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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired August 26, 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)
JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: U.N. reform is not a one-night stand. U.N. reform is forever.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To solve a problem, you've got to know that it is there. Admit that the problem is there. Beginning of reform is the end of self-delusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: The countdown is on. The big birthday is coming up. They were drumming in the General Assembly last month when countries, that is, weren't drumming up votes on how to improve the place.

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

If the United Nations were a human being, some would say it's time to retire. The global gang turned 60 this fall and a record turnout of world leaders will be there. The busiest people may be the security authorities, handling more than 170 VIPs plus delegations. New security guards seem to be training every day. There they were at the front door.

Maybe the United Nations needs a makeover, or as in the current reality show, "Extreme Makeover." The new U.S. ambassador is going on the offensive on the reform issue.

No doubt backed by the Bush administration, John Bolton sent a letter this week to all the other countries saying time is short for cutting a deal on an agreement the visiting kings and president can sign on to regarding U.N. reform and revision. Time may be short, but the U.S. ambassador has also submitted more than 700 amendments to a draft plan being talked about for months already.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOLTON: We have been in consultation on this issue for months. The proposed changes to the text of the August 5 draft that we've circulated are not that dissimilar to changes we've been talking about at the United Nations for months. Our hope is to have a strong consensus document for the high-level event. We're working on that and we're making our views know, as are other governments.

KENVO OSHIRA, JAPANESE AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: I think there is general sense that these comments come rather late in the process. But still there is time that we can spend in working on the documents, refining this document on various issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The United Nations at 60. That's our theme. But the fate of Kofi Annan, who awaits judgment by the latest Oil For Food special inquiry expected in early September and the exorbitant prices in the United Nations cafeteria. We'll be talking about all of these issues, tackling them.

First, he's just left the United States mission to the United Nations, Stuart Holliday was deputy ambassador. Instead of going to battle with John Bolton, he is now at Quinn, Gillespie and Associates, a Washington- based public relations firm.

Writer James Traub has been allowed exclusive access, following around Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Mr. Traub writes for the "New York Times" Sunday magazine and has an article out in two weeks on the issue of U.N. reform. He's also working on a book about the U.N. and the era of Kofi Annan.

Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense under the elder George Bush and author of "Inside the Asylum: How the United Nations and Old Europe are Worse Than You Think."

And back here in New York with me, Stephen Schlesinger, of the World Policy Institute, last on our program about his book about FDR and the creation of the United Nations back in 1945.

Well, here it is, 2005. Before we get into reform nitty-gritty, let's start with the ex-diplomat, Mr. Holliday. Each of you please sum up, the United Nations, 60 years old, what do you think should be written on this birthday cake -- Stuart.

STUART HOLLIDAY, FMR. DEP. U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I think many happy returns. We have a situation where the United Nations has done some good things and it has come up short, and I think that what we want is to have a second-half, if you will, a going forward, a more transparent and accountable United Nations that I think all member states can look to to do what is asked in the charter. Ask I think that is our hope and that is what John Bolton is trying to do.

ROTH: Jed Babbin, I don't think you want to see the United Nations turn 100.

JED BABBIN, FMR. DEP. U.S. UNDERSECY. OF DEFENSE: Well, it's not a question of whether I want to or not. The basic problem is the United Nations has ceased functioning as it was meant to under the U.N. charter of 1945 and it is time for a comprehensive reform, and the package of reform - - so-called reforms -- propounded by Mr. Annan really does not do even half of what needs to be done.

ROTH: All right. Steve Schlesinger, on reform, on Annan, what do you think about it?

STEPHEN SCHLESINGER, WORLD POLICY INSTITUTE: Well, I think obviously the United Nations has to correct some problems it has had along the way, but we should not forget the fact that the United Nations -- the fact that it survived for 60 years is really quite an extraordinary thing. Most global international organizations never survive that long. So we have to give credit to the fact that a flexible charter has enabled this place to exist for much longer than anybody really ever anticipated.

ROTH: All right. James Traub, you've been following around Secretary-General Annan. People have said he's been depressed off and on with Oil For Food and everything. How much of the damage done to him has affected the ability of the United Nations to move forward and reform?

JAMES TRAUB, "NEW YORK TIMES" MAGAZINE: Well, he's certainly a less powerful spokesman for the reforms, which he, after all, has authored, than he would have been otherwise.

I think it's a marginal difference. I think what we're seeing now when the reform process looks very, very bleak is that countries are going to make decisions based upon their own calculations of national self- interest. Maybe he was a little bit too optimistic or na‹ve to think that this grandiose reform package could have worked. Right now, it looks quite imperiled.

ROTH: Stuart Holliday, inside the U.S. mission was there much discussion about planning for this anniversary and all of the reform efforts that other countries seem to be really eager for? Or was this one big headache approaching?

HOLLIDAY: Absolutely. As you know, last year the president, and over the last couple of years, the president has been calling on the United Nations to face up to its responsibilities and become a more relevant organization. It needs modernizing not only in the infrastructure sense, but from a standpoint of what kinds of threats it must face.

So we've been working on this for a long time. We've been planning on it. It's interesting that people are saying that John Bolton just unloaded all of these amendments at the last minute, because, gosh, we've been talking about these positions for a long time and I think, as you know, when the United States takes a forceful position early in a process, other countries tend to key off of it, both in our interest and away from our interest.

So I think that we focused on it, we have some ideas that we want to bring to the table, and that's a very normal process.

TRAUB: My understanding, by the way, is that it's not as straightforward as that. After Bolton came to New York the first time, made the rounds of officials, told them we had to start with a new document, it caused tremendous upset and distress back in Washington. He went back to the principals meeting. I have no idea, of course, what was said there. I'm not sure quite how much his tone has changed, but there clearly is a real difference of opinion between Bolton and those who see the world as he does and I think Secretary of State Rice, and those who see the world and the United Nations the way she does.

BABBIN: Richard, can I dive in on that, because basically we're having a very heated discussion here and people are going to be very emotional about this simply because the stakes are so small. After all --

ROTH: This isn't heated compared to our last show which you were on - -

BABBIN: We're getting there. We're getting there.

But the point really is, the stakes are utterly insignificant here. If this package passes or not in September it matters not. The fact is that the United Nations is going to be there for quite some time and I think it would be better to not have a paltry reform than to have a rush toward doing something and not complete anything.

What we need to do is delay this if possible and get some real reforms, like the financial reforms that are necessary.

TRAUB: So what is the real reform? Actually, it would be good to hear. Would what be a reform that would be useful?

BABBIN: I'm glad you asked, and, Richard, I didn't pay him to ask that question.

For example, amongst the convoluted proposals --

ROTH: He's used to being a reporter. I've got the co-host. Anyway, go ahead.

BABBIN: There you go.

Well, the point really comes down to, the U.N. reform package, quote/unquote, now wants to create several new multi-billion dollar funds for the United Nations to issue and to run, but they don't have any hope or any plan for the financial accounting reforms that are so absolutely necessary. Look at the Oil For Food scandal and tell me why we don't need those.

The second point is, the reforms do not include an immediate resolution of the terrorism problem. They make mention of it, but unless and until the Security Council agrees on what terrorism is, there is no point in even going farther with this grandiose resolution.

ROTH: All right. Steve Schlesinger.

SCHLESINGER: Let me give a different angle on this, which is that my own sense is that reform is going to end up being rather minor simply because there are just too many conflicting interests right now at the United Nations.

But I think we ought to remember that even if the United Nations doesn't pass any reforms, it's still got 17 peacekeeping missions that it is maintaining right now. It's doing innumerable other things in other countries around the world. The United Nations will survive regardless of whether this reform movement works or not and we should not forget that the United Nations is still in existence after 60 years because it has filled a need, a niche, in the world community.

ROTH: But something has changes in the world. I mean, we've had the bombing of the United Nations. We have corruption at the United Nations. The image of the United Nations seems to have been drastically tarnished.

Stuart Holliday, tell he something we don't know. You're almost speaking as though you're still in the U.S. government representing Washington there. Tell me something we don't know about how the United Nations works or does not work while you were there.

HOLLIDAY: Well, of course, the United Nations is, if you saw the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "To Catch a Thief," there was a scene, I think, actually not "To Catch a Thief," "North By Northwest." And it is very much like that today. You get the feeling as if you are operating --

ROTH: You mean I'm going to get stabbed in the delegates lounge and run out and be chased to Mount Rushmore by a pretty blonde?

HOLLIDAY: I mean that the place needs a wholesale modernization. The way of operating and the management controls -- that's why I'm so happy that our good friend Chris Burnham (ph) is up there. There was no independent oversight. You had basic management processes which --

ROTH: But there were so many reforms put in there. I mean Catherine Bertini (ph), they were working on this after previous issues and previous reform efforts.

HOLLIDAY: But the organization, like any big bureaucracy, has to have an institutional change, a wholesale institutional change --

ROTH: Like the Pentagon -- Jed Babbin.

BABBIN: Well, no, I mean you don't have in the Pentagon these big institutional changes, Richard, that you're talking about happened when Efil Risa (ph) was in the next room shredding the Oil For Food documents. There has to be a fundamental change in the culture of the United Nations before it can have any credibility at all.

TRAUB: I think Jed is absolutely right about that. Here is my concern: that every member is inclined to act in its own national self- interest.

BABBIN: As always.

TRAUB: Of course. It's natural. So let's say four-fifths of the members don't like the idea of management reform, for many different reasons, but I think it is fair to say that.

Now we, for very good reasons, do want management reform. On the other hand, if the Bush administration takes the position that it's going to dispose of the 90 percent of this thing it doesn't want and just stick to the 10 percent it does want, that, of course, gives license to everybody else to do the exact same thing, and then in the end you get no reform.

ROTH: Our guests here on DIPLOMATIC LICENSE will reform -- return -- here in a moment. Before that, Russia on reform. Moscow's man in London, Yuli Fetetov (ph).

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are no extreme decisions, reform or no reform. There is always a truce that is somewhere in between. There may be reform, but not as radical as suggested by different reports, but certainly as a living mechanism, the United Nations needs to reform, to update and to be more relevant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN GILLERMAN, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: If this is all the United Nations secretariat can produce at a time like that, maybe indeed it is irrelevant, and that it a pity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman admits that the U.N. political department briefing on the Gaza pullout in front of the Security Council was, in his opinion, very mundane and did not appreciate such a significant development.

Welcome back to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.

We are looking ahead to the U.N. big 60th anniversary summit.

With me in the studio James Traub, contributing "New York Times" reporter, also the author of a recent book on New York's Times Square called "Devil's Playground" -- no, it's not about the United Nations -- "A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square."

In Washington with us, former U.S. deputy ambassador Stuart Holliday, who was often on camera at the United Nations when the United States didn't have a full ambassador in place, which seemed like ever day, but Ambassador Bolton is there now.

Steven Schlesinger, with the World Policy Institute. He knows Kofi Annan and the United Nations scene very well.

And in Washington, Jed Babbin, contributing editor of the "American Spectator," and former deputy U.S. undersecretary for defense.

James Traub, what is really the story? Is the United States being unfairly blamed regarding reform and holding up things with amendments?

TRAUB: Here is my view. If the whole thing fails, no question the United States is going to be blamed, but I think probably unfairly.

What has happened is, everybody is now engaged in a race to the bottom of non-reform. So you have the Bush administration stating these terms that are going to be impossible to meet. You have the Russians suddenly popping up out of the weeds after being very quite and saying absolutely no, we will not accept the idea of a new human rights commission. We won't accept the idea of humanitarian intervention. The Chinese are circulating their very own draft. The members of the nonaligned movement suddenly are disagreeing with virtually everything except the economic development. So everybody now is --

HOLLIDAY: Typical day at the United Nations, right?

ROTH: Stuart, go ahead. Take us inside those meetings, now that you can speak freely. I mean, does the United States oppose things? Do people -- how do you cut deals there?

HOLLIDAY: This is the way everything is done. There is -- it is like landing on an aircraft carrier. There are hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror, and we're at the tail end of this process here. And the stakes are high.

People -- temperatures -- I heard my colleague and friend Munir Akram of Pakistan talking about this is late in the game. It's always late in the game. That's what we do, is negotiate and get to a point where you can get an outcome which represents the interest particularly of the United States, but also more broadly the international community.

SCHLESINGER: I think -- let me just make a point. I do think it is a sad spectacle that the United States has put in a man like John Bolton, who has such contempt for this organization, as our representative during these critical negotiations. And I think given that situation, there is no question that the United States will be blamed for what goes wrong, and things will go wrong, because I just don't see the countries of this -- 191 countries getting together around this package.

ROTH: I think I heard a groan from Jed Babbin.

BABBIN: Yes, you certainly did. I mean, let's start talking about John Bolton and someone whose contemptuous of the United Nations. Tell me the United Nations should not be held in contempt. And, number one, we already have this so-called reform package has failed. It's not whether it is going to fail. It has failed, for the principal reason you just cited, that the only real significant reform there was to get the world's worst oppressors of human rights off the human rights commission, and both China and Russia have said they won't go along with it.

So let's not start blaming America first when all this thing has already gone down to toilet.

HOLLIDAY: And the reason why the United Nations was put in America in the first place was of the belief that the United States had to be engaged. The United States, of course, is a big country, and as we say, we don't feel isolated, and it is important that the international community recognize that when we actually take a document seriously, as we have done, that's a good thing. It means we want the United Nations to work, but we just want the United Nations to work more effectively.

SCHLESINGER: I think all the five powers on the Security Council simply don't want reform. I think they prefer the status quo. I think they're happy with it. That's the way they've lived with the United Nations for the last 60 years and I, frankly, don't think they want --

(CROSSTALK)

TRAUB: Let me say this, though, because we talk about Bolton as if he and the United States and Washington are one and the same thing. I suspect from everything I have heard that Condoleezza Rice has a far more pragmatic and moderate view of what this reform process is about. There are things - - let me finish. There are things that clearly this administration wants out of this process, and I think it wants them in part because it recognizes that in situations like Lebanon, in the elections in Iraq, in the upcoming elections in Afghanistan, the United Nations has actually proved to be quite useful and they would like to make it more useful. So I don't think that ideological attitude applies everywhere.

BABBIN: That is absolutely wrong. No, no, no. That is absolutely wrong.

Number one, this administration does not permit loose canons rattling around. John Bolton is not there on his own particular frolicking detour. He is taking orders from the State Department and from the president. And if you don't believe that, you obviously don't understand this administration.

TRAUB: Well, I may not, but I think the fact is I think he may not be --

(CROSSTALK)

BABBIN: I let you finish, now you let me finish.

The fact of the matter is that they don't allow loose canons. And, number two, all those instances you cite, in the Iraq election and Lebanon and the rest of that, the United Nations played such an insignificant role that it may as well not have been there, so let's not try to give credit where credit is not due.

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: I've got to talk about Kofi Annan. I mean, this is the big moment, and here possibly a week or so before the anniversary, Paul Volcker's independent panel is going to sit in judgment on whether he in effect was corrupt or whether his son was corrupt, and other aspects, including the Security Council.

Go ahead -- Jed.

BABBIN: Well, I mean, we're not going to find out very much from Mr. Volcker. He has not even pursued the principal derelictions of duty that occurred in the Oil For Food scandal. I do not anticipate he is going to come out with much. In the past, all he has come out with were things that were already on the public record. I expect another repeat of that when he comes out with his next report.

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: Stuart Holliday, how has he been as a secretary-general?

HOLLIDAY: He has been, I think, relatively weak in the area of management and oversight, but he has, of course, many equities to balance.

But I would like to just state one thing. Somebody said earlier that he's been weakened as a spokesman for reform. It shouldn't be effectively the executive director of the organization that is responsible for advocating reform. It's got to be the member states. It's got to be the United States. It's got to be other countries. And I think this is the appropriate way for things to happen, for the member states and the Big Five to come together and actually work with the rest of the international community.

ROTH: Steven Schlesinger, briefly, on Secretary-General Annan.

SCHLESINGER: I think Annan has unquestionably been damaged by the Oil For Food scandal, but not in the sense that he is going to have to resign.

ROTH: James Traub, you have spent a lot of moments with him. Tell us what type of secretary-general he has been, how he has held up, and what do you think? Has he --

TRAUB: I think in terms of Volcker, there is a kind of aprioristic sense he must be guilty, therefore he is guilty, and if Volcker isn't saying he's guilty, therefore Volcker is part of the whole problem. I don't yet see any evidence to think that he is guilty of the things people think he's guilty of.

What he is, I think, is guilty of, or let's say what he is very much part of is he is very much the incarnation of this institution, with its strengths and also with its weaknesses. And I think the managerial culture at the United Nations has deep problems, and he is very much a part of that culture. That's a problem. That's a very long way, though, from saying he is in some sense morally culpable for these corrupt acts. There is no evidence that is so.

ROTH: Jed Babbin.

BABBIN: He is the personification of everything that is wrong with the United Nations, and that's why I sincerely hope he is not driven out of office before the end of his term. We badly need him there.

SCHLESINGER: I just disagree. I think he's been the greatest secretary-general since Dag Hammarskjold. I think he's been a moral leader in this world. He is a person that almost every country in the world looks up to. And I think except for the Oil For Food scandal he has really acquitted himself with a magnificent term in office.

TRAUB: We do need to say there haven't been any good secretaries- general since Dag Hammarskjold.

HOLLIDAY: He is a charming man. We'll put it that way.

ROTH: But, Stuart Holliday, John Danforth, when you were deputy to him, said the United States backs Kofi Annan.

HOLLIDAY: You know, that was at a time when everyone in the Security Council and the United Nations said that because if we didn't say that we were in a conspiracy with Congress to drive him from office, and I can tell you that was the furthest thing from the truth. There was no attempt to remove Kofi Annan. However, because of the lack of any sort of pronouncement on it, the people speculated that there was such a plot and there absolutely wasn't.

ROTH: You were just saying he's a charming guy. I mean, it sounds like you think he was not very good and took his eye off the ball.

HOLLIDAY: I think what we said at the time was we have support for the secretary-general in his work.

ROTH: Thank everybody here. Mr. Steven Schlesinger, here in New York, World Policy Institute; James Traub, contributing writer to the Sunday "New York Times" magazine, look for in two weekends an article on U.N. reform; down in Washington, Jed Babbin, former undersecretary of defense at the Pentagon and a good book on the United Nations, "Inside the Asylum," I thought he was talking about CNN at first; and Stuart Holliday, recently the deputy U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, now in Washington.

Thank you all.

Who knows when the reform package will get tied up nice and neat with a bow on it. As Kofi Annan implied early this month, it might turn out to be a nice holiday gift.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: If they are not able to resolve it before the summit, the issue is not going to die. They will have to pursue it and I hope resolve it before we all go away for Christmas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: A song for the children, performed by Barbara Jane Schneider (ph) of the Wausau and Piute Nation at the annual Indigenous People's Day this month, ceremonies at the United Nations.

Hopefully, our earlier discussion has made you want to beat a drum. Relieve your tensions with an email to us. I promise, I read every email. Contact us at Diplomatic.License@CNN.com. We reserve the right to use them as part of an elaborate blogging spam world takeover.

That's it. I'm out. You can stick around, if you like, for some weather from key cities I can't afford to fly to and the latest news. I'm Richard Roth, thanks for watching.

END

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