[Shadow_Group] Fw: Secret Meeting, Clear Mission: 'Rescue' U.N.

[Dean HICKAM]

January 3, 2005
Secret Meeting, Clear Mission: 'Rescue' U.N.
By WARREN HOGE
http://tinyurl.com/4wpe6<http://tinyurl.com/4wpe6>

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 2 - The meeting of veteran
foreign policy experts in a Manhattan apartment one
recent Sunday was held in strict secrecy. 
The guest of honor arrived without
 his usual retinue of aides.

The mission, in the words of one participant, was
clear: "to save Kofi and rescue the U.N."

At the gathering, Secretary General Kofi Annan
listened quietly to three and a half hours of bluntly
worded counsel
 Mr. Annan   many workers said privately that his
office protected high-level officials accused of
misconduct.

The United Nations faced charges of corruption in the
oil-for-food program in Iraq, 
evidence that blue-helmeted peacekeepers in Congo
 had run prostitution rings
 and raped women and teenage girls...


The meeting was held in the apartment of Richard C.
Holbrooke, a United States ambassador to the United
Nations under President Clinton.


"The intention was to keep it confidential," Mr.
Holbrooke said. 

believe that the U.N. cannot succeed if it is in open
dispute and constant friction with its founding
nation, its host nation and its largest contributor
nation."

"The U.N., without the U.S. behind it, is a failed
institution," he said.

"He sat in silence and made no effort to defend
himself," the participant said. 

"Everyone I talked to, including the White House, said
that if Kofi was going to go, it was going to be by
the hand of the Volcker report, not by the hand of the
Bush administration," the official said.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company  
http://tinyurl.com/4wpe6<http://tinyurl.com/4wpe6>
or
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/international/03nations.html?th=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/international/03nations.html?th=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=>




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