 THE United Nations needs to be overhauled "to survive as a vital force", US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in the strongest criticism yet from a senior US official amid a debate on UN reform.
| I dunno. Does a new engine and drive train come under the heading of "overhaul" or "rebuild"? |
Ms Rice said John Bolton, a longtime critic of the United Nations, had been chosen as UN ambassador because Washington needed to lead changes to fix an institution dogged by scandals over corruption in the Iraq oil-for-food program and sexual abuse by peacekeepers. "It is no secret to anyone that the United Nations cannot survive as a vital force in international politics if it does not reform - if it doesn't reform its organisations, if it doesn't reform its secretariat, if it doesn't reform its management practices," she told a newspaper editors' conference yesterday.
| Bush is giving the UN a last chance to make the changes it needs to make. Next step will be to ignore it completely, like he did Yasser. Kofi didn't help matters yesterday when he tried blaming the Oil-for-Palaces program on us. |
Last month, Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed the most wide-ranging overhaul of the United Nations since its creation in 1945. He recommended the expansion of the UN Security Council, a radical program to combat poverty, a new human rights body and a condemnation of all forms of terrorism and a series of management and watchdog reforms.
| The "radical programs to combat poverty" will constitute a raid on the West's checkbook. Expanding the Security Council, especially with new veto power members, is a nice way to deadlock it further. See Parkinson, C. Northcote. Don't expect the "new" human rights body to be much different from the old human rights body, and expect to see the definition of human rights shift away from things like the right not to be sold into slavery or the right to practice your own religion without being slaughtered, and toward things like having a right to a job or to marry your brother. And after almost four years, we've still got the scimitar and turban set refusing to agree to a definition of terrorism that includes them. |
"As important an institution as it is, one has to say that there are some things that are not so great about the United Nations right now. And everybody recognises that. And we've got to fix it," Ms Rice said.
| Yeah. "Not so great." She's being a mistress of understatement there. How about "rotten at the core"? |
President George W. Bush has had strained relations with the United Nations.
| On the infrequent occasions when I've had dealings with crooks and jailbirds, con men and thugs, I've had strained relations with them, too. |
In his first term, he challenged it to avoid becoming irrelevant and ordered the invasion of Iraq without explicit UN approval before increasingly turning to the organisation for support after the war. Mr Bolton, a hardline conservative who once said the United States should only make the United Nations work to benefit US interests, has pledged to work to improve UN accountability and complained of overlapping programs and mandates. "He is going to be a force for what is always needed in the United Nations: American leadership to update and reform and strengthen this great institution," Ms Rice said.
| "And if that doesn't work, in five or ten years it can quietly wither away." |
In a related development, a Congressional-mandated task force on UN reform visited the UN headquarters in New York yesterday, led by Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House of Representatives, and George Mitchell, former Democrat Senate leader. Both praised the meetings with Mr Annan and his senior staff as "candid" and "informative".
| Meetings are "candid" when the conversation starts out "Lookee here, buster..." |
Their report, to be completed in June, is expected to have an impact on Congressional calls to cut US payments to the United Nations. Mr Gingrich, often a critic of the world body, told reporters there was "no argument" [there are] some systems that "just don't work" and "patterns that just aren't acceptable".
| He means other than the commissary system and the travel booking office... |
"I know of no occasion that we have had a secretary-general as open and as direct as Kofi Annan has been in the last two months about the need for reform," Mr Gingrich told reporters.
| That's because a couple months ago he had visions of tar and feathers presented to him... |
Mr Gingrich, who stressed his mission was to produce a US and not a UN report, said: "This was a far less contentious and far more informative session than I would have guessed three months ago.
| That thought of going from being Mr. Secretary General to being one of the Beagle Boys does seem to have had an effect, though my guess is that it'll be temporary. |
"This could be - not guaranteed - a remarkable moment to get some significant things done that will give the world a more transparent, a more accountable United Nations," he said. |