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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired November 19, 2004 - 21:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It isn't necessary to adopt resolutions saying they have no confidence in senior management. We'd certainly like them to have more confidence in us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The program needs to be redesignated as Oil For Fraud not Oil For Food.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact that they're going to spend several hours in the plane also will give us a chance to discuss in a very informal and friendly way a bunch of issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: In two weeks the United Nations receives a big report on how the place should deal with a new century, adjusting to terrorism, preemptive strikes and civil wars. The question this weekend: can the United Nations even make it until delivery day in early December.

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

There are a number of topics that lead one to sense this weekend that the United Nations as an organization is deeply troubled. The U.N. staff is upset. The United States is furious. New York state is unhappy. And women in Congo have been sexually abused by U.N. personnel.

To go over this list of woes I welcome James Bone of the "Times of London."

James, there were developments on a variety of fronts, some updates on items we have talked about here previously, but put them all together and it's a very bad period for the United Nations, still reeling from being in and then mostly out of Iraq.

First off, on Friday, leaders of the U.N. staff union met after sending U.N. management a letter complaining of a lack of confidence in the administration of the place. One of the complaints dealt with a man known as Dilik Nair (ph), who himself is the head of the U.N. special internal investigations unit.

There was an anonymous letter making allegations against Nair (ph) of sexual harassment and nepotism. The secretary-general said the allegations could not be sustained.

Tell us more about this staff union meeting.

JAMES BONE, "TIMES OF LONDON": Well, what's happened is the staff union have basically said that there is a lack of trust among the staff in the senior management.

They've excluded Kofi Annan, who of course was a lifetime U.N. official before he became secretary-general. Their real focus is on the next tier of management underneath him. But they're particularly unhappy that in the six month investigation of Dilik Nair (ph), who is the United Nations' internal watchdog, the staff union wasn't consulted.

So that's the focus of their anger, but it has to be said, Richard, that ever since the bombing of the U.N. compound in Baghdad more than a year ago, there has been a groundswell of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, frustration, even anger among the U.N. staff. U.N. staff at different points has called on Kofi Annan to take them out of Afghanistan because it's too dangerous, out of Iraq because it's too dangerous, neither of which it has done.

ROTH: There was also the case of Rudd Lubbers, the United Nations' refugee chief, who the United Nations did not take any action against him after a woman -- an American -- complained that Lubbers sexually harassed her, Annan saying that report could not legally, you know, action could not be taken based on the evidence.

BONE: That's another focus of their unhappiness as well, and one other thing that's come up in the discussions has been Kofi Annan's refusal to accept the offered resignation of Louis Frechette, his Canadian deputy, who was in charge of Iraq through the time of the bombing, and many of the staff think should have done a better job in ensuring that security was better organized around the compound in Baghdad.

Rosemary Waters, the head of the staff union, expressed her continued confidence in Kofi Annan, but did renew the criticisms of the other senior managers.

I mean, the United Nations is feeling incredibly besieged at the moment, not least because of President Bush's reelection to another four- year term. I think a lot of people in the United Nations system were hoping that President Bush would lose and possibly a more U.N.-friend Democratic administration come in. That, of course, didn't happen, and now they face pressure on all fronts, really.

ROTH: There is also more talk in Congress about withholding funds for the United Nations in anger of Oil For Food and now legislators in New York state are not so quick to vote on a plan that would expand U.N. headquarters, build a new temporary structure while the U.N. compound is renovated.

And, James, more headaches for the United Nations on Friday. The United Nations confirm reports earlier this year the U.N. civilian and military personnel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Africa, committed sexual exploitation and abuse of women.

A U.N. spokesman read Secretary-General Annan's reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place. This is a shameful thing for the United Nations to have to say and I'm absolutely outraged by it.

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ROTH: And on Monday, James, senior U.N. officials will be briefing the press on that issue.

But we have heard for a decade, I think, of abuses by U.N. peacekeepers or U.N. personnel at many of these far-flung missions.

BONE: Yes. This one actually is slightly unusual, I gather, because it involves not just military peacekeepers but also civilian personnel having sex with under-aged girls. That seems to be the focus of the problem.

ROTH: Now, for the United Nations itself, is this just one of the bad patches? Or will the next two years of the Kofi Annan administration just be constantly fending off people? And if there is any evidence found that United Nations officials took bribes in Oil For Food, that's going to be more than just a period for the United Nations. That's going to be almost a death knell, wouldn't it?

BONE: Richard, I think that it's clear the United Nations is on the defensive. It's clear it has a relatively hostile administration in Washington. We have been here before, during the Reagan administration, when funds were cut to the United Nations, actually, by the United States, leading to a huge U.S. deficit.

We aren't at that stage yet, but I think it's certainly true that Kofi Anna, by saying without apparently any particular legal basis that the Iraq war was illegal, as he did say in a media interview, has confronted the United States on the major foreign policy question of the day and is going to be -- there's going to be a backlash against him.

ROTH: All right. Well, we're going to be talking more about that coming up. James Bone, "Times of London," thank you very much for some quick journalistic work, for us on a Friday. Thank you.

Coming up, the humanitarian program that helped millions of Iraqis, surely that deal the United Nations can feel good about. No. A U.S. senator, Norm Coleman, this week with just one of many concerns.

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SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R-MN): We find the question must be raised as to what happened to Saddam's billions and are they being used today to fuel an insurgency that has taken the lives of over 1,000 American and coalition servicemen and women and thousands of Iraqi allies. The clear inference can be drawn that the failed management of the Oil For Food program has cost the lives of many innocent individuals.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Knowing that you've all been discussing Oil For Food, I'm struggling for a way of connecting this story of microfinance. Maybe it would be a good use for Oil For Food revenues.

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ROTH: Mark Malloch Brown, director of the U.N. Development Program, knows that a dominant story like Oil For Food can take media coverage away from other important issues, like microfinance to reduce poverty.

But if it's proven that U.N. officials were on the take regarding Oil For Food and country officials accepted bribes that affected the way they voted on Iraq, well, there may not be much of a United Nations left standing to deal with microcredit.

Two hearings this week in the U.S. Congress on Oil For Food. The $60 billion-plus program has expired, but the paper trail lives on. Even U.N. supporters inside the U.S. Congress are losing patience over what they believe is a lack of cooperation by the United Nations with the several separate investigations of Oil For Food.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's clear here that the United Nations not only mismanaged the Oil For Food Program, but that United Nations officials themselves may have participated in Saddam's efforts to undermine the very controls they were charged with enforcing. And I wanted to join with Senators Coleman and Levin in urging the United Nations to cooperate fully and promptly with this Subcommittee's request or to risk further diminishing the support that does still exist in this Congress.

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ROTH: At the hearings, attention again on the former director of the Oil For Food program for the United Nations. His name is Benon Sevan. His name turned up on a list in Iraq has having received millions of dollars of Iraqi oil money, but did he really get the so-called oil vouchers?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know that Benon Sevan received a voucher? That's my question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Iraqis firmly believe that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know that he did? This is your document. This isn't a document which says Iraqi documents state the following.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would conclude from.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is your.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would conclude with high confidence from the data that the Iraqis provided, from all that we saw, that that happened.

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ROTH: I called Mr. Sevan this week. He did not return the call.

The United Nations has its own investigation run by former financial figure Paul Volcker.

This week, Congressional investigators say they've already found that Oil For Food money was used to make payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel and that a French bank which housed the Oil For Food money violated U.S. banking laws.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say it's perverse to describe this as a cover up.

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ROTH: Did the U.N. Security Council known what might happen with Oil For Food when it established the controversial program? And will the U.S. Congress take its fury out on the United Nations?

Some answers, perhaps, from our two guests. Carn Ross (ph), a former diplomat at the United Nations for the United Kingdom, point person for his country, on Iraq, the Oil For Food Program, and in Washington, Congressman Tom Lantos, Democrat from the West Cost state of California, who sits on the House International Relations Committee, which held Oil For Food hearings on Wednesday.

Carn, let me start with you. Were you aware that abuses in the Oil For Food Program could and would happen?

CARN ROSS (ph), FMR. U.N. DIPLOMATE: Yes, we were absolutely aware of it. I think it was an extremely difficult program to manage and the United Nations was given an almost impossible task and they were not given the cooperation -- the full cooperation -- of the member states that they should have expected.

ROTH: Well, what do you mean you knew it was happening? That countries were in on this? Businesses? U.N. officials?

ROSS (ph): Well, the details that have emerged since the invasion of Iraq has surprised even me, but we were very aware of corruption within the program of widespread smuggling by the Iraqi regime, abuse of the program in all kinds of different ways.

We made repeated attempts to tackle it, and we weren't effective.

ROTH: Did France, Russia and other countries block action by the United Kingdom and the United States to curb corruption in the program?

ROSS (ph): I think the honest answer to that would be yes, but my own view, particularly with the ease of hindsight, is that we, the United States and the United Kingdom could also have done a great deal more to combat what we knew was going on, and I think now it is very unfair to blame the United Nations alone.

The United Nations may be culpable of mismanagement and indeed corruption. If it is, then that is a very bad thing. But I think the member states could have done a lot more to tackle what we knew was a widespread problem.

ROTH: congressman Lantos, your thoughts? You have been a long-time Kofi Annan and United Nations supporter, but I heard you this week rather tough on the organization.

CONGRESSMAN TOM LANTOS (D-CA): Well, I was not tough on the organization. I was disappointed in the organization.

The person who was in charge for the United Nations for this very noble program was on the take and.

ROTH: But how do you know that?

LANTOS: Well, the documents are there. It's not a question of how I know it. The whole world knows it.

Millions and millions of dollars went into the pocket of this fellow, whom I have never met, but he was the official U.N. designated person supervising this program.

We know that Saddam Hussein is a very clever criminal, but he needed accomplices, and he had accomplices in a number of countries. One of the people very close to President Chirac was on the take. The top aide to President Putin of Russia was on the take. Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan.

ROTH: But Colin Powell, not to -- I hate to interrupt, but Colin Powell consistently said he had pressured Syria to stop the smuggling of oil, and yet it continued and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as you mentioned, in the hearings, the Russian official. Why is the anger by Congress seemingly directed at the United Nations instead of at the United States itself, which sat on the Security Council?

LANTOS: Well, as you may have heard during the course of the hearing, I was highly critical of our Department of State, which could have and should have done much more to prevent this corruption.

But our State Department was not corrupt. It may not have exercised its oversight function properly, but the French government and the Russian government played ball with Saddam Hussein in anticipation of future oil contracts. High ranking French and Russian officials were.

ROTH: Russian officials -- Russian Foreign Ministry again this week formally dismissing the allegations. Congressman.

LANTOS: Well, they may -- the Russian Foreign Ministry is reverting back to the Soviet times, when it dismisses facts.

A fellow by the name of (UNINTELLIGIBLE), who was Putin's right-hand man, was part of this corrupt scheme, and the Russian Foreign Ministry may deny it.

ROTH: What's the impact now for the United Nations regarding funding by the biggest member at the United Nations, the United States? As this Oil For Food debacle unfolds, will there be reduction in payments? Will there be formal action? Will the United Nations be asked to leave the United States?

LANTOS: Well, the first thing that we are asking of the United Nations is full cooperation with the investigation.

We have not yet received it. We.

ROTH: Well, they say -- how can they conduct an investigation if they're giving out information that would potentially cause witnesses not to talk to them and what New York cop would hand out all of his information to Chicago police if he's conducting an investigation.

LANTOS: Well, this is an international organization which because of its own negligence has facilitated criminal corruption attempted successfully by Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein was trying to divide the Security Council. Saddam Hussein was providing current and future benefits to the French and to the Russians, and U.N. leadership, not Kofi Annan, U.N. leadership, the man in charge of this program, who was personally corrupt --

ROTH: All right, I want to ask.

LANTOS: -- facilitated this outrage.

ROTH: There's been nothing proven yet on Benon Sevan, but let me ask about him, Carn Ross (ph), you were there.

LANTOS: All of the documents are available. What do you mean nothing is proven?

ROTH: Well, there are.

LANTOS: Official documents are available for you to inspect.

ROTH: But the Iraqis could have put anyone's name on a list. We don't know yet what happened.

LANTOS: Well, your name is not on the list. And my name is not on the list. But the U.N. official who was in charge of the program is on the list.

ROTH: All right. I used to be on a list because I was banned from the country, but Carn (ph) --

ROSS (ph): So was I, banned from the country.

ROTH: -- did Benon Sevan, as another report said the other day, interfere or try to block any attempt to look into how the program was functioning?

ROSS (ph): No, he didn't. I mean, he was always cooperative with us about that, and I personally, knowing Benon for many years and through my work, I'd be very surprised if he were personally guilty of corruption.

But I'm not in a position to make a judgment about that, and I think it is probably overstated on the basis of the evidence so far to say that it is clear that he is guilty of that corruption. The Volcker Commission, setup by the United Nations, is investigating that and other question and that's the right way to resolve these questions.

LANTOS: Well, what business did the U.N. official in charge of assuring the honesty of this program, on what basis did he receive valuable vouchers from Saddam Hussein?

ROSS (ph): It's not proven, I'm afraid. I mean, all that we've got is the documents uncovered by Charles Duelfer and the Iraqi survey group. I've read that document very carefully. I respect the work of Charles Duelfer, who I also know, but it's not yet conclusive, and I think there needs to be a proper investigation into it.

But I want to make a broader point, which I think is quite serious. It concerns the whole history of what happened with Iraq, where I think we have a great deal to learn from the sanctions regime and the Oil For Food program.

It seems to me very clear now that we collectively failed. The member states and the United Nations could have done a great deal more to stem this corruption and to stem the smuggling.

Saddam Hussein's regime survived on the proceeds of this smuggling. We didn't stop it. It was something that we, at a junior official level, often pushed, but at the senior level it was never pursued with any serious vigor, and I personally believe that that would have offered a real alternative to the war that was later to come.

ROTH: Well, why didn't they do that? Was it to hold sanctions in place? Is that why the United Nations said, hey, we're going to let this go, we're going to turn a blind eye?

ROSS (ph): It wasn't to hold sanctions in place. It was to allow sanctions to leak. I mean, the Duelfer report is very clear, that very many billions of dollars seeped through the sanctions net, that the Saddam regime survived from these proceeds, and the question I have is why the United States government, amongst many others, allowed this to happen.

Officials may now say that vigorous efforts were made to stem this flow, but I can tell you now that that was not the case.

ROTH: Final word, Congressman Lantos, 15 seconds or so on Oil For Food, the United States and the United Nations.

LANTOS: We very much hope to get to the bottom of this. It is already clear that high officials in the Russian and the French governments, as well as Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, facilitated Saddam Hussein's criminal, corrupt activities.

ROTH: OK. Paul Volcker's group had phone calls and letters with some of the senators this week, maybe some progress. But right now there's no two-way pipeline. We'll see how it all plays out.

On the right, the distinguished congressman from the state of California, Tom Lantos, by way of Europe originally, and Carn Ross (ph), with the United Kingdom formerly, no longer in the government there. The Iraq point person in New York for the United Kingdom mission at the United Nations. Thank you both.

A former U.S. senator well versed in international affairs is dismayed at how there appears to him to be once again a drive to get the United Nations. Sam Nunn, now leading a drive to reduce the nuclear threat, thinks the United States should fix its own Pentagon scandals and work to improve the United Nations that the United States needs.

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SAM NUNN, FMR. U.S. SENATOR: It doesn't take much political genius to figure out, if you get out on the stump and you condemn the United Nations, the great, big, amorphous organization in New York that is sometimes inefficient and sometimes doesn't agree with America, it doesn't take a lot of genius to believe and to know that you can get an applause line there.

It takes a lot more thinking on the part of our policymakers and leaders to understand the component parts of the United Nations that are working extremely well, that benefit Americans every day, and to tell people about that, and also tell them that we're going to try to correct the abuses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: Off to Africa. Security Council ambassadors boarded a bus in the U.N. driveway Tuesday, departing for Nairobi and talks about Sudan. It is only the fourth Security Council meeting outside of U.N. headquarters.

The ambassadors are frequently criticized to not being able to go to the location of the crises they vote on. Not a great moment on the exit. It took more than 10 minutes to backup the large bus to get it out of the U.N. grounds. Increased security fences didn't help the bus driver for his airport run.

How did the trip end? The government of Sudan and rebels in the south did sign agreements to end their long civil war by the end of the year. The Security Council voted a resolution promising economic and political help once that happens.

We asked CNN's Charlayne Hunter-Gault to describe this unique Security Council field trip.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Richard, we're coming to you from in front of the United Nations headquarters here in Nairobi, Kenya. It's only one of four U.N. stations in the entire world. It is here that U.S. Ambassador John Danforth brought the Security Council's authority and their words in the hopes of bringing peace to Africa's largest country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But there can be no lasting peace in Sudan without an end to the conflict and instability in Darfur. And indeed in other areas of the country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is important we make clear to the Sudanese that international support will be there for them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a step on a journey and the journey is a country that can hold itself together and can prosper. I think for any country, that's a continuing journey, including my own. The business of having a country where different kinds of people can live together peacefully and respect one another and respect one another's beliefs and lives, that's an ongoing process. It never ends for any country.

HUNTER-GAULT: Charlayne Hunter-Gault for DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, Nairobi, Kenya.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: Human rights groups have already criticized the latest Security Council resolution as lacking teeth. The Council said it would consider appropriate action if the government of Sudan didn't cooperate, but did not again specifically prepare for sanctions, which countries such as China and Russia oppose.

That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York, thanks for watching.

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