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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE
Current Events at the United Nations
Aired April 15, 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)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an 800 pound gorilla devouring a banana.
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: We are outgunned, out-manned, and they have resources we don't have. And they are relentless and they are organized.
BILL CLINTON, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: It is now a realistic possibility. If I had said this five years ago, you would have thought I was drinking my own Kool-Aid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: John Bolton has to wait a few more days to find out if he is going to pass a critical test and start packing to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.
This is not just any ambassadorial appointment. The Bolton nomination has triggered a big fight, a lot of it because of statements made in the past by Bolton, such as you can tear down 10 stories from the United Nations and not lose anything, there's no such thing as the United Nations.
At his confirmation hearings before a Senate committee, Bolton responded, in this case to Senator John Kerry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR NOMINEE TO U.N.: First, Senator, a lot of those statements are not accurate reflections of what I have said. Second --
SENATOR JOHN KERRY (D-MA): You said them. Do you deny saying them?
BOLTON: Yes. I can think of several --
KERRY: You didn't say those statements?
BOLTON: -- that were quoted out of context.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: There are other issues too on Bolton's nomination. The first witness at those hearings, when Bolton was a former assistant secretary of state, a Republican who said Bolton was a kiss-up/kick-down type of guy. Bolton abused his authority, charged Carl Ford, and tried to get intelligence analysts fired.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARL FORD, FMR. U.S. INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL: If you want to make him your personal adviser, if you want to make him our expert within the government on United Nations and Cuban BW, be my guest. Just simply my advise, my opinion, is don't give him any responsibility for controlling people, because he'll hurt them.
SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (D-CA): I think Mr. Bolton needs anger management at the minimum, and he doesn't deserve to be promoted based on this alone, let alone all of his comments about how the United Nations doesn't exist and it should lose 10 floors and no one would care.
SENATOR GEORGE ALLEN (R-VA): He'll bring a credibility to the United Nations that they sorely need, and I like the fact that you'll advocate our principles. You're not going to be seduced by empty, meaningless, courteous pontifications, by international bureaucracies, and I like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: The BW before, biological weapons. Believe it or not, and critics may role their eyes, but Bolton has worked with international organizations before, particularly in the field of arms control.
Bolton told the senators he will work cooperatively for the United States at the United Nations if he is confirmed, and Republicans think he is just the right guy to send to the United Nations.
A vote was delayed until probably Tuesday on the Bolton nomination in the committee.
There are two groups that have made up their minds, though. Former diplomats representing several presidential administrations, more than 60, I think, on each side, have sent letters to Congress saying yea or nay on Bolton. This time, they weren't very diplomatic.
Joining us, two sides of the letter campaign in the Bolton nomination. Frank Gaffney supports John Bolton. His long resume of public service includes being President Reagan's former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy. Also in Washington, William Harrop, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Kenya and Zaire, now Congo, under Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton.
Ambassador Harrop, tell Frank, please, what's wrong with Bolton? He said Monday he'll go to the United Nations to fulfill the president's vision of working in close partnership with the United Nations.
WILLIAM HARROP, FMR. AMB. TO ISRAEL: Well, I certainly hope he would take the constructive approach.
He has the ability, he has the background, he has the experience. He's been assistant secretary of international organizations in the State Department. He knows the situation very well.
The problem is that his own positions, repeatedly stated, are so critical of the United Nations, in fact so hostile toward it, in fact, so dismissive of the United Nations, that I think it is almost an insult to the world body for the United States to send a man, who is by his own words very much opposed to the United Nations, up there as our representative.
I do not think the best way to obtain constructive reorganization and reform in the United Nations is for the United States to be represented by someone who doesn't think a thing about the United Nations and scorns it, in fact.
FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: I'm glad we can stipulate that the man it qualified. You know, interestingly enough, one of his sharpest critics on the Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Bidden, actually said in his previous round of confirmation hearings for the present job he has at the State Department, the undersecretary of state for arms control international security, his objection to him was he was too competent.
This is a man who has all the right skills. The question is, does he bring the right policy view. And I thing he does, President Bush thinks he does. I think the president's view is the one that the American people wanted representing us and defining American security policy, hence their votes at the polls in November and before.
But this is the critical question. At this moment in history, when the United Nations is so manifestly in need of reform, do you want a guy who is going to be simply trying to go along and get along with everybody, or do you want somebody who has strong views about what needs to be done there.
ROTH: Why are they worried and fearful and they don't seem to think this is the guy who has already insulted the place, that he should be coming?
GAFFNEY: The ambassador should speak to that, but let me answer my point on this, if I may, and that is the ambassadors, like a lot of other folks, some in the intelligence community, some in the State Department, clearly don't like his views. And they're entitled to not like his views. It's just that the president's the one who is going to appoint this man to represent all of us, and they are, as I say, his views as well, and I think they are constructive, I think they can help really bring about the kind of reform the United Nations clearly needs.
ROTH: Ambassador Harrop, what's the problem, if he's going to represent President Bush, and everybody knows how President Bush thinks. So what's the problem?
HARROP: I don't think that he represents President Bush's views in this regard. President Bush has said that he's determined to rebuild our relationships, both bilaterally and multilaterally. He wants to improve our relations with the United Nations, which are clearly not in very good shape and haven't been since we began the Iraq War.
To send someone there who is absolutely antagonistic toward the United Nations, who just scorns the United Nations, is not the kind of person who is going to bring about the changes that we all know are needed there.
What we need is not someone -- the alternative is not, as Frank Gaffney suggests, some sort of a week milquetoast. Who would want that. What we want is someone that knows how to work with people, not just against them, someone who is concerned about building a stronger United Nations, not someone who would prefer to have it go away all together.
GAFFNEY: But it has turned into a protection racket for thugs and despots and dictators, not those who protect freedom but those who --
ROTH: You say it as though he's a serial abuser -- Frank.
(CROSSTALK)
ROTH: Do you think someone with this temperament and personality should be at the United Nations, where international incidents can happen? You know, I've been there and I've even gotten angry occasionally. Go ahead.
GAFFNEY: Richard, angry is something that it is ironically the case - - every single one of those senators who were caballing about anger management and about John Bolton's style and abusing, is a known hot- tempered individual. People who abuse their staff. People who abuse their colleagues. People who let off steam. Look --
ROTH: But do they try to get others transferred, or as the "Washington Post" alleges, use their power to intercept conversations to find out more about intelligence pieces?
(CROSSTALK)
GAFFNEY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) has been doing this for years to people who disagree with him --
ROTH: Ambassador?
HARROP: Yes, but this is not -- the behavior in that regard is not typical.
I do not believe that John Bolton is disqualified because of his personality and characteristics. I mean, it is very unfortunate that he has behaved the way he has behaved. I think it is a dreadful comment for a senior individual of the government to behave the way he behaves.
However, that's not why I think he's not qualified. I think he's not qualified because I don't think that he has the interests of the United Nations at heart. I think someone who is opposed to an organization is not the best person to send there. He does not have qualities of persuasion. He makes enemies in every direction, wherever he is. He's done that throughout his whole career. This is not a place where you want to make enemies. It's a place where you want to bring about constructive change.
ROTH: Ambassador Harrop, you've been around the world. What skills, as a diplomat, then, should he have, John Bolton, in dealing with many people from around the world?
HARROP: He should be firm, but he should be able to talk with other people, to persuade other people, the put across his point of view, to defend American interests, in an effective way. He should not be a bull in a china shop, and that's what he would be.
ROTH: He was accused of being that by Senator Bidden.
But at the United Nations there are problems, and even the United Nations will admit it, and I think they really want tough love or a strong leader, and it may have to be John Bolton, and they could end up saying, you know, we're glad -- even U.N. officials are saying, well, you know, he may be the one to be the catalyst.
HARROP: I don't think he's a leader at all if this behavior is the way he behaves, the issues he takes. That's not a leader. That's not a statesman-like approach.
GAFFNEY: May I respond to that?
ROTH: Yes, go ahead -- Frank.
GAFFNEY: As the more shrewd and savvy people at the United Nations, I believe, have recognized, it will serve them very well to have someone who is regarded by Americans as an administrator of the tough love most of us think is needed there, and they are looking forward to having somebody who can express that there is in fact hope for this institution, if indeed there can be hope, that it is going to reform in ways that will make it stronger, but not just because the dictators are happier, but because it is in fact returning to its principals, that it is helping to promote and protect freedom.
(CROSSTALK)
HARROP: That's an important question, whether Secretary Bolton wants that or not is really the question. His positions up until the present time suggest he would like to see this organization go away. He thinks it has not really served U.S. interests, about which he is clearly mistaken.
GAFFNEY: It's not clear those changes can happen. That's the problem.
ROTH: Well, I'll be covering the United Nations when he arrives and we'll be updating you. And we think he'll be arriving, but you still never know. There's a Senate vote planned for later this week.
I'd like to thank both of our guests, Frank Gaffney, the founder also and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and Ambassador William Harrop, who served for the United States in Israel, Kenya, and the former Zaire.
Thank you both.
One Washington dignitary beat John Bolton to the United Nations this week. Former President Clinton made his first appearance, despite being named months ago as the U.N. special tsunami relief envoy.
Heart problems and a tsunami visit to the region already with President Bush senior caused the delay. But what about the John Bolton nomination?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: There is somebody else in my family that gets a vote on that, and I'm going to let her speak. I don't -- she's not telling me how to be the U.N. envoy for tsunami, so if I express an opinion on that, I would be in effect telling her how to be a senator, and that would not be good for my home life. I'm not going to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's be blunt. The conduct of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) defenders was unconscionable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: The FBI sounds off on the latest Oil For Food case arrest. And, no, they didn't arrest the Annan family.
This time, the U.N. Justice Department was moving in an area lightly discussed while the United Nations is swarmed, but a big part of the corruption angle of Oil For Food.
David Chalmers, director of a Houston-based company, Bay Oil, was indicted and charged with paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government, money that could have gone to the Oil For Food profits used to buy humanitarian goods for the people living under sanctions.
Also indicted in a separate case, a blast from the past, Tongsun Park, a Korean businessman at the center of a `70s scandal in the United States over influence peddling in the U.S. Congress. Park is accused of illegal lobbying for a foreign government.
The indictment says he met with unidentified U.N. officials. The U.S. attorney refused to say whether any money was paid to the U.N. officials.
U.S. authorities vowed to wring the towel dry in their pursuit of Oil For Food crimes. A Bulgarian and a British man were also indicted, Bay Oil colleagues of Mr. Chalmers. One outside expert said the oil trading world is a murky business. Many expect more indictments from those in the oil industry who were registered to do business with Saddam Hussein.
And the very morning of the indictment being announced in lower Manhattan, the United Nations secretary-general was reflecting on the U.N. message and the media at a special reunion conference of former spokesmen and spokeswomen of the organization.
Kofi Annan expressed frustration over the United Nations ability to react to harsh attacks on the United Nations over Oil For Food and other crises, but he also took his most public knock against the United States and Britain to date for allowing Saddam Hussein to get rich over oil smuggling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNAN: The bulk of this money Saddam made came out of smuggling outside the Oil For Food and it was on the American and British watch. They were the ones who had interdiction. Possibly they were also the ones that knew exactly what was going on and that the countries themselves decided to close their eyes to smuggling to Turkey and Jordan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Friday the accusations are inaccurate and Saddam Hussein is the one to be held responsible. The State Department stuck to a this-proves-the-U.N.-needs- reform line, more supervision. Incredibly, the United Nations says Kofi Annan thought his remarks were off the record, even though there was a television camera in the room, remarks to be held private for the special forum that was being conducted.
Joining me now are two people, one of whom was in the room at the time, and then they were both in the room together, a former spokeswoman for the secretary-general before Kofi Annan, and that would be Boutros Boutros-Ghali's spokeswoman, Sylvana Foa; and Columbia professor and former "Newsday" correspondent, Pulitzer Prize winner Josh Friedman.
All right, let me ask you this, Sylvana, from the outside, because you're outside of the United States coastlines, we can't get at you, what's your image right now of the United Nations and where it stands?
SYLVANA FOA, FMR. U.N. SPOKESWOMAN: I spent all day yesterday in the United Nations. These people are really traumatized, probably overly traumatized.
I think what happened was Kofi came in, and for seven years he had this Teflon tenure. Nothing, no criticism, the Americans loved him. They left him alone, they praised him. And then all of the sudden this criticism is hitting him in the face and the entire organization is shaking.
When I was with Boutros, we had no honeymoon like that at all. Boutros was being criticized and attacked by the Americans on a daily basis.
ROTH: And no honeymoon still, because Boutros Boutros-Ghali's name keeps coming up in this. His nephew, regarding oil deals, and some people wonder who exactly are the U.N. officials who Tongsun Park met.
Do you have any insight from your experience at the United Nations?
FOA: No, not a clue.
ROTH: Haven't been called before any Grand Jury or anything?
FOA: Not yet.
ROTH: What about Oil For Food? I mean, overseas not many people really care about it as much.
FOA: There certainly isn't the feeding frenzy overseas that we're seeing here in America.
Small articles in the newspaper, but people have much more respect for the United Nations overseas than they do here.
ROTH: Josh Friedman, you spend time in the U.N. hallways with me. What is going on? How can the United Nations -- they just can't get it right, even on the days that they're right. Getting the media message out -- maybe they didn't want it out. Camera in the room, journalists in the room, and yet Kofi Annan is told, well, it's just off the record.
How -- would President Bush be led into a room with that?
JOSH FRIEDMAN, JOURNALIST: Well, I think the problem that the United Nations is having is the same the Democrats are having. The Bush media machine is very powerful, and combined with the Republican majority in the Senate and in the House, a huge amount of damaging information keeps flooding out about Kofi and the United Nations, and they seem almost childlike in their response.
It seems like they have no sense of the professionals that they are fighting.
ROTH: But the United Nations was never faced with an onslaught, you say, of opinion-based coverage, biased coverage. Or do you think many of the institutions were right in alleging corruption, but is it just unbalanced coverage? What to you think? I mean, you have the "Wall Street Journal" editorial page, you have all the channels.
FRIEDMAN: On several levels. First of all, the coverage is simplistic. Mostly -- I mean, we all know that most reporters are not really able to do a lot of digging themselves. They take stuff from others.
ROTH: You said the U.N. press corps was soft at Friday's meeting.
FRIEDMAN: Yes, but it's not just the U.N. press corps. I think you have a lot of sort of gunslinger investigative journalists who are receiving material from the White House and from the Republicans in the Senate that provide a very one-sided picture.
On the other hand, the United Nations is horribly managed. We all know that. I mean, they have, you know, almost 200 bosses. And it's an old boy network. The people who are running the secretariat at the top -- I covered the United Nations from 1988. The same people at the time, I kept seeing them changing roles, especially Benon Sevan.
ROTH: Did you know at that time he might be guilty of anything?
FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, the interesting thing about Benon Sevan, he's one guy that I never really talked to. I think he only talked to reporters he trusted or he talked to none. He always had sort of a guilty look on his face, you know.
ROTH: I'm glad your Pulitzer Prize winning skills are on display here.
Sylvana, if you had to make a recommendation to your old office, what would it be?
FOA: I would say get out there and defend yourself. Put your line on the record, because they're not doing it well enough. They're sort of always just -- they're only replying to an accusations and not coming out and attacking first.
ROTH: Stuck in the 1950s?
FOA: I think they're back in '75. They're in about the same position the United Nations was during the Zionism is racism thing, when the entire world turned on the United Nations and started accusing them of --
ROTH: But those were at least political differences. Here, with Oil For Food, people in America, many people think the Annan administration was corrupt because his son was involved, and it seems like something the United Nations cannot wipe away.
FRIEDMAN: It's really a shame for Kofi Annan, because his stock in trade was his decency and his honorable approach to things. He's really mortally wounded in that sense, so I think he will remain for the duration of his term. But you can see he is a very diminished person.
ROTH: Why can't the United Nations come out and fight? When you were a spokeswoman, I think there where a few quarrels you had with the United States across the street, and that was under a Clinton administration. Can you tell us what the problems are a spokesperson faces?
FOA: I think the spokesperson of the United Nations has to very carefully be somebody who does not have a well-nourished U.N. career and is there to defend the secretary-general and defend the institution with everything they've got and not worry about which member of government is going to demand that they be fired.
ROTH: So you don't think the -- well, who should be the new spokesperson, because Fred Eckhard, after many years, and many years at Kofi Annan's side in the peacekeeping department, is stepping down in June.
FOA: I think if Mark Malloch Brown takes over the job himself, we'll see lots of fire flying.
ROTH: You mean be the spokesperson, besides being Annan's chief of staff?
FOA: Why not? Why not? It's a bad time for the United Nations. They need a big heavy slugger up there.
ROTH: But you think the U.N. really has lost relevance, don't you think that also?
FOA: No, I don't. I think the United Nations will get over this. I think Kofi will get over this. It is something that happens. It's a big institution. There are 50,000 people who work there. They're not all saints, that's for sure. And you're going to have incidents like this.
ROTH: Josh, also, from your experiences in the press corps, it's a shame, you don't really get totally an international press corps there. It's expensive to come to New York. Many countries, their journalists, could never live here. What do you think should be done to correct that? Or do you have any other insights?
FRIEDMAN: Well, unfortunately, the direction of international press coverage now is downward. Most media enterprises don't want to spend the money on it.
ROTH: Would it help if Michael Jackson's name turned up in a Security Council occasionally? Is there anything that might --
FRIEDMAN: No, I think, frankly, the problem is this, to really go to the basics. There has always been a strain in the United States of nativism and distrust of foreigners. And unfortunately, the Republican Party, at this point, under the Bush administration, has tapped into that. That goes back to really the Gingrich Congress. And as long as they're in power in the United States, the United Nations is going to be on the defensive.
Once the White House changes hands and there are people who like the idea of the United Nations, then it will recover and people will cover it. It's a temporary problem. It doesn't have to do really with the press.
ROTH: You know, there is a new film coming out called "The Interpreter," set in the United Nations, full of mayhem and intrigue. Is it going to come too late for the United Nations, when they finally approved this film, the first to be shot on the United Nations grounds. Will it help?
FOA: I think so, sure. People -- there are a lot of people in the world who would like to know how things work at the United Nations, and evidently this film is telling us.
ROTH: Would you be interested in coming back and working as a spokesperson if you were invited?
FOA: That was probably the most exciting year of my life, being a spokesman, and I don't know, we'll see.
ROTH: Thank you very much, both of you, Sylvana Foa, former spokeswoman for Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and Josh Friedman, teaching at Columbia University, teaching journalism, teaching the real story; also a former "Newsday" correspondent.
Thank you both very much. Good to see you, both of you.
Kofi Annan should have learned his lesson. Remember when he said the U.S. attack on Iraq was illegal in a BBC interview. It took Annan three times to use the word "illegal" after being badgered by the reporter, but he said it. He thought his original, more diplomatic language to describe his opposition to the war was enough. He learned a lesson, he says, when the roof fell in over the word "illegal."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNAN: It shows how careful we have to be to assure that indeed our message gets across and we're using a language that not only people in the United Nations understand, but the individual out there also does understand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: In terms of the other job, I support the secretary-general we have. I like him, I admire him, I think he's doing a good job, and I like the job I have, and so I'm going to do the job I've got, which now includes a job for him. I'm his employee. It would be unseemly for me to be anything else right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Can we finally kill off the Internet rumor of Bill Clinton being the next secretary-general of the United Nations.
Next week, Monday, formal arraignment for the Oil For Food indictments, the Security Council back to work after a trip to Haiti, and Tuesday, the premier of "The Interpreter."
That's this week's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York, thanks for watching.
END
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