On reforming the UN

The mere mention of reform suggests cool breezes and the promise of better days ahead. Especially when the entity slated for reform is an increasingly irrelevant United Nations characterized by endless talk and inaction.

Just one problem: It will be difficult for any reforms to build confidence in the UN until it extricates itself from an Oil-for-Food quagmire largely of its own making. While Secretary General Kofi Annan airs reform proposals from a blue-ribbon advisory panel, damning revelations continue to reveal how the Oil-for-Food scandal propped up Saddam Hussein and victimized suffering Iraqis.

So while in theory reform is appealing, it can't be an excuse for the UN to shrink from its most urgent imperative: exposing and seeing to the punishment of every government, every company and every influential individual who illicitly profited from Oil- for-Food. -- Chicago Tribune