Bush, Annan Tout the Role of the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS — In a rare show of unity after a bruising week for the U.N., President Bush joined U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday in saying that no country can stand alone against the 21st century challenges of terrorism, disease and natural disasters.
Both leaders also chided the world body's member nations for blocking key reforms aimed at making the United Nations more able to tackle those challenges, even though many diplomats felt the U.S. was one of the countries responsible.
But Bush also surprised delegates by reversing U.S. stances on trade and development that had nearly scuttled weeks of negotiation on the reforms.
"To spread a vision of hope, the United States is determined to help nations that are struggling with poverty," Bush said. "We are committed to the Millennium Development Goals."
Those goals include cutting poverty and hunger in half, ensuring universal education and stemming the spread of AIDS by 2015.
"In this young century, the far corners of the world are linked more closely than ever before, and no nation can remain isolated and indifferent to the struggles of others," Bush said in a keynote speech at the opening of the three-day World Summit.
In an address that was at once global and aimed at home, Bush noted that the United States was in the unusual position of receiving aid from abroad after Hurricane Katrina, and thanked the 115 nations that had offered money and help.
"The world is more compassionate and hopeful when we act together," Bush said. "This truth was the inspiration for the United Nations."
Although Washington had endorsed the eight Millennium Development Goals at the 2000 summit and again in the so-called Monterrey Consensus statement, U.S. negotiators feared that targets related to the goals would require the U.S. to increase foreign aid.
The goals were restored at the last minute in a U.S.-crafted compromise that saved the talks from collapse.
Nonetheless, delegates and U.N. officials had not expected Bush to publicly endorse the goals in front of more than 150 world leaders.
"That was a big deal," said Mark Malloch Brown, Annan's chief of staff and the former head of the U.N. Development Program. "They are not standing in the way of it, and that is real progress."
Some diplomats saw Bush's emphasis on development as an attempt to defuse the sentiment here that the United States was one of the spoilers of the summit document, which now falls far short of Annan's original ambitions.
