At the United Nations, a visitor surveys a gallery of leaders: Secretary General Kofi Annan, right, and two predecessors, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, center, of Egypt, and Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru.
Stop the Presses! This Just In:
"Oil-for-Food fraud accusations are eroding confidence in the UN and Kofi Annan" -- a New York Times exclusive!
Annan's Post at the U.N. May Be at Risk, Officials Fear (Full Text, desired for archival purposes)
United Nations officials fear that Secretary General Kofi Annan may have lost the confidence of the organization's most powerful constituent, the United States. They also say members of the Bush administration may want Mr. Annan to resign because of his disagreements with Washington about Iraq and the growing scandal over the Iraq oil-for-food program.
Concern at high levels of the secretariat was reinforced by President Bush's pointed refusal on Thursday to express confidence in Mr. Annan's continuing in office. He also linked American financial support to the United Nations to a full accounting of the program and Saddam Hussein's diversion of over $20 billion while under United Nations sanctions.
"I look forward to the full disclosure of the facts, a good, honest appraisal of that which went on," Mr. Bush said.White House officials denied that the administration was seeking Mr. Annan's departure. "There really hasn't been any discussions about him stepping down," said Sean McCormick, the national security council spokesman. "Our view is that we've worked well with the secretary general on a range of issues, from the fight against global AIDS to elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that an investigation of the oil-for-food scandal should be pursued to the greatest extent possible."
Also striking a conciliatory note was the departing secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, who praised Mr. Annan, a longtime friend, as a "good secretary general," and noted that the investigations focused on the oil-for-food program, not on Mr. Annan. Other officials said that while more conservative administration officials had already decided they wanted Mr. Annan to leave, it would be counterproductive for Washington to champion his departure openly.
"The president's remarks show that they're at a tipping point," said one senior administration official, adding that a final determination would depend on how forcefully Mr. Annan proceeds on the inquiry and whether he becomes more accommodating to American concerns.
There is little doubt that the president's comments, coupled with the call this week for Mr. Annan's resignation by Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, have alarmed senior United Nations diplomats and many of the institution's supporters. Senator Coleman is chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is scrutinizing fraud and corruption allegations in the oil-for-food program.
But Senator Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on Mr. Coleman's panel, argues that it is "unwarranted and unfair" to blame Mr. Annan for the scandal when Washington "winked" at the source of most of Mr. Hussein's illicit revenues: letting Jordan and Turkey undermine sanctions by importing Iraqi oil. "Let's look in the mirror," he said.
Some supporters of Mr. Annan are also critical of him and his senior management for underestimating the damage caused by the charges of fraud and corruption and for failing to mount a more aggressive defense.
While no one has charged that Mr. Annan personally profited from the program, his critics and even some supporters agree that he has been passive in handling the scandal.
Mr. Annan and the United Nations have also been buffeted by the Bush administration's anger over Mr. Annan's remarks criticizing American actions in Iraq; over a report suggesting that United Nations peacekeeping officials in Congo were running a prostitution ring, and over the publicity surrounding Mr. Annan's son, Kojo, who received payments from Cotecna, a Swiss contractor in the oil-for-food program.
"Why haven't there been clear statements from this building?" a veteran United Nations official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is close to Mr. Annan. "He was the secretary general who came in and said we were going to have an open organization, but the promised openness and transparency haven't happened."
Richard C. Holbrooke, the ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton and an Annan backer, said, "The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyze the U.N. are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it."
No secretary general has ever been ousted in midterm, and there are no mechanisms for forcing one out. The secretary general is chosen by the General Assembly at the recommendation of the Security Council.
American criticism of Mr. Annan has already prompted a backlash. On Friday, the European Union added its support for Mr. Annan to that of Russia, China, Britain and France. On Tuesday, 54 African nations sent a letter of support.
Staff members have circulated an internal e-mail message calling the charges "totally unfounded" and verging "on the hysterical." Ahmad H. Fawzi of Egypt, who has served the United Nations in Baghdad, said that by Thursday, the note had 3,170 signatures.
Fred Eckhard, Mr. Annan's spokesman, dismissed questions about resignation, saying he had heard no such calls from any of the 191 members.
Yet supporters of the United Nations acknowledged, as one who is very close to Mr. Annan put it, that if the Bush administration told Mr. Annan "publicly or privately that it won't work with him, I think he would have to consider stepping down."
There is no public indication that the administration has decided to send such a definitive message. Senator Coleman said in an interview on Friday that he had not consulted with the White House before calling for Mr. Annan to resign. "This was not political on my part, and I did not want it to appear so," he said.
But a Congressional source noted that when Senator Coleman informed a senior State Department official that he was about to issue a call for Mr. Annan to step down, the official reminded the senator that the White House was seeking smoother ties with Mr. Annan, at least until Iraqi elections in January.
Mr. Annan's supporters fear, and his critics hope, that calls for his departure could be fueled next year by the investigations of the oil-for-food scandal by at least five Congressional panels and an independent commission led by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman. Mr. Volcker is preparing to give Mr. Annan a report in January focusing on whether United Nations officials, including Benon V. Sevan, who headed the oil-for-food office, illegally benefited from special oil allotments from the Hussein government. Mr. Sevan has denied any wrong-doing.
Supporters fear that Mr. Annan's credibility has also been damaged by reports from investigators this week indicating that his son received substantial consulting payments from Cotecna, a United Nations contractor, after leaving the company, and that he tried to trade on his father's position to advance the company's interests in Africa.
Although Mr. Annan said he was "surprised and disappointed" to learn of the payments, his supporters fear the issue may have political resonance, at least in Washington.
"That set the match to oil-for-food because people can't always understand a $64 billion program, that's complicated," said Timothy E. Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation. "But they can relate to father and son relationships."
Mr. Annan's conservative critics welcome such revelations, and are confident that over time, they will erode what has been his enormous respect and credibility.
Danielle Pletka, a vice president of the American Enterprise Institute and a critic of the United Nations, said the Bush administration was refraining from calling for his resignation not because it would not welcome his departure, but because it knew the effort would backfire. "The second the president calls for anything, the other member states say: 'we won't be slaves to America,' " she said.
Letting the investigations take their course, some United Nations critics maintain, reflects a more subtle form of attack, one that also maximizes the pressure on Mr. Annan.
Leslie H. Gelb, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a staunch admirer of Mr. Annan, said that although the administration was not endorsing calls by conservative commentators for Mr. Annan's resignation, they quietly supported the criticism of him as part of a broader agenda. "It's a double-barreled attack against him and what they regard as a failed institution," Mr. Gelb said. "And they are deadly serious."