Bolton’s bearings

Last week, a federal prosecutor issued the first indictments in the U.N.’s Oil For Food corruption fiasco.

I chuckled when a correspondent for the Nation magazine quickly dubbed Oil for Food a “Texas scandal” — a wisecrack drawn from the decadent left’s “Bomb Bush not Baghdad” joke book. Its pop sloganeering is designed to scourge the critic, while denying the central problem.

That narrow spin didn’t survive one 24-hour news cycle — the international facts simply savaged the sophistry. A Texas-based corporation with Bulgarian and British operatives engaged in a kickback scheme run by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Then the prosecutor added South Korean bagman Park Tongsun.

Mr. Park — central figure in the Koreagate bribery and influence peddling scheme — is said to have received up to $2 million from Saddam. The prosecution has evidence Mr. Park was directed to use the cash to “take care of one of the U.N. officials with whom Park negotiated.” The “U.N. officials” are yet unnamed, but in report after report former Oil for Food director Benon Sevan’s name flashes like a cheap neon sign.

This complex international sewer of crime and criminals has splattered Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s office. While no evidence has emerged linking Mr. Annan to the crimes, there’s no denying the damage to his reputation and credibility. Charges Mr. Annan’s son, Kojo Annan, and Kojo’s employer, Cotecna, breached ethical rules and tried to illegally influence an Oil for Food contract still tag the secretary-general.

Though Mr. Annan claims Paul Volcker’s second “interim report” on Oil for Food cleared him, the truth is Mr. Volcker’s investigation reveals — at the minimum — a sad and serious trail of incompetent management.

This leads to the still-pending Senate vote on John Bolton, the Bush administration’s nominee as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. While Washington’s political fencing over the Bolton nomination has reached the aaaa — with Democrats even complaining about Mr. Bolton’s haircut — not all Bolton opponents play the political game of “scourge the critic but deny the problem.” Honest opponents believe Mr. Bolton lacks the diplomatic finesse to do two things:

(1) Cooperate with the U.N. agencies that do work (e.g., U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees).

(2) And lead the necessary reform.

Sincere opponents believe Mr. Bolton’s confrontational style will increase animosity and political polarization at the United Nations (leading to further diplomatic difficulties for the United States), and not resolve the institutional corruption and incompetence they know exist.

I’m a U.N. reformer — with a long train of paper supporting that position. If Mr. Bolton intends to destroy the U.N., he is not the man for the job. But I think Mr. Bolton is a reformer, and here’s the chief indicator: He’s a committed Bush team member — and that team knows Job One is to win the War on Terror.

A functioning, accountable United Nations is a U.S. ally in this war, and would be extremely useful in fostering the economic and political stability required to truly defeat terror.

No bureaucracy moves unless either led or pushed. Kofi Annan is not providing leadership — the Volcker report damns him for mismanagement. That means someone has to push for reform, and Mr. Bolton has the guts to push.

Pushing necessarily entails a form of confrontation — and Mr. Bolton has the reputation and spine to handle both the overt and covert ends of diplomatic jousting. In these circumstances, a tough cop reputation is a plus.

Pushing, however, must have a direction. That’s why Mr. Bolton must have a plan on hand — a plan that emphasizes organizational reform based on holding the United Nations accountable. Accountability punishes corruption, penalizes incompetence and rewards competence. That should be Mr. Bolton’s pitch to sincere U.N. staffers — Oil for Food didn’t feed people, it fed thugs’ pocketbooks. If you want to do the job, let’s do it right.

Austin Bay is a nationally syndicated columnist.