U.N. aid?

After Hurricane Katrina struck, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a Sept. 1 statement "offering ... heartfelt sympathy, and any assistance the United Nations can give."\nReally, Kofi? Any assistance?\nI appreciate the United Nations' offer. As of Sept. 8, it had sent teams to Baton Rouge, La., Denton, Texas, and the Little Rock Air Force Base to help coordinate international assistance. It was also mobilizing (or trying to mobilize) relief activities via the U.N. Children's Fund and the World Health Organization (United Nations press release, Sept. 8). It's possible the United Nations' "coordination" will amount to little more than meetings about meetings and reports about reporting on the progress of reporting -- but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.\nHowever, if the United Nations is really serious about contributing, its officials need not even leave New York. With hurricane relief and reconstruction costs exceeding $51.8 billion, Washington will need its pennies; and by improving its functioning, the United Nations can help us conserve them (CNN, Sept. 9).\nFirst, following the Volcker Commission's final report on the Oil-For-Food Scandal, it'd be a boon if the United Nations actually took reform seriously. Just imagine if, after paying our membership dues, we didn't have to spend more tax revenues to extinguish crises that timely U.N. intervention could've handled. Sure, sometimes we'll have to do things the United Nations cannot (i.e. knock heads) -- but it's easy to recall cases where an ounce of U.N. prevention would have been worth a pound of U.S. cure. For example, if Oil-For-Food hadn't funneled money to Saddam's coffers, maybe an invasion wouldn't have been necessary.\nSecond, a 1998-1999 U.N. Development Corporation study found the United Nations' New York headquarters to be badly in need of renovation (www.undc.org). Judging by my last visit to U.N. headquarters, I agree -- the decoration clearly emerged from a Cold War compromise. But in May, The New York Sun reported the plan's estimated cost to be $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has testified before the U.S. Senate that the project could be done for $500 million (Senate floor statement of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., April 6). And while I'm not inclined to believe "The Donald" on matters of hair care, marriage or subtle good taste -- he did make his fortune in the New York construction market.\nFinally, while we struggle with the aftermath of a huge natural disaster, maybe the United Nations could hold off calling us "stingy" for 20 minutes? Yet again, the U.N. Human Development Report has classed the United States among "the least generous donors" (International Herald Tribune, Sept. 9) -- ignoring that Americans tend to give through the private sector rather than via government. Sure, we could do more -- especially by fostering free trade in agriculture. \nBut with the Volcker Committee report specifying how Kofi Annan's son Kojo used his father's name to avoid paying $20,000 in taxes on his Mercedes to his own impoverished country of Ghana (Reuters, Sept. 7), the United Nations might want to think about its own glass house before pitching stones.