Helen Thomas

WASHINGTON -- With the three branches of the U.S. government in Republican hands, President Bush is trying to pack the United Nations with more “yes men.”

But he is finding his power is limited when he approaches the world organization where there is strong opposition to his war of choice against Iraq and go-it-alone foreign policy.

The first target on his purge list appears to be U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who first ran afoul of the Bush White House when he had the audacity to call the Iraq invasion “illegal.”

When Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and a few other lawmakers called for Annan’s resignation earlier this month after accusing him of presiding over the corrupt U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq, Bush conspicuously refused to voice support for the secretary general. Annan, who has two more years to serve before completing his second five-year term, has not been accused of corruption, but his son Kojo allegedly accepted payments from a program subcontractor, making them look like kickbacks.

While the United States was playing hard ball with Annan, the 191-member General Assembly gave him a standing ovation and apparently forced the United States to back off. Annan also received solicitous calls of support from the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Russia and Australia.

When it became clear which way the wind was blowing, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth summoned reporters to express confidence in Annan and to say that he was speaking for the Bush administration in wanting the secretary general to stay on the job. Danforth said he wanted to clear up any misconception that the United States was not supporting Annan and he praised the secretary-general’s “personal integrity.” The next U.S. target was Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who does not always sing from the same hymnal with America on Iraq and Iran.

The agency is the watchdog to ensure compliance with the Treaty on Nuclear Non Proliferation. According to the Washington Post, U.S. intelligence eavesdropped on ElBaradei’s Vienna operations, apparently looking for information to discredit him.

John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, has had it in for ElBaradei for a long time. Bolton is the hit man in the drive to rid the U.N. of critics of U.S. policy.

In the eyes of administration hardliners, ElBaradei’s major failing is that pre-war inspections by his staff failed to find nuclear weapons in Iraq. That did not fit into the administration’s insistence that Saddam was harboring weapons of mass destruction. Nor did ElBaradei provide the support Bush wanted to take out Saddam.

In 1998, ElBaradei reported that Iraq was in substantial compliance with the U.N. resolution prohibiting it from possessing unconventional weapons.

After Bush contended in 2002 that Saddam had a nuclear weapons arsenal and could be giving nukes to terrorists within a year, ElBaradei and his inspectors went back into Iraq and checked again. On March 7, 2003, he reported there was no evidence of a revival of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. That did not stop the United States and Britain from attacking Iraq 12 days later.

Bolton and his cohorts also are unhappy with ElBaradei for seeking to deal diplomatically with Iran on nuclear questions. Several years ago in Geneva, the 10 top nation-contributors to U.N. organizations decided that heads of U.N. agencies should serve only two terms.

Last September, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that he thought the two-term rule was a “good rule” and that ElBaradei should step aside when his second term was over.

Meantime, ElBaradei has lined up support to stay on even though the administration has put the heat on him to step down when his second term ends in September.

Press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday the White House wants ElBaradei to be limited to two terms, This is not the first time Bolton has earned the title of the “terminator” at the United Nations. His first coup was to maneuver the ouster in 2002 of respected Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, by threatening to cut off its funding. Bustani’s crime was to urge Saddam to get rid of his chemical weapons peacefully.

If the purge of ElBaradei is successful, it will be seen for what it is -- an act of vengeance by a superpower anxious to impose its will on the world organization.

(Helen Thomas can be reached at 202-263-6400 or at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com)

(c) 2004 Hearst Newspapers