U.N. Chief Is Adamant In Refusal To Resign
BY BENNY AVNI - Special to the Sun
March 30, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - There were shades of Nixon and Watergate at the United Nations yesterday as a crucial oil-for-food report detailed the shredding of key documents by Turtle Bay higher-ups, and Secretary-General Annan's chief of staff, eager to declare his boss innocent of any wrongdoing, told the press that Mr. Annan is not a crook.
Mr. Annan insisted he would not resign. Hell, no, he responded to a reporter who asked whether lapses, detailed yesterday by the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by Paul Volcker, should force him to step down.
His chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, argued that Mr. Annan was totally cleared by yesterday's second interim report by the Volcker committee, and that the secretary-general is now ready to lead an ambitious U.N. reform plan. He is not a crook, Mr. Malloch Brown said of Mr. Annan in response to a question by The New York Sun.
He acknowledged, however, that a number of individuals have now been cited in ways which are enormously damaging to the organization and to all of us who work for it.
The report stated that Mr. Annan did not knowingly influence the U.N.'s hiring of Cotecna Inspection Services, the company with which his son, Kojo, was affiliated. But the report found that the former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, ordered the shredding of documents critical to the hiring. It also described a web of ties between Mr. Annan, his son, and U.N. and Cotecna officials prior to the time the Swiss company was engaged.
One of three members of the Independent Inquiry Committee, Mark Pieth, told the Associated Press: We did not exonerate Kofi Annan. We said he was not dishonest but at the same time he mismanaged the inquiry.
Mr. Pieth added: We should not brush this off. A certain mea culpa would have been appropriate.
According to sources who had contact with the Volcker committee, there were differences of opinion among the three principal investigators. The Swiss member of the team, Mr. Pieth, had called for a tougher line, and Mr. Volcker insisted on absolving Mr. Annan. However, Mr. Pieth told the Sun yesterday, We have reached unanimity, put it this way.
Republicans in Congress seized on the findings. A clique of powerful insiders systematically and knowingly betrayed the very ideals of the U.N., said the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Henry Hyde, Republican of Illinois. As the largest contributor to the U.N. budget, U.S. concerns should not be ignored.
Mr. Annan's credibility has been seriously undermined by his conflicts of interests and poor management of the oil-for-food program, added Senator Coleman of Minnesota, renewing his earlier call for Mr. Annan's resignation.
The Oil-for-Food scandal has now, through the U.N.'s own process of investigation, reached the highest levels of the U.N., Senator Coleman said in a statement. Kofi Annan is responsible for the failed management that resulted in the fraud and abuse of the Oil-for-Food Program. His lack of leadership, combined with conflicts of interest and a lack of responsibility and accountability point to one, and only one, outcome: His resignation.
Mr. Coleman, who chairs the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was the first legislator in Washington to call for Mr. Annan's resignation in December of last year. He, and several other Republicans on Capitol Hill, joined editorial writers across the nation who followed The New York Sun in calling for the secretary-general to resign for his role in the oil-for-food scandal.
The Volcker Report will show that Kojo Annan lied, the senator said in a statement issued before the report was released. He lied to investigators. He lied to the public. And, worse, he lied to his father. While Kofi Annan may not be responsible for the acts of his son, he is responsible for failing to reveal a serious conflict of interest.
The State Departments spokesman, Adam Ereli, insisted, however, We've made it clear that we support the United Nations and we support the secretary general in his work. Several U.N. diplomats have speculated in recent weeks that the Bush administration might be interested in maintaining the status quo, in which a weakened U.N.is headed by a wounded secretary general. They also insisted that Americans are the only ones who call for Mr. Annan to resign.
In a sign that Europeans are also starting to turn against Mr. Annan, a strong editorial that ran in the London Times yesterday called him woefully passive in confronting systemic corruption within the U.N. and too defensive when presented by others with the evidence.
The Volcker report cleared Mr. Annan of influencing the procurement of the services of Cotecna, a Swiss inspection company that had employed his son Kojo and continued paying the younger Mr. Annan long after alleged ly having fired him. It criticized the secretary-general, however, for not investigating the conflict of interest.
It also described an environment of cronyism, in which the younger Mr. Annan visited the U.N. on several occasions, had access to computers at the procurement department, and met with his father at critical moments prior to the awarding of a contract to Cotecna.
In one of the most incriminating findings, the report describes how, in 2004, one day after the Security Council approved the resolution that established the Volcker committee and instructed all U.N employees to cooperate with its inquiries, the former chief of staff, Mr. Riza, approved the shredding of documents relating to the crucial years between 1997 and 1998, when Cotecna was hired by the U.N.
The timing of this destruction order is striking, the report reads. Mr. Riza retired in December, but he is still employed by the U.N. on a $1-a-year contract.
Two other top U.N. officials were also cited for wrongdoing, including, most notably, the head of the internal watchdog, Dileep Nair. The report stated that Mr.Nair used Iraqi oil funds to hire a fellow Singaporean national, Tay Keong Tan. Mr. Tan testified that his work at the U.N. had little to do with oil for food. Mr. Malloch Brown said Mr. Nair, who is due to retire in April, would be reprimanded. Mr. Nair denied any wrongdoing.
The Volcker report also features crucial testimony by Kojo Annan's former partner, Pierre Mouselli. Mr. Mouselli insisted that the secretary-general was told by his son of his business intentions - after Kojo and Mr. Mouselli had met with the Iraqi ambassador to Nigeria.
The report, however, pointedly undermined the credibility of the witness, quoting Saddam Hussein's ambassador to Nigeria as saying that Mr. Mouselli is not quite stable.The Iraqi ambassador's identity remained undisclosed out of concerns for his safety, the report said. Mr. Mouselli recounted his testimony Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
The secretary-general said yesterday that the most difficult and painful findings were those regarding his son, specifically the fact that Kojo failed to cooperate fully with the Volcker committee. The elder Mr. Annan said that he had always expected the highest standards of integrity from Kojo, adding that he was deeply saddened by evidence to the contrary.
According to the report, Kojo Annan's ties to the U.N. and Cotecna were based on family friendships. A procurement department employee, Diana Mills Aryee, had cared for Kojo Annan as a child and was known to him as auntie. According to the report she entertained Kojo at the U.N. 10 times between 1995 and the end of 1998, and recommended to officials that Kojo could help with computer problems at the procurement department.
The man who introduced Kojo Annan to Cotecna, the company's vice president Michael Wilson, was Kojo's childhood friend, and was intimate with the elder Mr. Annan as well. He always referred to him in the Ghanaian tradition, according to the Volcker report, as uncle.
Senator Coleman also criticized the United Nations for initially agreeing to pay the legal fees of Benon Sevan, the man at the center of the oil-for-food scandal. He said the decision to cover Mr. Sevan's legal fees was immoral, unethical, and beyond comprehension. He also said, In my opinion, there is probable cause to criminally charge Mr. Sevan for his actions. The fact that the U.N. is reimbursing Mr. Sevan with money that rightfully belongs to the Iraqi people is outrageous.