Scandals spur U.N. effort to appease U.S.

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations has begun a campaign to mend relations with the Bush administration and with congressional critics who have questioned Secretary General Kofi Annan's fitness to lead the organization after disclosures of sexual misconduct in U.N. peacekeeping missions and corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.

Senior U.N. officials have begun courting some of the organization's fiercest congressional critics — including Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who has called for Annan's resignation — while opening a search for a Republican representative in Washington to lobby on its behalf.

In addition, the United Nations has undertaken the most extensive personnel changes since Annan became secretary general in 1997, forcing out several senior U.N. officials who have clashed with the United States or engaged in conduct that exposed the organization to criticism.

The changes are intended to assure the United States that Annan, whose son is the target of a U.N. probe into influence-peddling, is committed to overcoming a series of scandals involving his organization. But they also reflect a belief by the United Nations that it must respond to U.S. demands for greater accountability and transparency.

"Getting the relationship repaired is key," said Mark Malloch Brown, the world body's new chief of staff, who visited Coleman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's permanent subcommittee on investigations, and other Republican leaders this month. "I cannot think of a time in the U.N.'s 60-year life when the organization has prospered and done well that it hasn't rested on a strong, effective relationship" with the United States.

Malloch Brown said the United Nations is not "pandering to the United States" but making "a strategic effort to identify what we have in common with Washington and work to celebrate that to really maximize it."

Republican lawmakers say that they appreciate his efforts but that they want the United Nations to cooperate more fully with a series of congressional investigations into possible wrongdoing.

They note that the United Nations has refused to allow its personnel to testify under oath, although the organization has offered to allow U.N. auditors to provide background briefings to staffers representing the five congressional committees investigating the $64 billion oil-for-food program.