Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (666952)	1/3/2005 1:33:00 AM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

What right do these people have to meet with Koffi and discuss the UN, when they have no autority, and should not be speaking as such! Who found out about this meeting? The meeting was held in the apartment of Richard C. Holbrooke, a United States ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton. Others in attendance were John G. Ruggie, assistant secretary general for strategic planning from 1997 to 2001 and now a professor of international relations at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; Leslie H. Gelb, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations; Timothy E. Wirth, the president of the United Nations Foundation, based in Washington; Kathy Bushkin, the foundation's executive vice president; Nader Mousavizadeh, a former special assistant to Mr. Annan who left in 2003 to work at Goldman Sachs; and Robert C. Orr, the assistant secretary general for strategic planning. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, was invited but could not attend. "The intention was to keep it confidential," Mr. Holbrooke said. "No one wanted to give the impression of a group of outsiders, all of them Americans, dictating what to do to a secretary general." He described the group as people "who care deeply about the U.N. and believe that the U.N. cannot succeed if it is in open dispute and constant friction with its founding nation, its host nation and its largest contributor nation." "The U.N., without the U.S. behind it, is a failed institution," he said. None of the participants would discuss the remarks that were made in any detail. "Secret advice, such as it is, is effective to the extent that it is kept that way," Mr. Ruggie said. But one participant, who requested anonymity, said Mr. Annan remained quiet throughout the session and made no promises - nor was he asked to - at its end. "He sat in silence and made no effort to defend himself," the participant said. "He was taking it all in. It wasn't a conversation, it was much more of a, 'Here is the situation, here are the choices on what you can do.' " Mr. Holbrooke said that the talk, while unalloyed, was not confrontational. "There was nothing adversarial about it," he said. "Kofi knew he was in a meeting with people who cared deeply about him and about the institution."