U.N.'s Inability to Avert Iraq War 'Haunts' Annan

From the Los Angeles Times

U.N.'s Inability to Avert Iraq War 'Haunts' Annan
In a year-end review, the secretary-general also lashes out at reporters over their coverage of the oil-for-food scandal.
By Maggie Farley
Times Staff Writer

December 22, 2005

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Kofi Annan's biggest regret in his nine-year tenure as U.N. chief was not being able to prevent the war in Iraq, he said Wednesday during his annual year-end news conference.

The United Nations' inability to head off the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 "still haunts me and bothers me," he said, because it caused divisions that still trouble the world body today.

He said he had intervened personally with officials from many nations to try to head off the invasion, and wished that U.N. inspectors seeking to ascertain whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction had been given more time to do their work.

"But we were not able to do that," he said.

Annan has tried to appear neutral on the subject of the Iraq war, despite one slip during a BBC interview in which he declared the war illegal.

The secretary-general, entering the final year of his term, revealed facets of his personality Wednesday rarely seen in public, alternately combative, wistful, hopeful and bitter.

"The year about to end has been a really difficult one," Annan said, citing the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami that struck last December, continuing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, and the U.N. oil-for-food scandal that sparked calls for his resignation.

"Let us look forward to what we can and must do next year," he said, "and what we have to build on."

Annan said he would focus on three priorities in his final year: fighting poverty; promoting peace and security; and reforming the United Nations.

He said he would tell his successor that it was easier to give than to take advice, and urged his replacement to have "thick skin and a sense of humor."

Moments later, Annan showed why those qualities were so important. He lashed out at reporters for their "obsessive" pursuit of the oil-for-food scandal, which exposed corruption in the U.N.-led program. The program was set up in 1996 to offset the effects on Iraqis of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime. Annan said he hoped the United Nations would "never be asked to take on a program like that again."

He targeted one journalist in particular, James Bone of the London Times, who has asked the U.N. spokesman nearly every day about the whereabouts of a Mercedes that Annan's son allegedly purchased in his father's name to avoid import duties.

There have been suggestions that the car was a reward from the son's employer, Cotecna Inspection, for winning a lucrative U.N. contract.

Cotecna and the secretary-general's office have declined to comment about the car.

When Bone posed the question to Annan again Wednesday, the normally soft-spoken secretary-general lost his cool.

"Listen, James Bone. You have been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years," he snapped. "You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving, and please let's move on to a more serious subject."

Bone walked out of the room after the tongue-lashing, which became a leading story on several international television news programs.

"I've known Kofi Annan for more than 15 years, and his outburst surprised and amused me," Bone said. "I thought he was acting more like a tin-pot dictator than the world's top diplomat. He is, after all, a public official paid with taxpayers' money."

Although the effects of the oil-for-food scandal will probably follow him, Annan said he hoped that his legacy would be a revitalized institution.

"If there's one thing I would like to hand over to my successor when I leave office next year is that it should be a U.N. that is fit for the many varied tasks and challenges we are asked to take on today," he said.

This month, he has overseen several pieces of the broad reform program that he helped inaugurate: the creation of a commission to help countries rebuild after conflicts; a new ethics office to tackle corruption; and a whistle-blower policy to protect those who point out wrongdoing at the United Nations.

Annan cautioned that the reform program "hangs by a thread" because of a U.S. threat to block the U.N.'s budget if certain changes are not made by year's end, including the creation of a new human rights panel.

"It would be very disruptive, and we may have to take some drastic measures," he said. "But I really, really hope the member states understand the implications of a budget crisis and will do everything to avoid it."

Annan, with a smile, offered one suggestion to save money: Shut down the press room.