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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired March 18, 2005 - 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)
TED TURNER, MOGUL: Richard Roth is here. If he had his way, he'd be on all day long. No more murders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: Speaking of violence, can you believe this weekend marks two years since the United States and Britain attacked Iraq. Thank you, Ted Turner.

I am Richard Roth in New York.

While the world looks back at events in the Middle East, and perhaps looks ahead to momentous events to come in that hotspot, we thought we would turn our eyes to the other side of the world. Taiwan. Backed by U.S. military might but facing Mainland China, which claims the island as its own.

Have the chances for violence gone up because of the decision taken by China this week? Chinese National People's Congress on Monday passed an anti-succession law aimed at Taiwan. Long termed the renegade province by Beijing, the law says China could use, quote, "non-peaceful means" to prevent any attempt at independence by Taiwan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There is only one China in the world. The fact that there is only one China has never changed. Not in the slightest way. Only by checking Taiwan's independence forces will peace emerge in the Taiwan Strait.

RICHARD BOUCHER, U.S. STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: The decision by the Chinese leaders to have the National People's Congress adopt an anti- succession law today, it is unfortunate. It really does not serve the cause of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and for that reason we believe it can be unhelpful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Tension in the Taiwan Strait. Time to worry, or is it just more diplomatic rhetoric?

Joining us is Taiwan's Director General of Economic and Cultural Affairs, in New York, Andrew Hsia. Remember, Taiwan is not a U.N. member anymore. The Chinese U.N. mission declined to appear on the program along with our guest.

And in Washington is Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for Defense and Foreign Policy at the Cato Institute. Welcome to you both.

Mr. Hsia, what is Taiwan's reaction to the measure passed in Beijing this week?

ANDREW HSIA, TAIPEI ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL OFFICE: Well, we were very upset, of course. This unilateral change of the status quo in the Strait region is not helpful at all, to put it in the words of the American government.

And we believe this gives the military sort of a prerogative to interpret what constitutes Taiwan independence, which is dangerous.

ROTH: The president there in Taiwan condemned the measure, but because of some votes over the last few years -- perhaps you can explain -- maybe it's not that much time to worry? The island doesn't seem to be rushing towards any independence move anytime soon.

HSIA: We are not. I mean, the president had made it very clear in his inaugural speech and his agreement recently with the opposition leaders that he will not make a unilateral declaration of independence, which to us is totally unnecessary, being a sovereign independent country.

ROTH: But what does this measure, this anti-succession law, now mean though? What can't Taiwan do? It sounds like any type of move could be interpreted one way by Beijing and an opposite way by others.

HSIA: That is exactly where the danger is, and we hope that the international community will come to our assistance, condemning this piece of legislation.

ROTH: The international community coming to Taiwan's assistance? Ted Galen Carpenter, you've written about this. You think that in a way, perhaps Taiwan should stand on its own feet and not always expect international help. Is that right?

TED GALEN CARPENTER, CATO INST.: Well, I think it is important that the Taiwanese people decide for themselves what they want for their future, whether it is the status quo of de facto independence, whether they want to take the chance and push the envelope and try to move toward formal independence. But they need to do it at their own risk level, not at ours.

And right now, Taiwan seems to want the best of both worlds. It wants U.S. protection, even as it neglects its own defense. There has been a special defense bill pending in the Taiwanese National Legislature for some time, better than $15 billion in arms purchases from the United States. If Taiwan is going to push the envelope on independence, as Chen Shui-bian's administration has been doing since he took office in 2000, then they need to pay serious attention to their own defense and not rely entirely on an implied and very vague security commitment from the United States.

HSIA: I think President Chen has made very clear that we will be defending ourselves with the purchase of American military weapons and, also, the people of Taiwan, I think more than 90 percent of the people, support the status quo, and President Chen made that very clear, that we will not make any unilateral changes of the status quo.

ROTH: Does Taiwan have friends there in the region, or is it just the United States -- Professor Carpenter.

CARPENTER: Well, Taiwan doesn't have many friends. Only a small number of countries recognize the Republic of China, Taiwan's official name, and most of those countries are small countries in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America.

The United States is really about the only serious country that Taiwan can count on as a friend. America's allies in East Asia are making it more and more clear that if there is a war in the Taiwan Straits, that they are not likely to intervene on the side of the United States. One exception might be Japan since the United States and Japan issued a joint security declaration just a little while ago indicating that a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan dispute was an important security interest of the --

(CROSSTALK)

HSIA: Professor Carpenter, if I may, when you say we have few friends, you basically mention about the diplomatic allies that we have, but actually we have many friends in Europe, in Japan, for example, you mentioned, and Japan has made it very clear with the United States that any changes in the status quo or any in stability in the region is of great concern to both Japan and the United States.

So I must say that in terms of safeguarding stability in the region, we do have many friends internationally.

CARPENTER: But if a fight comes, you're not going to be able to count on any of them. They're not going to come to your aid militarily.

HSIA: We understand that clearly. So that is why most people in Taiwan would like to maintain the status quo and certainly we don't like to see a change of position by the Chinese in terms of having this piece of legislation, given the military sort of a blank check to interpret what constitutes a unilateral declaration of independence.

ROTH: Mr. Carpenter.

CARPENTER: I think the problem you face is that the Beijing government is becoming less and less patient on the reunification issue. The anti-succession law is just the latest indication of that. It is not the only one by any means.

HSIA: But if anybody checks from last December, you can see the warming up of relations. We have the direct charter flight between the two sides and we also had a visit by Chinese officials attending the funeral of Mr. Koo Chen-fu, and also the president made it clear that he is committed to his (UNINTELLIGIBLE) policy and the new prime minister of Taiwan basically has said he is going to set aside the controversial policies.

So everything is warming up until this piece of legislation unfortunately happened.

ROTH: What is your interpretation, Mr. Carpenter? Was this bill that was already introduced before the flights and some of the rapprochement, was this a policy that just caught up to current events and now China has got a little public relations short-term problem on its hands? Or how seriously do you take this law?

CARPENTER: I think it is a culmination of a trend. Indeed, it was foreshadowed by the defense white paper that Beijing issued in December. It set out the same conditions that might trigger a non-peaceful response. Not only a declaration of independence, but any major incident leading toward independence, whatever that might mean, or any indefinite stalling on reunification talks.

So I think what we are seeing is a long-term trend with Beijing becoming more and more assertive on this issue.

HSIA: Beijing actually is changing the status quo. In the past, basically it said that the relations will be warming up, as long as Taiwan is not taking unilateral actions, but now with this piece of legislation, it changes the status and it has unnecessarily heightened the tension.

ROTH: Andrew Hsia, there is talk of a big demonstration on the 26th. Is that going to happen? And what is that going to do to relations with the Mainland?

HSIA: Well, the president certainly asked for people to take to the street, and we will see what happens that day. We don't know yet.

ROTH: What about getting inside the United Nations? Every year it seems you try, you can't get it. What is your latest approach? Do you want to be an observer? Do you want to have some link with the United Nations since China --

HSIA: We were so humble, so reasonable, we didn't even say observer status. We basically said the United Nations should study the issue.

Now, we also asked the United Nations this time that they should observe the issue, what happened recently, the passage of this law, and take, you know, necessary action.

ROTH: I mean, it was quite a moment inside the General Assembly, I believe it was October 25, 1971, when Mainland China took the seat. The language is kind of amazing. It says in the General Assembly resolution, "We expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and all the organizations related to it."

HSIA: At that time, basically we are talking about the representation of China. At this moment, we are talking about the representation of 23 million people on Taiwan. We know who represents China in the Security Council and the Assembly.

ROTH: Mr. Carpenter, is Taiwan ever going to get into the United Nations, very briefly?

CARPENTER: I think it is almost impossible. Beijing is not willing to compromise on that issue. They feel that this would be de facto recognition of Taiwan's independence. They are not about to accept that.

HSIA: Then how about those technical agencies, such as the Health Organization and, you know, ICAOIO (ph).

ROTH: All right, well, we'll have to see how it plays out this September.

Curiously, also this week, in Geneva, the United States dropped any resolution that would criticize and condemn China on human rights. That's a change from past years.

I would like to thank our guests in Washington, Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president of Foreign Policy and Defense Issues at the Cato Institute in Washington, thank you, and here in New York, Andrew Hsia, Taipei Cultural Economic director in the New York Office. Thank you very much, both of you.

For the United Nations, it is a one-China policy. To place China inside the General Assembly, the Republic of China representing Taiwan was forced out of the seat. It didn't go in the presence of Foreign Minister Qiao (ph) quietly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We shall continue with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of the government for the realization of the ideas upon which your legislation was founded, on which the General Assembly has now betrayed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: Another U.S. congressional hearing on Oil For Food concludes. The names are taken away, but the testimony of the witnesses lives on.

Welcome back to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. Joining me now is one of those witnesses, rather a star witness this week, a whistleblower of sorts, Rehan Mullick. He was investigating and monitoring in Baghdad during the Oil For Food period, when he says a lot of abuses took place that higher-ups wouldn't listen to.

Welcome to the program, Mr. Mullick.

REHAN MULLICK, FMR. OIL FOR FOOD WORKER: Thank you very much.

ROTH: When you go to Iraq, what did you quickly observe? What did you see? You are a numbers guy -- you're a numbers cruncher, lists, figures, that's one of your strengths. What did you see?

MULLICK: One of the very important things that I noticed was that a database that would observer what was going on with the Oil For Food supplies was totally out of shape. It was not in a -- you couldn't make any sense out of it. And a lot of things that were supposed to be distributed were not really reaching the Iraqi population.

ROTH: Now, you're saying that perhaps 1/5 or 1/4 of the goods did not get to the people of Iraq; they were taken by the Iraqi regime. And you told the congressional subcommittee trucks, four x fours, all diverted.

Now, what was the reaction of the U.N. management teams when you tried to protest and complain about what was happening?

MULLICK: This happened in a span of two years. At different occasions, I was telling them about different discrepancies, but nothing, absolute silence. Total silence. I don't even have a single correspondence where they got back to me on those issues and said, well, let's do something about it.

ROTH: These were not the high hopes you had when you said you were going to work for the United Nations, when you left Iowa, where you were living.

MULLICK: That's right. I was just trying to do my job, not really looking for something particular, and no, this was definitely not what I expected in the United Nations.

ROTH: Who did you try to talk to? Did you have any personal correspondence or communication with the director of the program, Benon Sevan, a man now who is charged by Paul Volcker, the U.N.'s investigator, with a conflict of interest regarding this issue, something Sevan denies.

MULLICK: Actually, I followed the line, the chain of hierarchy, and I went to my own supervisor and onward to the coordinator of the program in Iraq, and then onwards to New York. And at one point I was told that Mr. Sevan might want to talk to me, but that never really happened.

ROTH: You wrote in the "National Journal" that things got a little incestuous in the office and in the U.N. operation there. What do you allege regarding marriages and relationships and how that might have effected abuses?

MULLICK: Well, it was quite obvious that there were a lot of local staff that were connected to the Iraqi government one way or another, and that to me was a sensitive issue, because in the end you are observing the Iraqi government -- or supposed to be observing the Iraqi government -- and they were observing you instead.

So to give them that kind of leverage and that kind of access, it was kind of surprising for me.

ROTH: After you reported these problems and made recommendations, your career path didn't exactly go in an upward climb. What happened?

MULLICK: Well, my initial reaction was that I was instructed to do some basic editing of the reports and things like that, things that I was not hired to do, and onwards to where I for months didn't have anything to do, and later on I was basically then -- they made sure that I was out of the program.

ROTH: You state that eventually you were running the slide projector. Is that when things hit rock bottom?

MULLICK: That's right.

ROTH: So your most frequent phrase there was, what, next slide, you say?

MULLICK: Next slide. That's correct.

ROTH: Why have you come forward as a whistleblower while there don't appear to be that many other people? Why are you different?

MULLICK: I think one of the reasons was that I was hired to do that, it was my job to look into the impact of the program and what was gong on with the distribution of the Oil For Food supplies and I had a unique position where I could see what was going on, and I think a lot of other U.N. employees might have done that, but there was a sort of rat race going on where each morning they were sent out to look for things. They would bring back certain information on a routine basis, but nobody actually knew what were some of the loopholes that were available to the government of Iraq, and they might have been using those.

So that's one of the reasons I think other people didn't really realize what was going on.

ROTH: Rehan Mullick, in Washington, testifying at a House U.S. Congress subcommittee hearing on Oil For Food and abuses. The story goes on.

Thank you very much. One of those rare whistleblowers, to come forward.

The United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan had no comment on the testimony by Mullick. A copy of one of his last letters has been sent to the U.N.-approved independent inquiry led by Paul Volcker.

The secretary-general now has a report about himself to look forward to in about two weeks or so. Volcker's next report is on the role of Annan's son, Kojo, who worked for the Cotechna Company shortly before the Swiss-based firm won the contract to monitor humanitarian shipments into Iraq under the Oil For Food Program.

The congressional panel leader this week probed on any Kojo Annan link to the deal, but the attorney for Cotechna would have none of it. Remember this answer when Volcker's report comes out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got the contract in 1998, and I must say I can unequivocally state that Kojo Annan had nothing to do with Cotechna getting the contract.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: The United Nations has this image of a bureaucratic go-slow approach, but give that man the employee of the month award. It's possible some of the diplomats, since we tell them not to smoke, have turned to steroids. There he goes again.

Actually, I wanted to run away after receiving some of your e-mails based on last weeks' DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. Big reaction from around the world to guests which included the secretary-general's new right hand man and a debate on John Bolton's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

E-mail number one: "I was appalled by that outrageous Mr. Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff at the United Nations. He sounded so arrogant and so indifferent to the many U.N. failures and instead he praised the so inadequate Mr. Kofi Annan. I do hope that the newly elected American diplomat to the United Nations will get rid of these inefficient appears good for nothing." That's from Rosemary Moncrett.

Another e-mail, with criticism of me: "Does your inquisitor hope to achieve a constructive result by his insulting, dismissive, chippy manner towards his guests? I'm thinking of nice Mr. Mark Malloch Brown. Or is it just a gift." (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with that one.

And continuing on that theme, "Who trains you to repeatedly interrupt your guests? It is insulting to them and your viewers. Do you think that speaking faster and barraging guests with silly questions is more important than genuinely intelligent discourse? Listen, think, and respond." That's from Wayne Goss.

On the other hand, e-mail four: "You're one of the few good shows on CNN. Richard Roth is one of the few reporters who asks real questions to people on both sides. The United Nations has shown itself to be morally bankrupt. Bolton's nomination for U.N. ambassador is a good choice. While the United Nations continues to put dictatorships on the same level as democracies, a strong United States regardless of its own internal problems seems to be the only thing pushing the United Nations to get better rather than worse." That's from David Tush (ph) in Israel.

Our next e-mail says, "Dear D.L., the United Nations is indispensable. John Bolton is deplorable and an embarrassment." That e-mail is from the U.S. state of Oregon.

Next up on the e-mail trail: "The appointment of John Bolton continues a process of putting the United Nations in a sink or swim situation. The United Nations is an immense bureaucracy, built to dare we say European standards. Kofi Annan needs to be replaced with someone who will take responsibility for their actions, and they really should retire those absurd English-French signs about the buildings." That e-mail from Greece.

The next e-mail: "If Americans need further evidence of why their foreign policy is so despised in other parts of the world, then they needn't look further than this cynical nomination," referring to John Bolton. "Advocates of multi-lateralism in America must immediately get on the road and promote the importance of the United Nations before opinions are swayed by Bolton's snappy one-liners promoting his scary vision of a uni-world. Kind regards, Baden Campbell (ph), New Zealand."

Next e-mail: "Here in the Netherlands, it's a common feeling that the United States wants to rule the world and that it doesn't want a might institution like the United Nations to influence its decisions and critique its behavior. And Bush doesn't want to be prosecuted as a criminal -- a war criminal. The detention and treatment of suspected but not proven terrorists resembles that of the Nazis." That's from Frank, in the Netherlands.

On the other side, also, "I'm one of those rare Americans that supports the United Nations. I ran into this old acquaintance of mine and we got into a discussion about the United Nations. He said that it was an evil organization. He was talking about the Oil For Food Program specifically. My response to him was a very sarcastic, "They're such an evil organization, wanting to feed all those millions of kids." I suggest we move the United Nations to Europe or South America, where the general populace is far more accepting of the United Nations." Joseph Moore, from the U.S. state of Lincoln, Nebraska. And he adds, "Yes, I know, a very red state."

Next e-mail: "And while we're at it, I have long wanted to enter a protest for the advertising spot for DIPLOMATIC LICENSE," that's this advertisement you may have seen run. "Madeleine Albright dancing with some one, Khrushchev in the General Assembly, Adlai Stevenson, presumably in the Security Council. These flashbacks are not only hopelessly out of date, but inane, and again, tasteless vis-…-vis Ms. Albright to boot. As for "Nobody can open more doors at the United Nations," the campaign is not only dumb, the slogan is dump, but certainly not true. You forgot about the cleaning squad." That from Robert Freeman, Heidelberg, Germany, who also strongly disliked my interviewing style, and I think even my clothes.

Our final e-mail: "Teleport me to the UNOville, will you."

That because in the day the U.N. was known as the United Nations Organization. We did something on this a couple of months ago on the program. Saying no to the United Nations, "No UNOville," was the campaign to stop the United Nations from moving into the nearby state of Connecticut before the New York site was eventually developed."

At the rate the United Nations is having problems getting permission in New York city to build a new temporary space during renovation, moving to another state may bring UNOville back to life.

If you would like to interrupt my life, join the e-mail bandwagon at Diplomatic.License@CNN.COM.

And that is DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York. Thanks for watching.

END

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