignation was “unwarranted”.
“There's no evidence that our subcommittee has seen that shows any impropriety on the part of Kofi Annan,” he said, adding that the US had contributed “very significantly” to the oil-for-food problems.
“We knew, for instance, that about $15bn [€11bn, £8bn] in direct oil sales were being made by Iraq to Jordan and to Turkey and to Syria,” Mr Levin said. “Both President Clinton and this President Bush knowingly waived that problem. To lay that as corruption on Kofi Annan's doorstep, it seems to me, is totally unwarranted.” |
