 Frustration is mounting in the US administration over what it sees as the UN's reluctance to commit staff in Iraq and unhelpful comments from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
| I'm coming to the conclusion that we're going to wait until Kofi's gone from his position in 2006 before deciding whether to bail from the UN. If his successor is just as bad — Khatami, for instance — we'll hang it up. If there's an improvement, we may hang in. But I don't think things are going to improve at the UN. I think they're going to get worse, and that more corruption is going to become more inescapable. |
In an interview with the Times, Annan defended the UN role in Iraq as "essential" and said he was distressed by the criticism.
But White House officials are saying the United Nations is drifting towards irrelevance and are developing a dismissive attitude towards Annan, according to a senior US official at the UN. "The Iraqis and the Americans are completely frustrated," the official was quoted as saying. "The secretary-general is still recommending many thousands of peacekeepers for Sierra Leone and the Congo, and yet there are seven election workers in Iraq. That tells the whole story." |