Congress Prepares To Sharpen Watch On United Nations
BY BENNY AVNI - Special to the Sun
February 10, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/8993
UNITED NATIONS - As the United Nations' chief of staff attempted a charm offensive on Capitol Hill yesterday, legislators signaled they will deepen and diversify the various investigations of the organization and said that American funds might be withheld if significant changes fail to materialize at Turtle Bay.
Chief of Staff Mark Malloch Brown met with a host of American legislators in an attempt to convince Washington that findings of the Volcker committee, named by Secretary-General Annan to investigate wrongdoings in the oil-for-food program, are being taken seriously and that major reforms are afoot.
Prior to chairing his own oil-for-food hearing in the subcommittee on international oversight and investigations yesterday, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican of California, had a private appointment with Mr. Malloch Brown, who deliberately scheduled a series of sit-downs with some of the U.N.'s harshest critics.
I thought that he was a charming man, and I thought his message was unacceptable, Mr. Rohrabacher told The New York Sun. You can't charm yourself out of this one. Mr. Malloch Brown's visit was preceded by news of yet another scandal, this time at the Geneva based U.N. affiliate World Meteorological Organization, where documents show that an employee pocketed at least $3 million of the agency's money, as the New York Times first reported yesterday.
A leading U.N. critic, Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois who is chairman of the House International Relations Committee, quickly wrote Mr. Annan a letter in which he made clear that his committee, which has been looking into the oil-for-food scandal, will now widen its scope to investigate the U.N. system as a whole, and demand cooperation from the world body.
Several legislators told the Sun that Mr. Hyde and other congressional leaders plan to back up demands for cooperation with threats that American financing of the U.N. would be scaled back. Some 22% of the U.N.'s annual budget comes from Washington, by far the largest contribution to the world body.
Separately, the United States Institute of Peace announced the establishment of a bipartisan 12-member task force, headed by a Republican, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and a Democrat, George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader, that will assess the effectiveness of the U.N. and recommend reforms for the scandal-ridden U.N. The $1.5 million task force is financed by Congress and was mandated by legislation from Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican of Virginia.
But it was Mr. Hyde's letter to Mr. Annan that showed that Congress is about to start seriously leaning on the U.N. In addition to evidence pointing to gross mismanagement and corruption in the oil-for-food program, U.N. peacekeeping operations, and personal misconduct by senior U.N. officials in various agencies, we have now concluded that a wider problem of corruption and mismanagement in the U.N. might exist, Mr. Hyde wrote.
His committee is considering an expansion to a wider examination of the management practices of the United Nations beyond the oil-for-food program, the letter said. It requested copies of internal audits of some 15 specialized U.N. agencies, including the meteorological service. Some Democrats and other supporters of strong ties with the U.N. clearly see the writing on the wall. It's hard to imagine that the Republican leadership will not use the U.N. funding as a threat, a Democratic legislative aide who asked not to be named told the Sun. He urged the Bush administration and the State Department to rein in Republican legislators. Republicans were in combative mood. There will be a legislation that will precondition funding, Mr. Rohrabacher stressed, adding that he will join Mr. Hyde in sponsoring that legislation. In the past, he noted, America withheld funds from unaccountable U.N. bodies he described as black holes, such as Unesco.
People are beginning to distrust the U.N. across the board. And the oil-for-food program is just the last straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of giving the benefit of the doubt to the U.N., he told the Sun.
Democrats also urged an extensive overhaul of the system. I emphasized the urgent need first and foremost for the United Nations to make detailed and public financial disclosures mandatory for U.N. managers, Rep. Tom Lantos, a Democrat of California, said after meeting with Mr. Malloch Brown. It is high time for work to begin on an overhaul of the politically tainted U.N. system of recruiting, hiring, and advancing employees. It must be replaced by a modern, merit-based system.
Designed to allay those fears, Mr. Malloch Brown's message was twofold, a U.N. spokesman said yesterday. The U.N. is undergoing thorough management and administrative reforms, including in the area of transparency, strengthening of audit practices, procurement, and protection of whistleblowers. Second, the U.N. is eager to get to the bottom of the oil-for-food scandal and is willing to work with Congress wherever possible.
Mr. Malloch Brown, picked last month largely due to his communications skills, heard strong base-line support, the spokesman added, saying that legislators expressed willingness to work with the secretary-general as he leads the reform process. Mr. Lantos agreed, saying he found our discussion productive and encouraging. I am all the more convinced now that Kofi Annan is perfectly suited to undertake the job of fixing what is wrong with the U.N. secretariat.
Critics were unconvinced. The breathtaking arrogance displayed by U.N. officials such as chief of staff Mark Malloch Brown in the immediate aftermath of the Volcker report, will only confirm the fears of many in Congress who seriously doubt the U.N.'s ability to learn any lessons from the oil-for-food scandal, Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation said in his testimony at the subcommittee hearing yesterday.
Mr. Rohrabacher complained that the U.N. was hiding behind Mr. Volcker's investigation. Mr. Malloch Brown told him, he said, that Congress will get all the documentation it has asked for once the Volcker investigation is over, which sounded like Washington will only get what it wants when the U.N. will need something in return. I told him this is not good enough, he said.