US: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday rejected calls from several US Congress members for his resignation, saying he will "carry on" for the next two years and concentrate on planned reforms of the world body, writes Conor O'Clery in New York
Mr Annan, who infuriated Washington with his opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq, is facing a growing clamour in the US for his dismissal over allegations of corruption in the UN oil-for-food programme. The issue has sharply split the US from the rest of the world, where support for the UN chief among the 191 UN member-states remains strong.
President Bush refused to back Mr Annan last week, but on Monday America's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, praised the UN leader for doing "a fine job in very difficult circumstances" and called the criticism unfair. The French and Spanish leaders yesterday called Mr Annan to express their confidence in him personally.
"I have quite a lot of work to do and I'm carrying on with my work," Mr Annan told reporters in the UN yesterday. "We have a major agenda next year, and the year ahead, trying to reform this organisation. So we'll carry on."
The furore began last week when Republican Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, who heads a Senate sub-committee investigating the oil-for-food scandal, said Mr Annan had presided over the "greatest fraud and theft" in UN history and should resign. His committee claimed it had evidence that Saddam Hussein raised more than $21.3 billion in illegal revenue by subverting UN sanctions and the oil-for-food programme.
On Monday, Republican Congressman Scott Garrett of New Jersey told reporters in Washington: "The question is whether he [ Kofi Annan] should be in jail."
The American focus on the oil-for-food scandal has badly rattled the world body, which receives 22 per cent of its funding from Washington. At a black-tie dinner on Friday, Mr Annan attempted to make a joke of it, starting his speech by saying, "Tonight I have resigned (pause) myself to having a good time." But he has been hammered in the conservative media for his oversight of a programme riddled by corruption and mismanagement.
The oil-for-food programme was put in place in 1996 to feed Iraqis starving because of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein. It allowed Iraq to sell its oil to pay for humanitarian goods. The Senate inquiry has focused on charges that Benon Sevan, the Cypriot appointed by Mr Annan to direct the programme, was taking bribes, and that Mr Annan's son, Kojo, was in the pay of a Swiss company that is also under investigation.
Long before the allegations moved from a fringe obsession of the right to calls on Capitol Hill for his resignation, Mr Annan commissioned an independent investigation into oil-for-food, headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, which will issue an interim report next month.
Former US senator Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, said that asking Kofi Annan to resign was like saying that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ought to leave because of the Abu Ghraib scandal.
The Colorado Democrat newspaper pointed out that $15 billion of the money gained by Saddam Hussein in fact came from smuggling, or from trade deals with neighbours Jordan, Syria and Turkey that had nothing to do with the oil-for-food programme and were known to the US.
Mr Annan was handpicked by the US when Boutros Boutros-Ghali fell foul of the Clinton administration in 1996 and was regarded as America's man during the 1990s. There is no evidence that the secretary-general (or his son) did anything illegal, but Mr Annan has admitted that there is a big perception problem for the UN. Some Republicans believe that forcing Mr Annan out now would be a mistake at a time when American may most need him, especially in post-election Iraq. Last week a high-level global panel, set up by the secretary-general a year ago, called for a sweeping reform of the UN, including a redefinition of terrorism to include any attack on civilians and an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of (UN approved) pre-emptive action, which has pleased many conservatives. But many observers, including some Republicans, say the world body needs an authoritative and popular figure like Mr Annan to see them them through.
Concluding his speech on Friday to the UN correspondents' association, Mr Annan forecast that he would not be around at the UN after 2006, when his term ends. He would see them again in a year - or three - he said, "if you're so gracious as to invite me back after I've retired."