USA: In his final news conference as U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan again criticizes the U.S. for invading Iraq without the support of the Security Council

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a farewell news conference, said on Tuesday (December 19) he saw the failure to prevent the Iraq war as the worst moment of his 10 years as U.N. leader. Annan said that Iraq held many lessons, both for those who did and those didn't support the U.S.-led invasion. He again criticized the Bush government's failure to get U.N. approval before acting. "I hope that when next time one is dealing with a broader threat to the international community, one will wait and seek the approval of the Security Council. As I've said, a government, a country has a right to defend itself, but when it's an issue of broader threat to the international community, it's only the Security Council that has that legitimacy to authorize action on that basis," Annan said. Addressing reporters less than two weeks before he steps down on December 31, Annan was asked about the lessons to be learned from Iraq, where the United States led an invasion in March 2003 in a fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction despite failing to gain the council's approval. Annan noted there was concern over whether there could be another military operation aimed at Iran over its refusal to suspend its nuclear enrichment activities, as demanded by the Security Council and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. In his opening statement, Annan said that the government of Sudan should realize that the world will hold it responsible for atrocities and human rights abuses in Sudan's Darfur region. Annan has appointed former General Assembly President Jan Eliasson of Sweden as a special envoy to Sudan, though he added that Eliasson is not the permanent replacement for Jan Pronk, who was recently ordered to leave Sudan by the Bashir government. When asked about Sudan and the U.N. policy, a policy strongly supported by Annan, which gives the organization the right to intervene with force when a member country is not protecting the humanitarian rights of its people, Annan gave a cautious response. "Sudan has come under tremendous pressure from the international community to cooperate with that community to send in troops to help. Have we done all that we could to pressure the government of Sudan to do what it has to do? There are measures short of force that could be used, we have used them in other situations -- political pressure, economic sanctions and isolation and of course in the last resort there is the use of force. Have we brought to bare on this situation all the capacity we have to pressure the government to bend?" he asked. The oil-for-food scandal ranked as another of Annan's biggest challenges during his ten years as head of the U.N. He told reporters that even though there had been mismanagement, the incident had been exploited to undermine the organization. He added that critics of the U.N. should ask themselves who would deal with dire global issues, such as tsunamis, earthquakes and poverty if the U.N. no longer existed. "When historians look at the records, they will draw the conclusion that, yes, there was mismanagement, there may have been several U.N. staff members that were engaged, but the scandal, if any, was in the capitals and with the 2,200 companies that made a deal with Saddam behind our backs. And of course I hope the historians will realize that the U.N. is more than Oil-For-Food, the U.N. is a U.N. that coordinates tsunami, the U.N. that deals with the Kashmir earthquake, the U.N. that is pushing for equality and fighting to implement the millennium development goals," he said. On January 1, 2007, Annan will be replaced by South Korea's Ban Ki-moon, who will become the U.N.'s eighth Secretary-General.

ITN Source | December 20, 2006

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