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A Difficult and Defining Moment
United Nations or Not 5/9/03
A Difficult and Defining Moment
MUSIC:
BUSH: All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment.
BUSH: Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant.
MUSIC dips under
ED: Since George Bush threw down that gauntlet the United Nations has lost a battle to stop a war, watched diplomacy triumph and then fail, faced some of the gravest divisions in its history and joined the list of states - though of course it is no such thing itself - which are the targets of terror.
The world's leaders are now preparing for the UN's Annual General Assembly. Last year their questions were about relations between the UN and the world's new hyper-power, the United States. This year they are about the very future of the institution.
That is the issue I'll be addressing over the next four weeks - not just in the field of peace and security but also in areas like international justice, disease and hunger. I have talked to many of those whose views could prove decisive. During these tumultuous months we have been following the UN story from inside, and listening in as the close circle around the Secretary General worked out their thinking.
Fx: United Nations building.
ED: It is thirty eight floors of light and air, and that famous matchbox shape of the UN headquarters sits on a patch of international sovereignty carved out of the island of Manhatten. It is utilitarian in design and what was daringly and aspirationally modern in the early 1950s looks a little dowdy now. But it remains an institution dedicated to the high ideas of its founding in 1945; here, in the New World, they believed they could end the Old World's wars for ever.
Fx:LIFTS: "You get off at 27 and you go to the next set of elevators"
ED: This is March, and the search for a diplomatic resolution to the Iraq crisis has collapsed in bathos and acrimony. The mood in the Secretariat is misery.
Fx: lifts open:
ED: Tenth floor, the office of the Under-Secretary-General for Communications.
THAROOR: It's damaged the UN in different ways. It's damaged the UN first of all because it showed that the UN could not contain a determined member state or group of member states if they were going to act in a certain way. And it has been damaged because of the fact that those member states having felt thwarted or frustrated by what they judged to be unreasonable or even frivolous objections from members of the Council, have challenged the very institution that thwarted them.
Fx: LIFTS OPEN:
ED: Floor 33, the office of the Assistant Secretary-General, Political Affairs.
TURK: It's a very depressing moment for the United Nations. I cannot hide that and you know nobody's happy about the way things turned out the way they have. I am not sure, I mean people certainly had hopes, I am not sure whether the expectations were equally high as the hopes.
Fx:LIFTS: If this was you I will really, I will really get upset or something. I hadn't got a clue what she was talking about . . . .
ED: Floor thirty-four, the office of the Assistant Secretary-General, Legal Affairs.
ZACKLIN: I think we all feel at the moment everything is very pessimistic. The question is whether the UN can claw its way back.
Fx:LIFTS: Hello I've done that. I've left it on my desk but I need to sort through them.
ED: It was the British government perhaps more than anyone else who set events in train. Last summer the Bush administration made it plain they wanted Saddam Hussein out of power; the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, joined forces with the American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and convinced the President to pursue his policy through the United Nations.
INTERVIEW RT HON JACK STRAW MP:
The case was a very straight forward one which was that the charge against Iraq - fundamental charge - was that they had broken international law and that, therefore, the Security Council had to be given an opportunity to decide what should happen as a result of those breaches over the previous 11 years. It didn't in fact take a huge amount of effort for them to agree and, particularly the President to agree, that he should put his case to the UN and he did it in very straight forward, and for some people, rather surprisingly, open terms.
Did you share the American analysis which was reflected in that speech that to an extent the United Nations and the Security Council had already shown a degree of weakness - shown flaws - because those resolutions about Iraq hadn't actually been carried through?
Yes, I mean I think there's no doubt. In a sense what you had within that speech was this really rather serious tension in the world system between the so called hard diplomacy of the Americans and the soft diplomacy of the continental Europeans. I mean, that's a generalisation but there is no doubt that that tension is there and that was reflected by a degree of frustration in President Bush's speech. Because the truth is that if the International Community had taken firmer, tougher decisions about Iraq five, six years ago then there would not have been an Iraq crisis whatever side of the argument people have been on over military action.
Were you at all concerned at that stage about finessing the objectives because the United States had made it very clear - the President made it very clear in the months before that speech - that his objective was regime change. There was no secret about it. Once the policy was within the UN process, weapons of mass destruction became the focus. Were you concerned that there was going to be a tension between those two objectives?
Well, there was a tension there and it was principally a tension about means and ends. I mean, what was the objective? Was it regime change or was it, in my judgement, compliance with UN Security Council resolutions including compliance with those relating to weapons of mass destruction? Everybody appreciated, in the UN system, that one of the consequences of a failure by Iraq to comply with any future dictats from the Security Council could be a change of regime. But the question was was that the objective? In practice, what happened in late September and October is that the debate about, so called, regime change got subsumed into the debate about what should be in the resolution that became 1441.
You would still have to say wouldn't you that the day that Jeremy Greenstock stood there - Britain's Ambassador - and said the attempt to get a second resolution has collapsed and the game is over and this is not going to happen with the legitimacy conferred by the United Nations. That must be one of the blackest days in the UN's history mustn't it?
I wouldn't say it was the blackest day in the UN's history. It was a very sad day but I have to say, it wasn't for the want of trying.
But it … they failed the test by your criteria, didn't they?
Who failed the test?
The United Nations.
Yes. I mean, I … by my criteria the case was overwhelming and that I'd argued it five time in the Security Council between the end of January and the beginning of March. And I was surprised and saddened that my colleagues were not willing to face up to the consequences of decisions of which they had been explicit party in 1441 and, had they been - obviously the history of the last 3 months would have been very different.
Fx: Canteen
ED: Television sets carrying round the clock bulletins look down on the polyglot crowds flowing through the corridors. This building was designed for 70 members, but it now accommodates delegates from a hundred and ninety-one countries.
Fx: Hall: TV Snow: "Well coalition commanders say we are now in the decisive phase of the operation but we have heard that kind of thing before"
ED: The news is of mounting Iraqi casualties and coalition military success. The skills of the UN staff lunching in the canteen which opens onto the choppy grey of the East River are not needed at the moment. They became spectators the moment the first shot was fired.
Shashi Tharoor, the Indian Under-Secretary-General for Communications, one of Kofi Annan's closest lieutenants.
THAROOR: Dag Hammarskjold put it better than anybody else when he said that the UN was not invented to take mankind to paradise, but rather to save humanity from hell. We're not going to be able to fulfil every idealistic wish from all our well-wishers and indeed, many of us who joined this organisation and have served here for many years. That's the world in which we work and that means that we will be effective a lot of the time. We will be ineffective some of the time and once in a while we will be irrelevant.
LIFTS: "And that's my nephews and nieces in Miami on the beach. Saddam Hussein is my brother because he hasn't sent me the picture he promised"
Fx: lift:
MORTIMER: Clearly it's, I mean it's horrible. I think everyone should be horrified to watch a war like this on television and see you know the amount of suffering that it is inflicting on completely innocent people.
ED: Edward Mortimer is Kofi Annan's British speech writer.
MORTIMER:, But I mean I do not despair. I think the UN still has a useful role to play. It is an organisation worth serving and you know I think the Secretary-General is a great asset to the international community even if not everybody realises that, and it's important to help him to stay in business.
Fx:LIFTS:
DESAI: From our Secretariat perception the real question we ask is 'Did we do all that we could have done?' in order to help the member states to get to a decision and I think on that we are convinced that we did. But we are not the people that vote - it's the member states.
ED: Nitin Desai, the Indian head of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Fx:LIFTS:
When Britain and America failed to secure a second resolution authorising the invasion of Iraq they blamed the French. France is a passionate supporter of the UN - its permanent seat on the Security Council and its veto powers give it a place at the diplomatic top table. Jean Marc de la Sabliere is the French ambassador to the UN.
INTERVIEW: HIS EXCELLENCY JEAN MARC DE LA SABLIERE:
What happened in February and March is quite simple: the international community refused to authorise the use of force because the majority of the council, and I could say the majority of the delegation in the UN, was of the opinion that the inspections were making progress and everyone - not everyone - but the majority in the Council was convinced that our common goal which was disarming Iraq was reachable through peaceful means and within a limited period of time.
(A lot of people have argued that the United Nations and specifically the Security Council was quite severely damaged by the dispute over Iraq. What's your view of that and if it was damaged how long is the impact of that going to be felt?)
Well it is obvious that just after the beginning of the war the UN lost some credibility but I do not share the opinion that a huge damage has been done to the institution of the UN and people will tell you that this has been my opinion since the beginning and for many reasons. First this loss of credibility I was sure was temporary and the reason of this loss of credibility was that the expectation was very high. So I am not worried.
Fx: lift:
ED: As the coalition forces moved through Iraqi territory, the world waited for news of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. None came.
On the thirty-first floor of the UN's headquarters its weapons inspectors hoped in vain for an invitation to resume the task they had to abandon when the American attack began.
FX: Lift opens:
MARHOLD: I mean it was an interruption of our work. It was an artificial break. It was not natural for example that we were at the end and a final statement and a final assessment would have been possible. It was just in the middle where we see ok we are on the right way, we have results, results you can rely on but it was cut off , it was cut off.
STRELAU: You know I wasn't born yesterday so I understand the politics or even if I don't understand, I understand that this is like this and you can do nothing.
ED: It is often said that history is written by the victors; but no one won the diplomatic battle at the United Nations in the spring, and everyone now has their own version of history. Germany, like France, opposed the war, and its leaders have long felt they deserved greater power on the Security Council. Dr Gunter Pleuger is the country's UN ambassador.
INTERVIEW: HIS EXCELLENCY AMBASSADOR DR GUNTER PLEUGER
Well I have always fought against the myth that the Iraq war was a failure of diplomacy and a failure of the Security Council. I don't think so. We were convinced that we could peacefully disarm Iraq and that the inspectors could do their job successfully. So the Security Council has not failed and the Security Council cannot be held responsible of the decisions that are being taken outside the Council. And in the Council I think the Council has made it clear by non-decision that it did not want this war.
But it didn't have any effect. The war happened.
But that is normal because the United Nations and the Security Council is not a world government. The United Nations is a standing conference of member states, and a standing conference of member states can only do what member states allow it to do. And if a member state, especially the most powerful member state, decides to act on its own, nobody can prevent that.
But if you look at it from the American perspective, from George Bush's perspective, he issued a challenge to the United Nations, he went into the process because he was told that he might be able to build a coalition behind his policy if he did so. He came out of the process with division far greater than it was when he went into it. So from his perspective it was a failure wasn't it, which is very damaging because America is such a critical partner in the United Nations.
Well I don't know what his perspective and whether this perspective will remain his perspective but I think at least we Europeans think that sometimes in international politics you have to resort to military force. We have done so when we all felt it was necessary. We have done it together with the Americans in the first Gulf War when we had a common cause. This time we did not have a common cause, but on the other hand I think we all realise and the Americans I think will realise that too that, if you want to build a sustainable durable order, military might and political might is not enough to do the job. What you need is partners who co-operate voluntarily and that is an element that has gotten perhaps a little bit too much on the back burner recently.
Do you think Germany is being punished at the moment by the Americans?
Oh no, not punished.
You get no sense in your daily dealings here that the Americans are taking it out on them for taking the position..
No you know we are happy with ourselves. We are happy within in the European Union where we feel safe and well, we are happy as a member of NATO in the transatlantic relationship and we don't have to be kissed every day.
ED: On 22nd May - with the occupation of Iraq now complete - the Security Council passed Resolution 1483 on the way the country should be put back on its feet. The resolution gave the UN a "vital role" on paper, but all the real power to America in practice.
The Syrians stayed away from the vote, but most members had lost any stomach for a fight; a semblance of harmony was bought at the price of letting America dictate its terms. And something like business as usual resumed in New York.
TOUR: Hello everyone and welcome to the UN. My name is Connie and I'm from Denmark and I will be your guide. The tour takes around one hour. You can take pictures and ask me any questions that pop up as we go along. Just for security reasons it is very important that everyone stays with me at all times throughout the tour.
ED: The UN headquarters is one of the most visited sights of New York. It's summer now and the tourists are here.
TOUR: Ok, First of all there is an aerial view of the UN headquarters and there are four main buildings . . . .
ED: Mark Malloch Brown runs the UN's development programme the UNDP.
MALLOCH -BROWN: You are interviewing me in June and I think all of us are desperate actually, I have never felt a more palpable sense of everybody longing for August and a break and to be amongst our families and to sort of recharge the batteries and try to kind of make sense for ourselves of perspective on this. I mean is the damage just transitory or is it something more significant?
TOUR: Ok this is where the Security Council meets. This is the main organ of the UN which is mandated to maintain international peace and security. The council has 15 member states five of which are permanent members: China, France, the United States, The United Kingdom and the Russian Federation.
ED: The atmosphere in New York may have been a little better by the summer - in Europe the impact of those bitter exchanges earlier in the year is still being digested even now. Chris Patten is the EU's commissioner for External Relations.
INTERVIEW EU COMMISSIONER CHRIS PATTEN
First of all I see it very much from a European perspective and it was very sad that with 4 members of the European Union at the time on the Security Council and one soon to be country Bulgaria on the Security Council we couldn't actually get our act together. I also saw it in a sense as the working experiment of neo conservative views about how global governance should work or shouldn't work.
What about damage within Europe, damage to the ambition that you spoke about to speak with one voice particularly within the Security Council?
I think there is no question that Iraq was a big blow to the attempts to create a common policy though I guess that just reflects - which Europhobes should sometimes recognise - that we're not a super state. That it is 15 sovereign countries with strong opinions. I believe that you can only have an effective European position internationally - and this isn't any disrespect to Spaniards or Italians or others - when France and Britain in particular but Germany as well agree. France and Britain are permanent members of the Security Council, they're the only nuclear powers in the European Union, they're in effect the biggest spenders on effective forces, they have a global reach, they have a global diplomacy and they have global aspirations. Where France and Britain can agree we make progress as has happened in the Balkans and to some extent in the Middle East. Where we don't it's more difficult.
You said that the European Union would only give money towards the reconstruction of Iraq if it was only put on a proper UN footing. What was your strategy in doing that. Was that a way of pressurising the United States to come back within the UN fold?
Well I wasn't being provocative even though I provoked. What I was stating was a political reality. That the money that we spend in Afghanistan or the Middle East or Iraq doesn't come from my bank balance I have to go and ask for it from Parliament and from the European Parliament and from the member states who are answerable to their own parliaments and it always seemed to me that in order to take part in reconstruction in Iraq we would have to have a multilateral umbrella, we would have to have the UN instrument, World Bank instruments to work through.
The big argument that was dramatised at the UN, has been dramatised at the UN over the past year but has really been going on since September the 11th is the degree to which America is now determined to use its might to act alone, to ignore the United Nations if it feels that it is right to do so. How do you see that argument evolving from here?
I think that argument is a dead duck but it's not to say that it won't quack from time to time. There's been an argument that somehow multilateral institutions, even international NGOs constrain the exercise of American sovereignty and constrain an American government's ability to protect the security and prosperity of its own citizens. It's bilge. You can't have prosperity and security, even for the citizens for the richest country in the world, the only superpower in the world, unless you have international agreements so I think those who've seen the UN as somehow a dagger the eagle's neck have demonstrably been shown by events to be sadly wrong.
UN TOUR: Now of course resolutions are not only legally binding but the Council can enforce its resolutions if a country does not comply with the decisions made in here. So let's go and see the gift from the United States over here. . . .
ED: The events of the previous months have that overwhelming question; can this institution really function when one member, the United States, stands so far above the rest in military might and economic power? Mark Malloch Brown.
MALLOCH -BROWN: I think there has got to be leadership on our part to kind of recast the framework of discussion about multilateralism in a way that restore faith in it. And you know I like to point out that in 1945 the United States was a bigger share of the World economy than it is today and a more dominant military power and yet at that very moment of supreme economic and military authority, it's leadership determined that the best way of projecting that power was through a web of multi-lateral institutions. So the assumption that today because it enjoys something of a revival towards those levels unilateralism is inevitable is absolutely wrong and we must not, as a UN, give in to the pessimistic determinism. We have got to recognise that everything is there to fight for.
TOUR: This is a gift from the United States. It is a mosaic which was presented by Nancy Reagan in 1985 at the 40th anniversary of the UN but its a replica of a painting by Norman Rockwell, the American artist, and its called 'The Golden Rule' which is what you can see right here 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto . . .
ED: Sir Kieran Prendergast is a former British diplomat who now serves as the under secretary general for political affairs, one of Kofi Annan's closest lieutenants. Talk of American unilateralism brings out his flair for the vivid metaphor.
PRENDERGAST: Well this is the 800 lb gorilla isn't it? Yes it's very uncomfortable but it has been uncomfortable for a long time before Iraq. I mean people have been worried for a long time about, there's a sort of US doctrine of 'exceptionalism', but it's been seen across a fairly wide range of issues - whether it is the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Treaty or whatever - but the 800lb gorilla is there and you have to find ways of dealing with it and accommodating it.
TOUR:.. So ultimately it is important to remember that the UN, since it is not a world government, it is not a place where problems are solved automatically. The UN is a tool the countries can use to co-operate. Now you can take your pictures then and we can go out here..
Interview: KIM HOLMES (Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs:
Early in the crisis the Bush Administration appointed someone new to the cumbersomely titled job of Assistant Secretary of State for International Organisation Affairs - Kim Holmes became the State Department's point man for dealing with the United Nations. I spoke to him during the summer - while the hawks and doves in Washington argued about the wisdom of the President's original decision to pursue his Iraq policy through the UN.
Well the United Nations does not always live up to its standards. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. In that case we were disappointed. We were disappointed that that second resolution was not passed. There is no secret about that
And is it fair to say that the United Nations as an institution paid a price then for what had happened in the immediate run up to the war, that perhaps America - the Coalition would have been willing to see a greater United Nations role if it hadn't gone into the war in such a messy way?
Well you know it is hard to say because you have to sort of speculate about what might have been. I have been somewhat surprised at the backlash that people have talked about in the United States against the UN has not been larger than it was, than it has been. So it could have been quite different. The best way I would put it is that if there was a disappointment among the American people over that, over the failure of that second resolution it would have be in such a way that we could have done so much more if it had not happened.
Do you think that if the UN had had a more, or been given a more prominent role in resolution 1483 and in the reality that followed it, it might have been easier to accommodate Iraqi concerns about the way the country was run in the immediate aftermath of the war.
No I don't think so. I think the problems that have occurred about security and trying to get the infrastructure up and running and the like are fundamental problems that just simply need to be dealt with by the authority in Iraq and I don't know, and I have not seen any evidence or indication that the lack of a larger UN role has caused any serious problems politically for the authority in Iraq.
ED: On June 3rd, the Secretary General's special representative, Sergio Viera de Mello, arrived in Baghdad. No one tried to disguise the fact that his role was, to say the least, ambiguous; in theory he was an envoy of the world's most powerful institution, in practice no one was quite sure what he was expected to do. Mr de Mello gave us one of his last interviews before he was killed in the suicide bomb attack on the UN offices in Baghdad, and we are broadcasting it with the permission of the UN.
Fx: Baghdad
DE MELLO: The UN is in a rather bizarre situation here. I represent the Secretary General in a country that is a founding member of the organisation and that is currently occupied by two other founding members of the organisation who also happen to be permanent members of the Security Council and in the absence of an Iraqi government. We are not used to working in those conditions hence it has been a difficult time in terms of defining our role.
ED: Mr de Mello was accompanied by Nadia Younes from Egypt, his chief of staff. She was also killed in the attack.
YOUNES: It is rare that we arrive in a mission where our role is quite vague, where we are not in charge, where we have to find a role for ourselves and see where best we can fit in and bring added value for our goal which is to see how we can move the process of Iraqi sovereignty forward. So I wouldn't call it a frustration. I would say it is new and anything that is new has its ups and downs.
DE MELLO: You will see that in the long run the UN will have a very important role to play here. I didn't expect that to happen in the first weeks but please remember that we are here for the long haul and the United Nations will be in Iraq long after the coalition has left this country and you will see in particular that when it comes to the electoral process and the bringing about of a new constitution for this country the UN will play a significant role and that is what is important.
ED: Two weeks before Mr de Mello was killed I interviewed the man he worked for - the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
A survey carried out this summer by the American Pew Research Centre suggests that the UN's standing has been damaged more or less everywhere in the world. In both countries that supported the war in Iraq - America and Britain - and those that opposed it - like France and Germany - the idea that the UN doesn't matter became more widespread after the conflict.
INTERVIEW UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN:
Only a year or 2 earlier we had won the Nobel peace prize, the UN was doing well, we had been active not just in areas of peace, we were pushing the fight against HIV AIDS, we were pushing for alleviation of poverty, arguing for action against inequalities and disparities that exist in the world today, pushing governments to be sensitive to environmental degradation so all this was happening and then suddenly Iraq comes across and brings incredible divisions between if I may put it simply, the war camp and the peace camp.
You said in that speech at the General Assembly last year, you talked about multi-lateralism and you said that the UN can confer a unique kind of legitimacy. Did you see the decision by the United States and the United Kingdom to go ahead without approval as really an attack on that philosophy of how business should be conducted?
It was and I did indicate that I thought that it was not in conformity with the charter because it was the kind of situation that called for collective response. Not only that when I raised the question of legitimacy and indicated that the legitimacy was going to be widely questioned I think some did not believe it at the time but that is precisely what has happened and even since the war we have seen the importance of the legitimacy that the UN can confer. Governments are now saying we would want to help in Iraq but provided there is broader UN mandate. Some governments may think that the UN doesn't matter but the UN matters to member states and that is what is important. I mean right now I think there is a need to internationalise the operations in Iraq. The pacification of Iraq, democratic government in Iraq, an Iraq that is at peace with itself and with its neighbours is in everyone's interest and we should all work to make it happen. But of course the governments are saying the conditions must be right and for most of them the conditions is the UN umbrella, UN imprimatur in other words, a UN legitimacy.
Do you think that the US maybe drawn back into the UN fold if you like by the realities it is facing on the ground in Iraq? Both in terms of troops it is losing, establishing security and of giving political legitimacy to the process.
The US is facing enormous difficulties on the ground. I was in Washington in the middle of last month. I spoke to the Secretary of State, the President and I also spoke to senior senators and some congressmen and I think that unfortunately I didn't go to the Pentagon so I didn't have the direct conversation with them but I think that a realisation is setting in that the US cannot do this alone. They need to bring in others. They need partners; they need partners, not only on the security front but also on the economic reconstruction and the political front.
So from being - as you've put it - rather depressed about the future of the UN 6 months ago you sound as if you are now more optimistic?
Yes I am an optimist by nature and also I am optimistic because of the facts, because of what has happened. Because, in a way, Iraq has more or less driven home to leaders and peoples around the world that the UN is a precious instrument. UN is important. UN imprimatur and legitimacy is important for parliaments, it's important for governors. It's important for peoples around the world and we need to work together
Nevertheless the standing of the UN took a knock. Clearly didn't it. All the research shows from the Pew foundation. A lot of countries.
Oh we did take a knock. But I think it in some ways it was quite ironic. Those who were opposed to the war were angry that UN could not stop the war. And those who were for the war were angry with the UN because the UN did not support the war. And so both sides were knocking us in the press but I think in retrospect now things have settled down and when they reflect a bit on it as to what happened here in this building and what is needed and what role the UN can play today they will realise that some of the judgements were a bit hasty.
Fx: PRESS CONF: "Of casualties that you have . . ….."
ED: August the 19th, a press conference at the UN offices in Baghdad.
Fx: bomb:
ED: Twenty-three people were killed. In New York they mourned colleagues and friends - Sir Kieran Predergast's deputy was among the dead.
PRENDERGAST: It seems like we're in another era. You know the sort of age of innocence is over for us and what's worrying of course is that given the global reach of al-Qaeda and extremists of that kind we are going to have to look very very hard at our whole operation in Iraq and we are going to have to look at the question of security in other vulnerable countries. It cannot be business as usual and the implications might be quite grave and we are going to have to act on them.
ED: The UN has never been the target of that kind of attack before; the message behind it seems to be that it will be viewed as an occupying power along with Britain and America - a cruel irony for an institution in which so many opposed the war in the first place. Edward Mortimer - the Secretary General's speech writer and director of communications.
MORTIMER: There have been a lot of discussions about security and I think increasingly as we have proceeded with those discussions we have realised more and more that security constraints are going to constrain very heavily any role that we can play in Iraq in the immediate future, including in particular the political role.
FX: hedgecutting
ED: The staff in New York are already sprucing up the grounds in preparation for this month's General Assembly.
MUSIC:
ED: Kofi Annan's prediction came to pass. Under the pressure created by a constant flow of casualties, Washington is now actively seeking a greater UN role in Iraq - the only way it will be able to secure the help it needs there. That is not quite such a welcome development as it might have been before the greatest single loss of life in the UN's history.
PRENDERGAST: There were those who thought that the ball would come back into our court and it has. There was a lot of talk about the UN being irrelevant and so on. I never thought that would be followed through on because the coalition have a need for two things: one of them is for burden sharing and the other is for an exit strategy. And whether you like the UN or you loath the UN or you have a completely utilitarian view of the UN, the UN is the indispensable mechanism for real burden sharing and for an exit strategy. I also told my friends you know who thought it was a pretty unpleasant metaphor, that they would hug the baby but when it got shitty nappies they would look around for someone to hand it over to, and the nappies are beginning to reek.
MUSIC ENDS
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