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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired September 9, 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)
PAUL VOLCKER, U.N. INVESTIGATOR: We have found no corruption by the secretary-general, whose behavior has not been exonerated by any stretch of the imagination.

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECY.-GEN.: And in this report today, it's painful for all of us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The organization cannot continue this way. It will lose all credibility and legitimacy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: It was a very expensive feed-the-hungry-in- Iraq humanitarian gesture. But Oil For Food turned into a giant legal and diplomatic international Oil For Food fight, and now will it cost anyone their jobs at the United Nations?

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

The big man was in the house. Paul Volcker delivered a scathing report on U.N. mismanagement of the Oil For Food program and he aired out the U.N. leaders, such as Kofi Annan and the full Security Council to their faces.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLCKER: Our assignment has been to look for mis- or mal- administration in the Oil For Food program and for evidence of corruption within the U.N. organization and by contractors. Unhappily, we found both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Volcker's team could not prove any personal corruption by Kofi Annan in connection with Oil For Food. However, Annan could not avoid being blasted for the appearance of conflict of interest since his son, Kojo, according to the Volcker report, was calling the U.N. procurement office while working for a Swiss firm which won a major contract to ship goods into Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNAN: The report is critical of me personally and I accept the criticism and still accept the conclusion that I was not diligent or effective enough in pursuing investigation after the fact when I learned that the company which employed my son had won the humanitarian inspection contract.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Volcker said in effect no one was in charge and the Oil For Food program structure was poorly defined when given to the U.N. staff to run.

After hearing Volcker, countries pledged reform and said Saddam Hussein was the real villain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMB. TO U.N.: We can also agree that there was corruption, both inside and outside the U.N. system, and that this corruption allowed Saddam to achieve many of his illicit goals. There were bribes. There were kickbacks. There was lax oversight from the secretariat and some member states turned a blind eye towards this corruption.

JEAN-MARC DE LA SABLIERE, FRENCH AMB. TO U.N.: We think there is a collective responsibility. We all share the responsibility, even if Saddam Hussein is the first responsible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: I was thinking of reading to you the entire five-volume Volcker report. But instead I asked his panel member, Richard Goldstone, to tell us what they concluded and why about Kofi Annan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD GOLDSTONE, U.N. OIL FOR FOOD INQUIRY PANEL: Well, the conclusions of the committee are very clear, that we have no evidence which would support a finding that he is guilty of corruption. The furthest it goes is a difficulty with making a finding with regard to whether he knew at any material time that a company with which his son was associated received a contract. We have found that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that he did know.

So that is as far as any personal corruption is concerned. We found very clearly and unambiguously that there is absolutely no evidence of his having in any way influenced the procurement by that company of its contract. He wasn't involved. He didn't participate. He didn't try in any way to influence that.

ROTH: There were conversations, phone calls, between his son, Kojo, and himself, at the time the contract was being awarded. Isn't this is a case of where there is smoke there really has to be fire?

GOLDSTONE: No, not at all, because we were told by the secretary- general, and the records establish it, that there was a close relationship between him and his son, and that pattern of phone calls is not peculiar to the procurement time period. It continues right through the term of office of the secretary-general.

ROTH: A close friend of Kojo Annan, Michael Wilson, we previously reported, wrote a note to Cotecna, where he was employed, about we discussed Cotecna, the deal and everything. Why do you not say that Wilson's memo and what he wrote is good evidence in this case against any secretary-general knowledge?

GOLDSTONE: Well, firstly, we found that Michael Wilson, for many reasons, is not the sort of person on whom one can attach any weight, to evidence of whom one can attach any weight. He in fact himself stated that he didn't author that memo. We have found that indeed he did, that at the time that it was emailed to his co-directors it came from him. It is significant that he has tried to distance himself from it. And the attitude of some of -- at least one of Michael Wilson's colleagues, was that this was typical of him trying to bluff and trying to show that he was more important that he really was.

ROTH: What should one come away with regarding the son, Kojo Annan? Was he a young operator? What kind of person was he and did he do -- how did he help his father out in terms of the world image?

GOLDSTONE: I think very simply stated, he is bad news. I think he got involved in many areas which were not only inappropriate. Some of them dishonest with regard to the use of his father's name to importer Cont (ph) of Ghana. That was clearly dishonest conduct. And there can be no doubt that in very material respects, particularly his continuing relationship with the Swiss company, Cotecna, there can be no question or argument that he lied to his father.

ROTH: And you believe Secretary-General Annan straight down the line when it comes to Kojo, his activities and his relationship to Cotecna and this lucrative, important bid, the heart of this whole investigation?

GOLDSTONE: Well, again, I want to be very clear on this. The finding we made was that there was insufficient evidence to establish that his father knew. So it was really a not-proven finding rather than a complete exoneration.

ROTH: And Cotecna, a company with a pattern of lies, is that what you're --

GOLDSTONE: Absolutely. They certainly were not forthcoming. They hid from us a lot of the material evidence. Some of it came out later in drips and drabs. But they also -- their senior executives were anything but open with our investigators and the committee.

ROTH: And what have you found regarding the secretary-general and his team, regarding Oil For Food overall? I mean, were they three blind mice? Were they just overwhelmed due to lack of staff? How shocking was it for you, what you found?

GOLDSTONE: The secretary-general and deputy secretary-general, we have criticized for not having ensured that there was sufficient oversight of Benon Sevan, of the program in general, and in particular, and it's an important finding, we found that they failed to ensure that Benon Sevan informed the 661 Committee and through it the Security Council of the evidence which Sevan's department had accumulated of kickbacks and bribes to the regime of Saddam.

ROTH: Can you describe attempts by Iraq to influence the predecessor of Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and did it succeed?

GOLDSTONE: Well, again, the evidence is pretty clear from the information that our investigators got, that the Iraqis gave considerable amounts of money, some millions of dollars, to intermediaries with the intention that at least part of the money should be used to bribe Boutros Boutros-Ghali at the time that he was secretary-general of the United Nations, to be flexible, to be helpful towards the regime of Saddam Hussein. This has been put to the former secretary-general and we have found no evidence to support a conclusion that he either knew about or actually was offered a bribe from those sources.

ROTH: There was a lot of hype in the months before your investigation about scandal at the United Nations, but you really think that most of the bad news and the bad doings was by Saddam Hussein and was really an outside work, by smuggling.

GOLDSTONE: As our report very clearly demonstrates, there were huge amounts of oil smuggled by the Saddam Hussein regime through and to Jordan, Turkey and Syria. The big powers, and particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, turned a blind eye to that.

I think the lesson for the United Nations is that there has to be complete transparency throughout the organization and really a clear boundary between political decisions on the one hand and administrative decisions on the other.

ROTH: Judge Goldstone, thank you very much.

GOLDSTONE: Pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: Kofi Annan has a press conference on Monday. He also wrote a letter to his staff, admitting mistakes and pledging reform. This was a note to the entire United Nations staff.

Can reform, though, occur with the same cast of characters leading the United Nations? Members of the U.S. Congress came up to New York Friday to press U.N. officials, including Kofi Annan and nations, on the need to shape up.

A senator for the state of Minnesota, Norm Coleman, was not at the Annan Congress session. He called for Annan's resignation last year, even before his committee held Oil For Food hearings.

Standing in front of the U.N. Security Council, Coleman stated he is more convinced than ever by the Volcker Commission document that Kofi must go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R-MN): If the U.N. is to have any credibility in enacting reform, it can't have a CEO who is stuck with the specter and the stain of fraud being done on his watch still continue. I believe that now more than ever.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's remember, this is stunning, but let us remember that so far only two U.N. officials, after nearly $40 million and a year-and-a-half of investigation, only two U.N. officials have been accused of bribery and corruption. Two. Not 200. No, not 2,000. Two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: Former Annan adviser and U.N. consultant John Rugey (ph) asking in effect is that all there is after now four Volcker panel reports to date.

Well, after a $35 million probe, is that a fair question? I will ask that of "Times of London" and DIPLOMATIC LICENSE pioneer, James Bone; Talal al-Haj, of the Al Arabiya TV channel; and Philippe Bolopion, of Radio France International.

Thank you, all of you.

Well, James, only two U.N. officials after months of hype that they would be walking out the high floors of the United Nations in handcuffs. Is it more serious than that?

JAMES BONE, "TIMES OF LONDON": Well, they would only walk out of the high floor of the United Nations in handcuffs when the criminal investigation is over, and the criminal investigation is only just beginning and we've had --

ROTH: Because people don't understand, it's not just Volcker.

BONE: And we've had a couple of very significant guilty pleas in the criminal investigation in New York. Samir Vincent, who admits to being an Iraqi agent in the United States illegally and admits to trying to bribe two senior U.N. officials as part of a scheme, and a U.N. procurement officer who has pleaded guilty to fraud in procurement and is unveiling all kinds of things.

Just the other week, we had the head of the U.N. Budget Oversight Committee, Vladimir Kuzmetsov (ph), charged in federal court, again brought in handcuffs. I was there.

ROTH: Talal al-Haj, at the United Nations, what is the fate of Kofi Annan? Many people are screaming for his head, but not the members of the United Nations, and that seems to be who counts. What is going to happen?

TALAL AL-HAJ, AL ARABIYA TV: Well, I think he still has a lot of support, especially in the third world. Even in the European Union. We just heard a few days ago the British ambassador and Jack Straw confirming again their support to Kofi Annan.

The worst thing about this, I have to agree with James Bone for a change --

BONE: I love you, Talal. Thank you.

ROTH: We rather they fight. But go ahead.

AL-HAJ: Right. James, I agree with you. This is just beginning. I think responsibility means accountability, and accountability means you have to pay the price when things go wrong, especially at the level that it went wrong within the United Nations.

ROTH: We heard earlier in the program a U.S. senator saying if this was a United States company or a Fortune 500 company or a big international company, Annan would be gone.

Philippe, what goes on? Let's get Philippe in here.

PHILIPPE BOLOPION, RADIO TRANCE INTERNATIONALE: Well, first, it's not a company, it's the United Nations, and one thing that was clear in the report is that there is a kind of collective responsibility here. It is not only Kofi Annan. The Security Council and the United States, within the Security Council, was having a huge role in administering the program and they didn't do that job well.

Another number that I found was very interesting in the report, $2 billion taken out of the Oil For Food program. $12 billion was smuggled out of Iraq. The United States knew about it. In some cases, the United States authorized it. So now to have a big outcry, saying, oh, my God, you made Saddam Hussein a rich man. Well, that is not true. He was a rich man mainly because the United States and other countries allowed oil to be smuggled out of Iraq.

BONE: Personally, Richard, I am interested in the corruption of U.N. officials. It seems to me that the world should be able to expect that the people who work at the United Nations are honest.

I think the Volcker report, the evidence presented in the Volcker report makes -- you really have to stretch credulity to believe that Kofi Annan did not know that his son, who previously denied it, was going around lobbying other U.N. officials to get a contract for a company that he was working for.

ROTH: And as we heard Richard Goldstone say, they just were unable to get enough proof, Talal, on Kofi Annan. It's not that they said they just couldn't find anything.

AL-HAJ: That's right. When I asked him if this report exonerated Kofi Annan from corruption, while he is guilty of mismanagement, missteps, omissions, not taking a decision when one is needed. But is he guilty of corruption? And he said this report does not exonerate him by any stretch of the imagination from that.

ROTH: All the United Nations has done so far is to say now they're going to have their internal investigations unit, which really wasn't able to prevent Oil For Food abuses, look into procurement and other things.

Meanwhile, Kofi Annan is trying to do this whole reform effort. How is the United Nations really going to change -- Philippe.

BOLOPION: It's difficult to know how it's really going to change at this point. He has only a year and a few months left on the job. I don't think he's probably the best man to do that right now, because what the report shows is that even though he was not corrupt, around him there was a sort of system, a clan, if you will, that had some practices that were not very ethical and there were some serious problems there and there were perception problems as well. So I think it's going to be very difficult for him to recover from that. No doubt about that.

BONE: And he's not out of the woods yet. I wouldn't exclude him still stepping down before the end of his term. I think we're in the period of unpredictability. The dynamic now is unpredictable. Any new revelation. Any new comment by people. Any new indictment in the United States could throw the whole thing off in unprepared for ways.

AL-HAJ: James, it was good enough for General Rumsfeld. It's good enough for Annan. General Rumsfeld, after the Abu Ghraib atrocities and even people can call it crimes and torture, accepted responsibility and so far he got away with it. Nothing of that scale happened at the United Nations and I expect Kofi Annan to get away with it too.

BONE: Let's remember that Kofi Annan has Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyer as well, Talal.

BOLOPION: But there is undoubtedly a great deal of hypocrisy in the way the story is played out in the United States. Yes, it is very serious. There was corruption at a high level. And, you know, it was a serious matter, and it was not only worth a Volcker report, but it is true that you cannot pretend that the United Nations is also the worst organization in the world. In the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in many countries, it is also doing a lot of good and it is true that, you know, the United States in Iraq and the way they dealt with the post-war situation didn't submit themselves to nearly the same kind of scrutiny.

BONE: One of the problems, Richard, is the United Nations is like the Catholic Church, it's always holier than thou. So when we do say that it operates like most human institutions with corruption and fraud, we're more shocked than we would be if it was an Enron or something like that.

BOLOPION: But no one has come and asked the pope to step down.

ROTH: He stepped down on his own. Go ahead -- Talal.

AL-HAJ: James, we always say that the United Nations is a mirror of the world. It's constituted of member states. The member states are not perfect and, hence, the United Nations will not be perfect. Don't expect perfection.

BONE: But, Talal, the U.N. response to this Volcker report has been absolutely pathetic. Let's face it. They have been saying for months that they wouldn't comment on the allegations against U.N. people because Mr. Volcker was investigating. And now when Mr. Volcker issues his report and his findings, they say they won't comment on the findings.

AL-HAJ: One thing I would like to say, James, if we were in a court of law, Kofi Annan would be found innocent. There is no evidence, concrete evidence, and you heard Volcker saying that. He is innocent until proven guilty.

BONE: Is criminality the standard of a manager of the world organization? Is it that --

BOLOPION: No, but there is also a great deal of naivety in the way the Volcker report has been returned, I think in some ways because it's international politics. It's still politics and some of it is kind of dirty. It's true that countries may deal. It's not always about, you know, having great standards. It's sometimes about making consensus, making bad decisions and the Oil For Food program was typically that. It was a bad compromise made to try to have the sanctions regime continue.

BONE: And the Volcker report itself is a political document which at very least dismissed evidence against Kofi Annan. And the Volcker investigators and the investigation will be investigated by the U.S. Congress. We've already heard congressmen say that. Congressman Hyde's committee in the House of Representatives, Senator Coleman's committee. And Senator Coleman said that he would call Paul Volcker himself to testify. And Paul Volcker has said he won't go.

BOLOPION: But what was a legitimate investigation is, in my sense, turning into a witch hunt at this point. Because so much has been done already. It's been a very thorough, a very serious investigation. At some point you have to take the results of it and accept it and not redo it over and over again.

AL-HAJ: I agree with you.

BONE: But there has to be accountability and consequences, no?

AL-HAJ: Yes, but many people would like to see Annan in this weakened state. I think it serves some states in the world, some superpowers, to have him in this position.

BONE: Let me guess, you think the United States, some superpower?

BOLOPION. You talk like a diplomat, Talal.

AL-HAJ: Yes, your guess is right.

BONE: Let's name names, Talal.

AL-HAJ: First time right, yes, James.

ROTH: We're going to have to hold it there.

Kofi Annan has this year and then completely next year, though I think very soon he may enter into that famous lame duck status.

BONE: I think he's been a lame duck for a year already.

ROTH: All right. We'll have to let that duck walk be the last comment.

James Bone, of the "Times of London," thank you very much. Also here in the studio with me, Philippe Bolopion of Radio France Internationale. And over at our CNN U.N. office, Talal al-Haj, of Al Arabiya. He's got the U.N. flags up for the first time after more than a year after construction.

AL-HAJ: Very pretty.

ROTH: Thank you very much. We could all use the help.

I can guarantee you there is a group of people that wants Kofi Annan, the Security Council and the entire United Nations to disappear, but only for the next two weeks. I am thinking of New York City residents who will have traffic tie ups and maxed out restaurant reservations.

The United Nations is trying to put out a plea for patience with some public service announcements, but with a touch you don't often hear at the United Nations. Humor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Hello. Almost half the world lives in poverty. So you should fix that. Thank you.

Also, if there is any way you could avoid Second Avenue when you come here, that would be great, because you're really messing up my commute. So, thanks.

ANNOUNCER: Everyone is a delegate at the 2005 World Summit because the outcome affects us all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: Now, there is a group that knows how to do a U.N. photo-op. The group, the Global Call For Action Against Poverty, urging world leaders coming to the U.N. summit next week to wake up to poverty, reminding the visitors of their pledges to drastically reduce poverty by the year 2015.

With 170 leaders of countries amassing in one place, security departments have not gone asleep, especially after 9/11.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY KELLY, NY POLICE COMMISSIONER: We also want to dispel any notion by our enemies that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we are not fully prepared to protect the United Nations, the visiting heads of state and New York City at large. The fact is that we've never been better prepared.

MICHAEL MCCANN, FMR. U.N. SECURITY CHIEF: The biggest risk is there are multiple risk. One issue is the vehicle bombs. That's something that is of a great deal of concern, that keeping vehicles away from the U.N. complex during this event and the city will be doing that at hotels and other sites where there are receptions. So that's the primary risk, something of that nature.

But also, it's a question of keeping individuals out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: With security on guard, the three-day special U.N. 60th anniversary event kicks off September 14, this Wednesday, and watch INSIGHT on Monday on CNN at 10 p.m. GMT, that's 6 p.m. Eastern Time, when I'll talk to three ambassadors from nations who hold permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.

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

END

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