Annan 'relieved' year over, says he won't resign
Tuesday, December 21, 2004 Posted: 5:11 PM EST (2211 GMT)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Relieved at the end of a "horrible year," Secretary-General Kofi Annan insisted Tuesday he has no intention of resigning over an embattled U.N. program to aid Iraqis and will pursue sweeping reforms in his remaining two years in office.
At a year-end news conference, the secretary-general said allegations of corruption in the oil-for-food program had "cast a shadow" over the United Nations and especially over the U.N. relations with the United States, the world body's largest financial contributor.
While Annan said he had "the confidence and support" of the 191 U.N. member states, he said the criticism and attacks in the United States have not helped the U.S.-U.N. relationship, and expressed hope the oil-for-food investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker will "help clear the air."
Annan refused to back the view of his son, Kojo, who said in a statement to CNN last week that the oil-for-food attacks were "a witchhunt from day one as part of a broader Republican political agenda" in the United States.
Kojo Annan is being investigated by Volcker because he worked in Africa for a company that had an oil-for-food contract, but he denies any involvement.
The secretary-general said he and the United Nations had been subjected to persistent attacks from "certain quarters" which he didn't identify, but also to constructive criticism "which we accept."
He refused to accept any personal responsibility until the Volcker investigation is completed in mid-2005, but said "when you run this sort of operation it is inevitable that there
may be some mistakes and things that could have been done better."
Annan said the allegations have overshadowed the relief that the oil-for-food program brought to million of Iraqis. Launched in December 1996, it allowed Saddam Hussein's regime to sell unlimited quantities of oil provided the money went primarily to buy food, medicine and humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War.
A report in October by top U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer said Saddam was able to "subvert" the $60 billion program to generate an estimated $1.7 billion in revenue outside U.N. control from 1997-2003. Saddam also raked in over $8 billion from illicit oil deals with Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt -- and billions more, according to U.S. congressional investigators.
After U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican leading one legislative probe, called for Annan's resignation last month, many countries rushed to support him -- but not President Bush's administration. It took until December 9 for U.S. Ambassador John Danforth to announce Washington's backing.
Last week, Annan held separate talks in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who will succeed him, but not with Bush.
Annan told reporters he had "very good and constructive discussions" on issues that the United States and the United Nations are working on ranging from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Middle East and U.N. reform, and "the question of resignation did not come up."
"On the question of my resignation, let me say that I have quite a lot of work to do," he said, stressing plans for a summit in September 2005 where world leaders will address global security threats in the 21st century.
He expressed hope that Volcker will "find out the truth as quickly as possible" so "we can all calm down" and world leaders can focus not only on the decisions needed to reform the United Nations but on implementing key development goals including halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015.
Annan disclosed that Volcker's first report in January would be accompanied by reports of U.N. internal audits of the oil-for-food program, which have sought by Coleman and other U.S. Congressional investigators. "There's no doubt that this has been a particularly difficult year, and I am relieved that this annus horribilis is coming to an end," he said, using the Latin words for a "horrible year" that Queen Elizabeth II used to describe 1992 when the marriages of her sons, Prince Charles and Prince Andrew, were breaking up and her home at Windsor Castle suffered a serious fire.
The one thing that "will make my nights and days better," Annan said, is less killing of innocent civilians and an end to conflicts in Africa, especially in Sudan, but also in Iraq.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/21/un.annan.ap/index.html