Moderator: Welcome to Viewpoint with our guest, Barbara Crossette. Barbara, thank you for joining us. Let's begin with this question: What is the fundamental mission of the United Nations?

Barbara Crossette: Thank you for inviting me.

When the United Nations was founded in 1945, after the end of World War II, its fundamental mission was to establish a permanent system of peace and security. The founders also sought to find some way to guarantee economic security. That led to the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- both part of the U.N. system. Over the decades that followed, of course, new challenges arose, and the United Nations picked up many other missions, including human rights and the development of poor, newly independent nations. It now has many, many functions, but most people still think of it primarily as the place for discussing war and peace.

College Park, Md.: How is it different covering the U.N. than say, domestic stories?

Barbara Crossette: Covering the United Nations is covering the politics of 191 nations -- not to mention cultures and religions that enter into decisions and policies made by governments and diplomats. There is no one government to use as a focal point, though the United States is obviously the center of power -- for good or bad -- in many United Nations activities and decisions. There is also no powerful leadership at the U.N. -- no president or prime minister. The Secretary General can do pretty much only what he is ordered or asked to do by member nations in the Security Council or General Assembly. Many people don't realize this. Finally, the United Nations is everywhere in the world doing thousands of things we never see unless we look for them. It is a far greater presence abroad than in the U.S.

Moderator: How would you describe the differences in the U.N.'s role in the world before and after 9/11?

Barbara Crossette: The U.N.'s role in the world has really changed very little if at all in the wake of September 11. It is the Unitd States that has changed most, from the shocked population to a government determined to pursue terrorism eveywhere with force. If the United Nations has new roles, it is in rebuilding societies that have been attacked -- starting with Afghanistan during the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Iraq could be its biggest rebuilding job ever. U.N. officials are already preparing contingency plans for that. These mopping-up and rebuilding operations consume huge amounts of U.N. resources, in people and funds.

Washington, D.C.: How is the U.N. regarded by foreign countries? How do you think it is regarded by Americans?

Barbara Crossette: When countries are poor, or under pressure from something like the HIV-AIDS epidemic, the U.N. is extremely important to governments as well as people down to the grass roots. The U.N.'s experts are everywhere working on day-to-day problems.
Diplomatically, the U.N. is also important for weaker, smaller countries because it is a forum where they all have voices -- sometimes distressingly loud ones, given their positions in the world. But this makes New York the world's most important diplomatic capital, where everyone is represented and everything is sooner or later discussed or argued.
The tragedy is that because most Americans do not have these same needs, the U.N. has a very low profile in the U.S., except among people involved in certain areas like international law, epidemic diseases, human rights and other issues. These people provide a lot of American know-how and are familiar with the good and bad points of U.N. work.
A lot of other Americans are very ignorant of the U.N. and how it works. Politicians are sometimes the worst informed.

Philadelphia, Pa.: How do you in general square the U.N.'s performance over the years with its original mandate?

Barbara Crossette: The U.N. is still there, and that in a sense implies it has a role, or many roles to play. Where there were the most glaring failures to act, it was often because of national policies not international decisions. The Cold War, for example, all but paralyzed the Security Council, and the former Soviet Union's championing of causes the U.S. found inimical made many Americans turn away. After the end of the Cold War there were new opportunities. Some nations believe the U.S. and other democracies did not do enough in the 1990s to steer the U.N. more clearly into stronger support for newly freed nations when they needed help most.
The U.N. has done very well in areas like health -- the World Health Organization -- in some areas of development and other fields. Now it is the center of a fundamental shift toward more effective international criminal justice, sadly without the United States.

Alexandria, Va.: I'd like to have a better understanding of the function of the Security Council. Thank you.

Barbara Crossette: This is an absolutely critical question. I'll have to try to condense the answer.
Essentially, the Security Council is a group of nations -- five permanent members with vetoes (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States) -- and 10 other members who are elected for two-year terms. They are the only body in the U.N. system with the power to order the use of force -- the question at the heart of the current Iraq debate.
But there is nothing automatic about the Security Council. It acts only as its most powerful members allow it or order it to act, and the most powerful member by far is the United States. So if the council does not do something Washington wants, it is not a "failure of the U.N." as some polticians like to say but rather a failure of the U.S. to make its case forcefully or persuasively enough. As an institution the United Nations and its Secretary General has no control at all over the Security Council.
A footnote: in recent years, the Council has becomne more involved in new fields like health and poverty and the treatment of women in countries in crisis. This is still a trend in its infancy, but an interesting one.
The Council can impose sanctions on countries, as well as send troops. But countries have to be persuaded to abide by these.

Washington, D.C.: In the wake of such horrific oversights on the part of the International Commununity, such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and now in the Congo and Burundi, how can journalists achieve greater success in bringing crises in the developing world to the forefront of international concern in an effort to avoid the shortfalls of the past?

Barbara Crossette: The truth is that in many of the kind of crises you mention, it was the United States that blocked action in the Security Council -- Rwanda is a good example -- and so the only way to draw attention to these critical areas is by arousing American public opinion. The press and television often report from these areas -- newspapers more than TV -- but the sad fact is that a crisis may have to reach a point of real horror before Americans say, Enough! and the government has to at least try to do something. Politicians have a big role to play. So do activists in the U.S. The press cannot alone draw attention and prompt action.

Chicago, Ill.: I would like to know the impact of new membership of countries from the former Soviet Union. Are those forming a potential strong coalition as a new established power within the United Nations? Thank you.

Barbara Crossette: The countries of the former Soviet Union -- and the wider Soviet bloc -- have not formed a strong coalition at the United Nations. They are often in a strange position, not wishing to side with Russia -- some like Georgia have real problems with Moscow -- but they are often not really democratic either. That would be true of the Central Asians. On the whole, these countries are not yet making their presence known within the U.N. system, in the agencies and programs and such. But some of them have sent good diplomats to New York to begin to build a role in the world.

Arlington, Va.: Really though, from your vast experience at the U.N., isn't it so large and so bureaucratic that real results are too often clouded and intangible? Is the U.N. really on the brink of irrelevancy?

Barbara Crossette: Depends what results you are thinking about. If it is an issue like Iraq, the U.N. as a big international institution can do nothing on its own. Its inpsectors in Iraq, for example, had a quite complex plan that they have not really been able to put into practice under the pressure to achieve instant results. They are, by the way, a group that includes some of the world's leading exeperts on all kinds of weapons and scientific processes. I see them called "bureaucrats" too often by columnists and others who have never met them or seen them at work.
I think where the U.N. has problems -- if I can explain this briefly -- is often in appointments to jobs in the field or elections to bodies controlled by nations, not the U.N. itself. For example, some countries say there are too many Westerners in U.N. jobs, and there should be "geograpical representation." Yet those countries often do not or cannot nominate highly qualified people, which the U.N. needs. It gets a lot of ringers that way.
And then you have the spectacle of something like the Human Rights Commission -- a body of 53 nations voting as nations -- electing human rights abusers. The U.N. can do nothing about that if a group of shortsighted nations decides to promote this kind of behavior and have the votes to do it.
Americans need to politic more around the world to cut back on this behavior.

Spain: What do you think about President Aznar?

Barbara Crossette: I don't, of course, report from Spain, but it is interesting to see him come to prominence among the countries supporting the United States on Iraq. This has certainly given him a higher profile.

Washington, D.C.: From a reporter's perspective, do you feel that in a situation like the arms inspections in Iraq, a journalist is given adequate access to both the inspections teams and the Iraqi government's facilities? Does the constant presence of the Iraqi military sway the journalist's reporting?

Barbara Crossette: I have been in Iraq only twice as a reporter, and so my direct experience is limited. But I can say that the government of Iraq gives reporters no access that is not of value to the regime of Saddam Hussein. It is literally not possible to wander around Iraq unattended. And you'll notice that almost every TV report is boadcast from the same location on the roof of an Iraqi ministry building (look at the background).
The arms inspectors are more open, but of course do not take reporters on inspections for a variety of reasons, not least of all logistics and secrecy. But they do have a good spokesman in Iraq who briefs reporters. And there are other UN people there, with UNICEF or the Food and Agriculture Organization, for example, who talk freely -- and are often very much against sanctions and American threats of war because they are on the side of the people.
But nobody is fooled by the regime. It is probably the world's most terrifying place to live.

Fairfax, Va.: What can you say about the U.S. rejoining UNESCO? Is UNESCO now worthy of U.S. reentry?

Barbara Crossette: All I know is that many American scholars believe that the United States should return. UNESCO has changed a lot -- maybe not enough bureaucratically, but that's another story (there are well known sinecures there).
Still, UNESCO is taking the lead in deciding what to do about restoring the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, for example, and it has led a campaign to find ancient artifacts being smuggled out of places like Iraq.
As always, the strongest armgument for rejoining is that American expertise is badly needed there.

Arlington, Va.: I just read that Libya is going to lead the committee on human rights and Iraq is going to lead the committee on disarmament (or vice versa). When Americans hear stories like that how are we supposed to take this body seriously?

Barbara Crossette: Quick reply, since I answered a similar question. It isn't the U.N. that made those choices, but the member nations, often acting in regional groups. Good case for aggressively promoting more democracy everywhere.

West Palm Beach, Fla.: How would you describe the leadership of Secretary General Kofi Annan?

Barbara Crossette: Kofi Annan took this job in the worst of circumstances. American opinion of the U.N. was at a low ebb, and the Clinton administration had made a brutal show of essentially kicking out his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an erudite Egyptian who was regarded by many as arrogant and too secretive (no space here to comment on that).
Annan has opened up the U.N., letting people speak. He has reformed the top of the bureaucracy with a kind of cabinet system that makes people who run agencies and programs talk with each other instead of guarding their little empires and working at cross purposes or duplicating each other's work.
He has improved morale inside the organization, which has suffered such severe budget cuts, thanks mostly to the U.S., that there isn't even water available at a conference any more, and people have to wear their coats to the auditorium.
He has also cultivated as many important Americans as he can drawing in people like Bill Gates and others to help the U.N.'s work in the poorest countries.

Washington, D.C.: Should Bush defy the U.N. by going to war, what will this mean for future U.S/U.N. relations?

Barbara Crossette: American relations with the U.N. are being hurt far more by other policies: the rejection of the International Criminal Court and the cutting off of money to the U.N.'s Population Fund are just two. Both have distressed good friends of the U.S. and given ammunition to our enemies. There are other issues that have an impact in poor nations, often out of sight of Americans -- who then wonder why people say they don't like us.

Falls Church, Va.: Is President Chirac just a modern Neville Chamberlain? The French seem to be proving their tolerance of profound human rights violations all over again. Can they continue to push Germany and other European nations around?

Barbara Crossette: Most Europeans would say that the French are, alas, being French again.
Robert Mugabe is in Paris today, contrary to the wishes of many Zimbabweans and others around the world. There was de Gaulle and his attitude toward NATO and European unity. It goes way back.
A lot of Europeans say that the French eventually come around, but there is no doubt that there have to be dangers in allowing somene like Saddam Hussein to think that he has effectively crippled the Western alliance.

Washington, D.C.: What are your thoughts on N. Korea and the policies of its neighbors (and the U.S.) toward it?

Barbara Crossette: My own opinion is that the U.S. is wisely letting the neighbors take the lead. You'll see that Japan is already talking of striking North Korea if threatened. That will make for a stronger alliance if the worst happens.
South Korea is a problem, but the North may make enough provocative gestures to turn opinion around there also.

Barbara Crossette: Thank all of you very much for taking part.
It just proves that Americans are very interested and well informed about international affairs.

Moderator: Our thanks to Barbara Crossette, UN Wire and all who participated.