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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired December 23, 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)
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECY.-GEN.: You've been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: Here is the so-called overgrown schoolboy. He's James Bone of the "Times of London," a DIPLOMATIC LICENSE original. We knew this already about him. But James has agreed to stay after school with me and some of his fellow U.N. journalists.

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

It was the undiplomatic outburst heard around the world. This all started innocently enough. The 2005 wrap-up news conference by the world's top diplomat. Kofi Annan has a year left on the job and was asked what qualities his successor should possess.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNAN: I've been advised over the years by quite a lot of experienced leaders and politicians. They need thick skin. Thick skin. They need a sense of humor. And they should laugh a lot inside and outside and at themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: But Annan seemed to be in a coiled position ready to strike when he said it was a difficult year for the world, the United Nations and himself, and Oil For Food wrongdoing was part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNAN: I hope you, ladies and gentlemen of the press, will also do some reflection on your own as to how you covered that event, how you allowed deliberate leaks and others to lead you in one direction and when, in the end, the actual story came, when all of the full investigations were completed, when the documentation on the companies and the countries, you missed the story. But I think anyway I leave you to reflect that. That is not up to me to tell you how to do your job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: I asked the first detailed Oil For Food question, including giving Annan a chance to comment on one of the more intriguing nuggets of the saga, a Mercedes-Benz car bought by the secretary-general's son through his father's diplomatic immunity plus getting a discount to ship it to Africa.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNAN: I know you're all obsessed about the car. My son and his lawyers are dealing with it. If you want to know more about it, please direct your questions to his lawyer or to himself. I am neither his spokesman nor his lawyer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: All of that was the under card to the main Mercedes event. "Times of London" reporter James Bones, who has used the briefing room for a one-man one-car campaign to get some answers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES BONE, "TIMES OF LONDON": The Volcker Report says that the Mercedes was bought in your name, so as the owner of the car, can you tell us what happened to it and where it is now? My question is, it's true that we missed a lot of stories in the Oil For Food scandal and the United Nations hasn't made it easy, and even your answers today, I'm going to say to you, so far, hasn't made it easy. Some of your own stories, your own version of events, don't really make sense. I'd like to ask you particularly.

ANNAN: You're being very cheeky here.

BONE: Well, let me -- sir, let me ask you.

ANNAN: Hold on. Hold on.

BONE: I have a question.

ANNAN: Listen. Listen, James Bone. You've been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving and please let's move on --

BONE: But what about my question?

ANNAN: -- to more serious -- no, move on to a serious journalist --

BONE: There are inconsistencies.

ANNAN: -- Move on to a serious journalist. Go ahead. You go ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Well, we have several serious journalists with us today. James Bone arrived here in a car provided by CNN, not a Mercedes. Mr. Bone is with the "Times of London." In our U.N. studio, Warren Hoge, of the "Times" of New York. Back here with us in the studio is Ian Williams, who writes for the "Nation." He's written "The U.N. For Beginners," and he also writes for other publications. And Abderrahim Foukara, of the Al Jazeera television network. Thank you.

James, what is your side of this story? Did you deserve that tongue lashing?

BONE: Well, I haven't felt as young as I do now for years, after being described as an overgrown schoolboy. That was sort of a backhanded compliment.

But, you know, there are serious questions here. The Volcker Report raised as many questions as it answered. Even Mr. Volcker himself told the "Los Angeles Times" he still didn't know whether Kofi Annan was aware that his son was doing business with the United Nations.

We need some answers to these questions and these questions aren't going to go away. These are -- these are.

ROTH: But do you think -- do you think you provoked him? Because you did make a conclusion to -- all right, he's not a head of state, but I think he was thinking there was a lack of respect. You said some of your statements don't make sense.

BONE: Well, it's clear to me some of his versions of events clearly don't make sense, and he hasn't ever tried to clarify them, explain why they appear to be illogical. And I was giving him the chance to do that. And unfortunately, he didn't take that chance. But, you know, I'll give him another chance the next time I see him and, hopefully, well, you know, as you know, Richard, I've known him a long time. I mean, I've known him more than 15 years, and you and I were together with him on the very first edition of DIPLOMATIC LICENSE back in I think it was 1993. Do you remember that?

ROTH: Yes, first guest.

Ian, you've covered the United Nations and secretaries-general for a while. What did you think of Kofi Annan's outburst? That something had been welling up in him for a while, that he took it out on James? What?

IAN WILLIAMS, "THE NATION": Remember, it happened at the last press conference, and I think I was to blame, because I asked him, you know, I think the Oil For Food scandal has been vastly overblown. It's not a United Nations scandal. I think it's a United States and United Kingdom and other people scandal.

ROTH: What happened when you asked him?

WILLIAMS: Well, what I asked him, remember, was don't you think if you had fought back and stomped on these people right at the beginning you might have quelled it, and what he did at the time was to pick on Benny Avni.

BONE: I think it just goes to show that his response was wrong then and is even more wrong now.

ROTH: Well, at that time he told Benny Avni, "Move on, chap."

Abderrahim, what's your assessment of the Bone-Annan battle?

ABDERRAHIM FOUKARA, AL JAZEERA: I think that Kofi felt that the empire had to be seen to be striking back, but beyond what Kofi Annan said and what James said, I mean, obviously Annan felt -- Kofi felt that James was a little cheeky, as he said. I don't know Americans made actually of that word, cheeky, but beyond.

ROTH: I don't want to know about James' cheeks.

FOUKARA: But beyond and above the incident, I mean, it's clearly the culmination of several weeks, several months, of tension in the United Nations, beginning with obviously Oil For Food had been going on for some time, but then there was the summit and then there was malice and there were all sorts of controversies at the United Nations which created a lot of stress.

ROTH: Warren?

WILLIAMS: This is the equivalent, if I could.

ROTH: Let's get Warren in first -- Warren.

WARREN HOGE, "NEW YORK TIMES": It was an extraordinary professional lapse on his part. I was seated one seat away from James Bone.

ROTH: You're lucky you had somebody in between you.

HOGE: Exactly. And that person in between was joking with James and with Kofi Annan about how do you say Merry Christmas or how do you say Happy Holidays in Arabic, and Kofi -- one moment before this Kofi Annan was laughing.

Abderrahim said he thought that Kofi thought something -- I don't think that Kofi Annan was thinking at that moment. It seemed to be just this kind of outburst that came out of nowhere. I think what does lie behind it is hinted at by what Ian Williams said.

On the 38th floor here, in Kofi Annan's office, there is a deep feeling of resentment at the fact that the United States and in particular the United States Congress, which had six committees investigating Oil For Food, in addition to the Volcker Committee, in addition to a task force -- congressionally-mandated task force headed up by George Mitchell and Newt Gingrich.

ROTH: He felt it was too -- the Congress and certain members of the media, he said, followed leaks and.

BONE: Richard, let me tell you something.

HOGE: Let me just tell you, I'm just reporting what they think, not what I think, because you asked me what was behind it. They think that the United States has used Oil For Food as a bludgeon to get their way at the United Nations and Kofi Annan hears it from the other side, from the other nations here, who believe that he, in trying to repair relations with Washington, has been tacking much too close to Washington. So you have a gigantic division here at the United Nations. And I think up on the top floor of this building, there is a feeling that what's to blame for it is this exploitation, in their minds, of the Oil For Food program, to drive a wedge between them.

ROTH: So he takes it out on the press, because that's who you can take it out on, since the secretary-general can't seem to name names when it comes to.

WILLIAMS: Well, the press has played a major role in this. This scandal was, I think, invented by the right wing blokes. It was perpetuated by the Fox and Murdoch news empires. If you notice, the rest of the media did not make it the headline news day after day.

I've been on shows with so-called serious commentators who said this was the biggest financial scandal in the history of the world. Overblown nonsense. When you come down to the Volcker Report, one person is accused of $140,000 or $160,000 over four years, which is still not proven. And in the meantime, we have the $10 billion missing from the.

ROTH: But do you think James' pursuit of the Mercedes if valid or something that's been done by the Volcker Commission and is over with?

WILLIAMS: I think there are bigger fish to fry. But what I think is James.

BONE: But Ian has a history of being wrong about U.N. scandals. Ian wrote about a big U.N. scandal 10 years ago. The person whose side he took in that scandal has now pleaded guilty to having a bank account in Antigua where he was getting kickbacks.

WILLIAMS: Excuse me. You're getting libelous now, because I did not take the side of Alexander Yakovlev (ph), because he was not one of the people accused.

BONE: Well, he was marched of there at that point.

WILLIAMS: Yes, and then he was marched back in again.

BONE: And then he was allowed back in.

WILLIAMS: It was the others, yes, because they were innocent, and they were vindicated.

HOGE: Can I step into this conversation?

ROTH: Go ahead -- Warren.

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: James occasionally stirs things up. Go ahead.

HOGE: Yes, I really don't take sides in this one at all, but I can take sides in the matter of whether James Bone is entitled to ask that question. He absolutely is. He's been asking it many, many weeks now.

The United Nations frankly has not answered it. By simply saying talk to my son, talk to his lawyers, that's not really an answer. And I think it's another example of how the United Nations fails sometimes to explain itself as well as it might be able to.

BONE: And I must say -- can I just say that after that press conference, I rang up Kojo Annan's lawyers to take up Kofi Annan on the invitation to see if they'll tell me what has happened to the Mercedes, and I got no information from them either.

ROTH: Abderrahim?

FOUKARA: I mean, let me just say that it's quite obvious that the secretariat has felt under siege over the past few weeks and months. But it's also quite obvious that they've decided that they've got to come up with a new strategy for dealing with the press, especially in 226 --

ROTH: The press room.

FOUKARA: -- the press room where Kofi scolded James.

The thing is, and I think this is good for Annan, the fact that he can be seen to be acting the way he did, because there are a lot of people who say oh, Annan is a gentleman, people may be inclined to mistake his behavior for weakness. So he's finally saying --

HOGE: It's too late.

FOUKARA: -- I am well-behaved, but I can hit back.

Here's the thing. In my view, he's totally entitled to tell James Bone what he thought of the way James Bone asked him that question, but I think where he got it slightly wrong is when he said that James was an embarrassment to his colleagues and to his profession, because what he did there, he opened the door -- and I've heard this in the corridors -- he opened the door for all of this debate within the United Nations Correspondents Association. Was James Bone right? Was Kofi Annan right? Who -- and then UNCA -- the UNCA president had to step in and say, no, he's not an embarrassment to -- and I've heard people in the corridors saying who does the UNCA president think he is. He doesn't speak for me when he says James Bone is an embarrassment.

So, I think in that sense, if he had just said, look, James Bone, there is a way of asking questions and stop there.

WILLIAMS: Kofi can speak on behalf of the world, but not on behalf of the correspondents.

BONE: There is really not much point in having a press conference if you're not going to take the questions. I'm not saying he has to answer them, but he should at least -- I didn't even get to ask my question.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: Can I put it in another context? I mean, I know that you would, but can you imagine a White House correspondent getting up and accusing the president in front of him of being a liar?

BONE: I didn't say that.

WILLIAMS: Sir, your story does not make sense. It was close enough. But you would not -- you probably would do it, but most of the White House Press Corps wouldn't.

BONE: If the guy's story doesn't make sense, then he should explain so that we understand why it is.

ROTH: The United Nations and secretary-general said, in effect, we'll talk after Volcker is done, and then except for three questions and a few stray questions, there has never been the big Oil For Food press conference conducted by the secretary-general to say, whatever you got, I'll take it, you know, let me ask.

We've got to -- go ahead -- the last words.

BONE: This is the time-honored technique of the United Nations covering things up. You have an inquiry. It's not conclusive. And you say the whole thing is over.

The whole thing isn't over just because there is an inconclusive inquiry. The whole thing is over when people find out what happened.

ROTH: All right, we're going to keep our guests here. The last word in this section goes to Kofi Annan on how he feels about himself, headed into his final year in office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNAN: Physically and psychologically I am fine. I'm in great shape, rearing to go next year. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that there are individuals here who have lost the passion to come and make the world a better place and keep future generations from the scourge of war. They are marking time in the parade of life, waiting for their retirement to kick in. We want to help them reach that wonderful moment by giving them an early opportunity to leave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Almost sounds like the United Nations is running a euthanasia operation. No, that's the U.N. plan to get younger and better equipped to handle the modern world with buyouts and pushing people out the door, according to Chris Burnham (ph), the American who is the United Nations undersecretary-general for management.

Abderrahim -- welcome back to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, everybody.

The reform effort, how would you grade it so far since the Human Rights Commission revamping has been put off until next year?

FOUKARA: Well, they've obviously achieved one big thing, which is the Peace Building Commission, at least from the point of view of some countries.

ROTH: And that's supposed to be this body which will help countries stop from slipping back into war after they.

FOUKARA: Or emerging from conflict, that's right. But, again, it depends on who you are talking to, because there is a feeling within the membership of the General Assembly, especially within the smaller, weaker countries, that, yes, this is a positive thing. But at the same time, they worry that it may be used, especially that permanent members of the Security Council will be sitting on this new council, that it may be used to actually interfere and meddle in their domestic affairs.

ROTH: Warren, I think the secretary-general should have been, instead of yelling at James, yelling at the countries. Instead, he's very mild-mannered when he's referring to them, because this deadlock that seems to be more sticky than ever.

HOGE: That's right, Richard. Particularly because some of the countries that are objecting to the reforms being proposed are countries from the developing world that really need the United Nations.

The Human Rights Council, for instance, which I know we're going to be talking about, Kofi Annan himself proposed a human rights council to replace the Human Rights Commission, which is this widely discredited body, because among its members are people like Sudan and Libya and Cuba, who most of the world thinks of as notorious rights violators.

Kofi Annan himself said this organization brought discredit on the entire United Nations, yet there are countries, major countries, who are objecting to the replacement of that body which the secretary-general says discredits the organization, that frankly is more important to them than it is to the wealthy nations here.

ROTH: James, does he also lose any power going into a lame duck last year.

BONE: This is entirely the wrong time to launch a reform effort. It was launched in the wake of the Iraq War, which totally split the United Nations. And it was launched at the time of the Oil For Food scandal, which totally undermined the credibility of the secretariat, and those are the wrong ingredients for a successful coming together consensus.

This thing was doomed from the very beginning. It's been a waste of time. It's going to end up with almost nothing.

WILLIAMS: I think that the one achievement which every one keeps overlooking is that they smuggled through the General Assembly last year a declaration on the responsibility to protect. The biggest change in international law since 1945. They got countries like China, Sudan and Libya to vote for a resolution that reinterpreted the charter to say there was a right to intervention.

Now, there is a long way -- there are people still dying in Darfur and everything that's been said about the Human Rights Commission, but that's a very big achievement, and that was achieved because of the opportunity of the 60th anniversary, getting the heads of state together, putting some pressure on it.

Now, the real test is implementation. Like, people are still dying in Darfur.

ROTH: I know. They put words on paper.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WILLIAMS: Can you imagine a previous secretary-general actually getting up and denouncing one of the.

BONE: Ian, you and I know that 10 years ago or more -- more than 10 years ago they had the standby arrangement for peacekeepers, and everyone signed up and said we'll provide peacekeepers at short notice, and then there was a real life genocide in Rwanda, and nobody did anything. The U.N. force that was there ran away instead of.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: And the representative of the United States vetoed any attempt to increase peacekeeping forces at the time.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: It was Madeleine Albright, it wasn't George Bush this time that we were blaming, so, you know.

BONE: It was a shame on everybody's part. That's not my point I'm making. The point is that these guys routinely sign up to nice sounding ideas, but when push comes to shove, they don't do it. The same with the responsibility to protect. They are already trying to water it down, and let's see it in action. Where do we see it in action?

WILLIAMS: Well, we still have to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). There is some chance of it being put in action. Until six months ago, that was a -- it would have been against international law.

BONE: Personally, I think the International Criminal Court is a much bigger innovation in international law in the last -- than the responsibility to protect is.

ROTH: All right, schoolboys, hang on a second. What about the Annan administration? Warren, we didn't talk about it last week, but Louise Frechette, the deputy secretary-general, resigning in April, it was announced last week. Lakhdar Brahimi, his long-time adviser, troubleshooter, seems to have had enough. Somebody said he was disillusioned. I don't know. What really -- is there a lot of momentum, really, in this final year for Annan?

HOGE: I think he would like to have more momentum than he seems to have right now. The departures of Louise Frechette and Lakhdar Brahimi I don't think are really related. Brahimi is 71 years old, had sort of overstayed his time here to work in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Basically, the president of the United States credited Lakhdar Brahimi with helping to setup the original elections in Iraq.

ROTH: He also credited Karina Perelli (ph) with helping with those elections and then she was walked out the door by security two weeks ago, the elections chief, regarding harassment charges and management skills.

Abderrahim, your sense of 2006, the Annan administration.

FOUKARA: My sense is that as far as the reforms he is trying to achieve, there will be differences between countries in terms of what exactly we need, what reforms we need. But also, there will be differences in terms of how do we assess the success of the reforms.

The peace building commission that we talked about, it's an experiment. We have five years from now to actually assess what fruit it will actually bear at the end of the road. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Then the United Nations will look at something else. But this is just the beginning of the road.

ROTH: We also have a new whistleblower policy. There is still an ethics office to be established. Will that accomplish anything?

WILLIAMS: There is a bright side here. Kofi Annan doesn't have to worry about reelection. Maybe he started with James, the no more Mr. Nice Guy bit. He can turn around and tell the Americans what he thinks of them. He can tell the third world what he thinks of them without worrying, within diplomatic limits, of course.

BONE: That is true, but it's not what he's doing. I mean, as you know, everybody in the G77, the third world countries, thinks that because of Oil For Food Kofi Annan is totally hostage to the Americans and has taken the American side totally on all reform arguments, and there is antagonism against Kofi Annan, ironically, from the third world, whom one would have thought would be his constituency in this situation. But precisely because they think he's in the Americans' pocket now.

ROTH: We will have to halt it there. Thank you all very much, Warren Hoge, of the "New York Times," at our CNN U.N. office, appreciate your insights. In here, in the studio, James Bone, of the "Times of London," the less said about him at the moment, the better. He's gotten enough publicity. Abderrahim Foukara, of the Al Jazeera network and Ian Williams, writing for the "Nation." He's got a book on rum and "U.N. For Beginners." Combine them all and that would be an interesting concoction. Thank you.

Also, looking back at 2005 without tussling with journalists was Jan Egelund, the U.N.'s Humanitarian Emergency Chief. Egelund told the Security Council this week it needed to act now, especially in Darfur, northern Uganda, and Congo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAN EGELUND, U.N.: There is no other continent in the world where as much is at stake in terms of lives saved or loss as in Africa. This is the drama of our time, the biggest drama of our time is Africa. It's not the Middle East. It's not Europe. It's not any other place. It is Africa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, I understand this is a little bit unusual. The representative of Sierra Leone has been delayed because of the problems caused by the transit strike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Yes, even the diplomatic world was affected by the three-day transit workers strike in New York City, though many ambassadors weren't affected since they have cars and drivers.

The last time New York City was snarled by a transit worker walkout was 1980, the year CNN started and the year George Bush, Sr. was voted vice president of the United States with Ronald Reagan as president. Bush, Sr. already had on his resume a stint as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The former president returned the other day to the United Nations, where he was named Southeast Asian Earthquake Special Envoy by Secretary- General Annan. Bush was asked to reflect on coming home to U.N. headquarters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE BUSH, SR., FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT AND U.S. AMB. TO U.N.: A lot of happy memories. I enjoyed my two years here, back in the early '70s. And I learned a lot from the other countries with whom I worked and from the secretariat itself. And so I have a lot of very favorable, wonderful memories of my time here.

And you go down a corridor, oh, I remember going there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: This is not a personal opinion, but it is fair to say that there are many people at the United Nations who probably wouldn't mind if this President Bush came around more often.

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

END

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