In his interim report on corruption in the United Nations' oil-for-food program, Paul Volcker found there wasn't enough evidence to prove U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan steered contracts to a Swiss firm that employed his son. That was enough for Annan to declare Volcker "has cleared me of any wrongdoing."

		Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).

That view isn't universally shared.

"We did not exonerate Kofi Annan," Swiss organized crime expert Mark Pieth, one of Volcker's three investigators, told The Associated Press.

The Scotsman newspaper noted that Volcker faulted Annan for an "inadequate" inquiry when the oil-for-food scandal first broke.

"Under Mr. Annan, the U.N. allowed the food-for-oil program to degenerate into a corrupt empire in which Saddam Hussein bribed numerous U.N. and other diplomats to turn their backs while he looted his country and starved its people," the Scotsman said in an editorial.

In an editorial headlined: "Report Spells the End of Kofi Annan," the Montreal Gazette noted that Annan's then executive assistant destroyed three years worth of files on Oil for Food the day after the Security Council passed a resolution authorizing Volcker's inquiry.

"Just connect the dots," the newspaper said. "What a damning picture it is. Its reputation already in tatters, the U.N. stands today weaker than it ever was. Only major governance reforms can save the world body now, and the first order of reform business needs to be finding a credible replacement for Annan."

Volcker did his level best not to connect the dots. His is like the investigation that CBS commissioned into last year's Rathergate scandal, which was more concerned with protecting the network's reputation than in getting at the truth. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Oil-for-food is surely one of the largest financial scandals in the history of the world, but it is hardly the United Nations' only problem. There are the sex scandals involving U.N. peacekeepers in the Congo and elsewhere, and the United Nations' inability or unwillingness to put a halt to genocide in Darfur. The United Nations came late and brought little to the aid of victims of last December's tsunami.

"Up until four or five days ago ... the U.N. was nowhere to be seen -- except quite overwhelmingly in Jakarta's luxury hotels, a few UNocrats in Medan, and a tiny handful at the airport in Aceh writing up press releases claiming all the credit for the U.N. and bad-mouthing the hard working Aussies and Americans," wrote the Diplomad, a blogging foreign service officer involved in the relief effort in Indonesia, on Jan. 27, a month after the tsunami struck.

On March 21, Annan announced proposals to "reform" the United Nations. The thrust of his proposals is to dilute U.S. influence on the Security Council, while trebling what the United States will be expected to contribute in aid. The Bush administration is not enthusiastic. But while others were howling for his head after the Volcker report came out, the administration issued a tepid endorsement of the embattled Annan.

I think that was the right thing to do. Annan is corrupt, incompetent and anti-American, but not notably more so than his predecessor. And in order to keep his job, the normally dictator-friendly Annan is more likely to insist that Bashar Assad, Syria's weak-chinned strongman, get his army and his Gestapo out of Lebanon pronto.

The United Nations requires real reform, but that's more likely to occur after Annan twists in the wind a while. Just putting a new secretary-general atop the rotten edifice changes little.

I get a lot of e-mail from people who want the United States out of the United Nations, and who assume I agree with them. I don't. Winston Churchill was right when he said "jaw-jaw is better than war-war." The United Nations is where jaw-jaw takes place. A United Democracies won't work. We need to talk to countries like China and Russia which aren't.

Annan's term expires at the end of next year. Bill Clinton would love to replace him. But no citizen of a permanent member of the Security Council should get the job. It should go to a genuine democrat of unquestioned integrity and demonstrable guts, such as former Czech President Vaclav Havel, current Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar or Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.