U.S. Envoy Bolton, as Security Council President, Vows Shakeup 

Bill Varner
February 2, 2006
Bloomberg
Original Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aBtTxJrPdDGo&refer=us

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Ambassador John Bolton began his February presidency of the United Nations Security Council today by telling envoys from the other 14 member governments that he wants to shake up the way they've done business. Most immediately rejected his ideas. 
Bolton told his counterparts they should meet every weekday morning to receive a briefing on UN activities from one of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's top aides. He later told reporters he wants meetings to start on time, for a change, and for the diplomats to discard their prepared statements and engage in unrehearsed dialogue. 
``We need to do a better job of collective decision making,'' Bolton said after presiding over his first Security Council meeting as U.S. envoy. ``It would be good intellectual discipline to have regular meetings.'' 
Bolton's effectiveness is likely to grow more important in coming months, when the Security Council probably will take up the issue of Iran's nuclear program. 
The 57-year-old U.S. ambassador brought the same blunt assertiveness to the rotating Security Council presidency that has characterized the six months since President George W. Bush appointed him to the post. 
He's sparred verbally with Annan, played brinkmanship with the UN budget, questioned the General Assembly's relevance and challenged the Security Council to resolve conflicts rather than rubber-stamp Annan's recommendations to extend peacekeeping missions. 
On Time 
``I have not seen anything like this,'' former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado, now head of the UN Foundation, said in an interview. ``He is a very focused, aggressive guy, but the Security Council is not the State Department, where if you call a meeting for 7:30 it occurs at 7:30.'' 
Wirth said Bolton's record of accomplishment is mixed so far, and that it remains to be seen whether his ``confrontational style will be helpful or not.'' 
At Bolton's order, the bell that calls envoys to the council's meeting room rang precisely at 10 a.m. New York time today, a scheduled starting time rarely met, and Bolton later said he was alone in the room when he ``brought the gavel down'' at that time. 
``I took a list of when they came in,'' Bolton said, referring to his council colleagues. ``I believe in discipline. Starting on time is a form of discipline.'' 
French Rebuff 
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere responded to Bolton's call for daily reports from Annan's staff by saying the written version would have to come in all six official UN languages. That effectively killed the idea of a daily report, according to Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis of Greece, a council member. 
``When you try to do something that you have not prepared and you just throw it on the table, people are not ready,'' Vassilakis said. ``You don't get things done in this way.'' 
Russian Ambassador Andrey Denisov said the Security Council might agree to receive briefings twice a week because ``the ambassadors here are very busy people and it is not so easy to come each morning.'' 
Chinese envoy Wang Guangya said that while Bolton might get some changes made during February, ``it will fade away.'' 
Bolton announced that he would make a bit of UN history by holding the council's first meeting on waste and fraud in the purchase of supplies for peacekeeping missions. An internal report revealed about 200 allegations of wasteful or improper purchases since 2000 of almost $300 million of equipment, supplies and services for 18 peacekeeping operations. 
``That is a significant amount, especially when you take into account the U.S. share of peacekeeping, which is 27 percent,'' Bolton said. ``Out of $1 billion, the U.S. share would be $270 million, which means nearly the entire U.S. share was lost to waste, fraud or abuse. That is a striking figure. U.S. taxpayers consider it important.''