Secret Meeting, Clear Mission: 'Rescue' U.N. -NYT

[Rose Siding]

The meeting of veteran foreign policy experts in a Manhattan apartment one recent Sunday was held in strict secrecy. The guest of honor arrived without his usual retinue of aides.

The mission, in the words of one participant, was clear: "to save Kofi and rescue the U.N."

At the gathering, Secretary General Kofi Annan listened quietly to three and a half hours of bluntly worded counsel from a group united in its personal regard for him and support for the United Nations. The group's concern was that lapses in his leadership during the past two years had eclipsed the accomplishments of his first four-year term in office and were threatening to undermine the two years remaining in his final term.

They began by arguing that Mr. Annan had to refresh his top management team, and on Monday he will announce that Mark Malloch Brown, 51, the widely respected administrator of the United Nations Development Program, will become Mr. Annan's chief of staff, replacing Iqbal Riza, who announced his retirement on Dec. 22.

Their larger argument, according to participants, addressed two broad needs. First, they said, Mr. Annan had to repair relations with Washington, where the Bush administration and many in Congress thought he and the United Nations had worked against President Bush's re-election. Second, he had to restore his relationship with his own bureaucracy, where many workers said privately that his office protected high-level officials accused of misconduct....

http://nytimes.com/2005/01/03/international/03nations.html?hp&ex=1104728400&en=62e26d14bada21df&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[rfranklin]

1. Somewhat difficult to repair relations with an administration that...

wants to destory the United Nations.

[keopeli]

2. Another example of Bush* in the media

Watch as the NYT descends further into corporate fiefdom.

This "secret meeting" article reeks of "created" news.

Whoever the initiator, articles like this are designed to adjust and temper the public, and have little to do with reality unless you can read between the lines.

Sounds to me like Bush* wants to repair his image and believes it starts with the UN, so he's planting public stories to make it look like Kofi has to back down. behind the scenes, who knows what's really happening.

[bemildred]

3. Doesn't seen to be all that secret now.

I think this is propaganda and horseshit.

[leesa]

4. Another planted junk story by the NYT to support the war

criminal and traitor Bush. The UN is just fine. It is the US that has become irrelevant.

[Just Me]

5. The Busholinis are the ones who attacked the "relevance" of the UN,...

,...are the ones who ignored UN authority,...are the ones who violated international and US constitutional law,...and are certainly, at least, complicit in the problems associated with the "oil-for-food" program.

This story is simply another corporate endeavor to shift responsibility unto the wrong body. When will this administration be held responsible for its own actions?