World News 03-12-2004 Bush: No Comment On Annan Scandal who: George W Bush what: Refuses to say if he thinks Kofi Annan should quit over Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal where: Washington DC when: Yesterday snippet: "President Bush increased the pressure on Kofi Annan over the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal yesterday," says The Times, "pointedly declining to endorse the UN Secretary-General. Mr Bush was asked twice if he thought Mr Annan should resign, and he twice ducked the issue." "I look forward to the full disclosure of the facts, a good, honest appraisal of that which went on," says the president. "It`s important for the integrity of the organisation to have a full and open disclosure of all that took place with the oil-for-food programme." An editorial in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday called for Mr Annan`s resignation after it emerged that Saddam Hussein had effectively stolen $21billion of UN aid and that Mr Annan`s son, Kojo, worked for a Swiss company, Cotecna, which was charged with overseeing the proper spending of the money. "There is no love lost between the Bush administration and Mr Annan, who declared the US-led invasion of Iraq to be illegal," remarks Anne Penketh, diplomatic editor of The Independent. "Britain, France, China and Russia, expressed support for Mr Annan yesterday, but the US pays a quarter of the UN`s budget and could make life difficult for the Ghanaian secretary general - as it did for his predecessor Boutros Boutros-Ghali, whom it refused to back for a second term." Meanwhile, the BBC reports that Mr Bush has chosen former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik to replace Tom Ridge as America`s homeland security secretary. And the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth - a former Republican senator for Missouri who was only appointed in July and had been tipped as a possible candidate for vice-president in 2008 - has resigned "to spend more time with his family". [... more]

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