Annan's esteem takes a hit in U.S. 
By Barbara Slavin and Bill Nichols, USA TODAY
UNITED NATIONS — Kofi Annan was supposed to be America's U.N. secretary-general. Handpicked by the Clinton administration to stop a bid for a second term by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Annan was seen as a man Washington could work with when he took office in 1997. He had held a number of top posts for the United Nations since 1962, including finance, management and peacekeeping.
Annan hammered out a deal with then-senator Jesse Helms, R-N.C., a leading U.N. critic, to permit repayment of nearly $1 billion in back U.S. dues. Annan and his wife, Nane, became stars on the Manhattan party circuit, and he was seen as responsive to calls from Congress to reduce the U.N. bureaucracy. 
But with a sprawling scandal in the U.N. oil-for-food program raising questions about his son, Kojo, Annan must deal with demands for his resignation from scores of mostly GOP House and Senate members. He also faces legislation that would cut U.S. dues to the world body if it does not fully cooperate in a half-dozen congressional probes.
Annan acknowledges in a half-hour interview Friday that relations between the U.N. and Congress have gone sour again, though he says he works well with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush.
This whole thing has been very difficult and painful for me as a father and as a secretary-general, he says.
The oil-for-food scandal has produced a flurry of allegations of kickbacks, bribery and influence peddling. The $64 billion program was set up in 1996, before Annan took office, to allow Iraq to export oil and use the profits to buy food and medicine desperately needed by the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein is suspected of having skimmed as much as $2 billion from the program, according to CIA adviser Charles Duelfer.
Son Kojo on firm's payroll
Kojo Annan is under investigation for his ties to a company that won a contract to monitor goods going into Iraq under the program. Annan's son worked for inspection firm Cotecna in West Africa from 1995 to 1997, then as a consultant until just before the U.N. contract was awarded in 1998. He continued receiving monthly payments until February 2004, which his father says he did not know until two months ago.
A report in March by an independent panel headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker found no evidence that Annan influenced the contract award to Cotecna in 1998. But the Volcker report said at several points Annan could have been alerted to the potential conflict of interest. It also faulted him for an inadequate one-day inquiry into his son's ties.
We made some mistakes, Annan says. There were some management lapses. We are taking that seriously.
Annan has called for far-reaching reforms in response to the scandal, other U.N. lapses and problems exposed by the war in Iraq. Among his ideas: expanding the 15-member Security Council, which rules on economic sanctions and authorizes the use of force. His Clinton-era supporters say he's still the right man to improve the United Nations.
I think he is the best person to push it through, says former secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He knows the whole system and put the proposal together.
Annan's critics say he is too damaged to accomplish anything of substance before his second term ends in 2006. I think he's a gravely wounded figure, says Nile Gardiner, a U.N. analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. He's really limping along.
'Period of introspection'
Some of the opposition Annan faces on Capitol Hill:
•The leader of the Senate's oil-for-food investigation, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., wants Annan to resign. There's such a cloud over the U.N. that if you are really going to clean it up, you have to clean the slate, he says.
Rep. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., reintroduced a non-binding resolution Thursday that calls for Annan to step down.
•Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., has introduced a bill that would cut U.S. dues to the U.N. by 10% in 2005 and 20% in 2006 unless Bush certifies it has cooperated with congressional probes.
House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., also plans to introduce U.N. reform legislation, his spokesman Sam Stratman says. Prospects for action are unclear.
Annan, meanwhile, keeps traveling the globe and says he has kept his spirits up. He concedes he had a period of introspection during which he considered — but rejected — resigning. In the end, I decided (resigning) was much easier to do than to carry on with important responsibilities, he says.
The American people, he contends, still support the U.N. despite the recent barrage of criticism. He is irritated that Saddam's role in bilking the oil-for-food program seems to have been minimized by the media. When you read the press, it's as if it is all the U.N.'s fault and he had no role, Annan says.
Lee Feinstein, a senior State Department official in the Clinton administration, says the irony of Annan's current difficulties with Washington is that he has been the most pro-American secretary-general we've ever had.
But Feinstein, now an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, says, Annan finds himself in an impossible position, in part because of his own mistakes. He finds himself in a position where he can't win for losing.
Contributing: Slavin reported from the United Nations, Nichols from Washington.