Annan Defends U.N. Approach Toward Baghdad

In a speech designed to answer critics in the Clinton administration that he has not been firm enough in dealing with Saddam Hussein, Secretary-General Kofi Annan pledged Tuesday that he will do everything in his power to avoid having the Security Council stymied by Iraq.

“A divided council can, and has in the past, paralyzed the United Nations,” Annan told members of the Council on Foreign Relations in what was billed as a major policy address. “I must and will do all in my power to avoid such a fate on this or any other matter before us.”

As he defended his approach in dealing with Baghdad, Annan stressed that his goal has never been in question: winning full compliance with “all relevant” Security Council resolutions, disarming Iraq, re-integrating its people into the international community and securing the stability of the Persian Gulf region.

Some critics in the Clinton administration and the U.S. media have questioned Annan’s effectiveness, arguing that he has been too ready to strike a deal with the Iraqi president.

In his speech, Annan said the core responsibility of the secretary-general in the search for peace remains advancing the interests of all states and not appearing to serve the narrow interests of any state or group of nations.

“Without a doubt,” he confessed, “it is sometimes tempting to give in to one’s feelings of personal outrage at specific transgressions, especially when doing so would win political popularity in some quarters.

“But it would betray the larger obligation to prevent aggression and preserve the peace,” Annan said. “It is a luxury I cannot afford. The integrity, impartiality and independence of the office of secretary-general are too important to be so easily sacrificed.”

Annan said the Cold War’s end ushered in a new era at the U.N., removing “automatic restraints” on where a secretary-general could go to pursue peace. The new climate, he said, invites new responsibilities and greater risks.

He said he has sought to make his office a bully pulpit, with the goal of promoting tolerance, democracy, human rights and good governance.

Annan listed another goal: ensuring the effectiveness of the United Nations as a guarantor of international peace and security.

He said he must deal with the world “not as I would wish it would be, but as it is. I must confront it with a sense of reality about how far a leader can be pushed by peaceful means and how long it will take to bring peace to a state of war.

“Does this make me, or anyone in my position, by definition morally blind? Can a secretary-general not therefore tell good from evil, or victim from aggressor?

“Of course he can, and precisely for that reason he must persist,” Annan added, “for it is ultimately the aggressor more often than the victim who will benefit from isolation and abandonment by the international community.”

In describing his efforts to bring Baghdad into line, Annan said he visited the Iraqi capital last February to break an impasse and to return the U.N. Special Commission to its work of dismantling Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

He said that, as a result, Iraq briefly complied and arms searchers were able to inspect sites where they had been denied entry.

Annan said that sometimes when the council is divided, its members have turned to him to try to break the impasse.

“I think by and large I’ve worked well with the council,” Annan said. “We have a good relationship.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.