UNITED NATIONS - When President Bush greeted Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday, he gestured toward John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador, and asked, "Has the place blown up since he's been here?" The internal U.N. television sound boom that picked up the jest did not record any response from the secretary-general, who simply smiled. But the same question, in less explosive form, has been posed repeatedly around the United Nations since the Aug. 1 arrival of Bolton, who once said that the headquarters building was filled with such sloth and incompetence that it would not matter if 10 of its 38...