Annan's `culture of inaction'

December 12, 2006
The Chicago Tribune
Original Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0612120199dec12,1,1510572.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed
On Monday, Kofi Annan held forth on his favorite topic: what he sees as America's offenses against human rights and the rule of law in its war on global terrorism. And who can blame Annan for again assigning the world's ills to Washington? The likeliest alternative topic for his farewell address would have been his utterly ineffectual decade as UN secretary-general.

Speaking at the Truman Presidential Museum & Library in Missouri, Annan said when the U.S. appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused. Translation: Have I told you this week how much I resent the U.S. for enforcing the 17 resolutions against Iraq that my Security Council adopted but then abandoned?
Thanks for the thoughts, Kofi. But this exercise in diplo-scolding comes from a world leader whose most distinguishing trait is his failure to lead. On Annan's watch, UN timidity--what oil-for-food prober Paul Volcker called a culture of inaction--aggravated one crisis after another:

- The corruption of Annan's bureaucracy in the oil-for-food scandal is Exhibit A. While UN swells slept (or shared in the booty), Saddam Hussein funneled fortunes looted from his own people to his influential pals in Russia, France, China and elsewhere.

- Sudanese officials may have slaughtered Muslim villagers with genocidal intent, a UN panel reported in 176 pages of blather. But the mass killings in Darfur aren't genocide. How convenient for Annan. A finding of genocide by the UN would have forced the rest of the world to act. Russia, France and China didn't want embargoes or sanctions to gum up their trade with Sudan--and Annan didn't apply the muscular diplomacy that might have persuaded those governments to help stop the killing.

- A 2004 internal UN report admits that the body is hamstrung by an unwillingness to get serious about preventing deadly violence. Two years later, nothing has changed.

- Iran ignores an Aug. 31 Security Council deadline to halt uranium enrichment. Does Annan demand sanctions? No, he flies to Tehran and, with the naivete of a 3-year-old, announces that Iran's president reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and determination to negotiate a solution to the nuclear confrontation. What? In Mahmoud Ahmadinejad we trust?

- North Korea sets off a nuclear device. Kofi Annan's UN ... blinks. No pressure, no punishment. How better to teach other rogue governments and their mad-hatter rulers that acquiring nukes is the best way to snub the world?

- A new UN Human Rights Council replaces a disgraced Human Rights Commission that coddled member nations with dreadful records of oppression. Except Annan's new panel blames almost every indignity it mulls on Israel. Even Annan fusses briefly. And then does nothing.

Two years ago, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) wrote that if the oil-for-food scandal alone had occurred in any legitimate organization on Earth, its CEO long ago would have been ousted in disgrace.

Thanks for the memories, Mr. Annan. But as of Dec. 31, goodbye.