Kofi Annan Must Stay

Sen. Norm Coleman, chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, writes in today's WSJ that Kofi Annan Must Go:

While many questions concerning Oil-for-Food remain unanswered, one conclusion has become abundantly clear: Kofi Annan should resign. The decision to call for his resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the U.N.'s collective nose.

Mr. Annan was at the helm of the U.N. for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.'s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses. The consequences of the U.N.'s ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.

While I agree with the premise that Kofi and the boys are guilty as hell and should be held accountable; I don't believe we should be demanding his resignation. Agreed, while he is at the helm it may be impossible to ascertain the extant of the corruption, but we already know the institution is corrupt and we are gathering volumns of info daily on the food for oil boondoggle (interestingly, Halliburton, Cheney and Bush were not among those receiving illegal payments...).

Demanding Kofi Annan's departure could only help the U.N. We don't need to help the U.N., we need to remove ourselves and our money from it. Let him stay! Demand that he stay! Right now the U.N. is next to irrelevant. Let's keep it that way.

More about the U.N. here and here : staffers and third world thugs rally in support of Kofi.

No official comment on Annan resignation call.