His Tenure and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I apologize for being late, but I'm less than 30 minutes late so I'm beating my average. This is my last press conference in this capacity. I am extremely honored that so many of you have turned out to see a future has-been. (Laughter.)

I have no opening statement except to say that it has been an honor to hold this job. I have enjoyed almost every minute of it. There were a couple at 4:00 in the morning on the Scale of Assessments that I didn't enjoy so much.

I think we have accomplished a great deal and left the UN in a stronger position, and America's position in the UN in better shape, and public and congressional support for the UN stronger than it was when we got here. I'm not going to give you a list of achievements; we'll just let that evolve during the question and answers. But we're leaving feeling good about what we accomplished.

And in particular I want to say something to all of you because I have worked with a lot of press corps in the last 30 years, some of them good, some of them terrible, some of them very serious, and others have just looked for ways to make trouble. I consider the press corps that covers the UN among the most serious. I would put you at the same level as the professional press corps that covered the war in the Balkans, as serious people who care about the issues and master them. And I am very, very pleased to have worked with you. Many of you in this room I've gotten to know individually. I'm sorry I didn't get to know all of you individually, but it's been a great pleasure to work with you, and I hope to stay in touch with you as a private citizen.

So I would be happy to take any questions you have. Just identify yourselves, please.

Q (Inaudible.) What lessons should we draw from the fact that the -- (inaudible) -- against Iraq have not accomplished a satisfactory situation there and have left the Security Council very divided?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: This is a very, very difficult question because you're asking the question in the same way one might, in the middle of a sports event, say, "What lessons can we conclude from this event," before you know what its final outcome is. I believe the effort to contain Iraq, while it is far from satisfactory, has been better than any absence at all to do this.

But the lack of sufficient solidarity among the enforcing nations and the voting nations has undermined it to some extent, and Saddam Hussein's activities continue to be unacceptable and, in my view, dangerous to the region, and indeed to the world, not only because he possesses the potential for weapons of mass destruction but because of the very nature of his regime. His willingness to be cruel internally is not unique in the world, but the combination of that and his willingness to export his problems makes him a clear and present danger at all times. And the next Administration will have to deal with this problem, which we inherited from our predecessors and they now inherit from us.

Q My name is Paolo Mastrolilli. I am the UN correspondent for Vatican Radio. I have two short questions. The first is about the UN Security Council. I would like to know if you think that the reform -- (inaudible) -- possible and if the 2 + 3 formula -- (inaudible).

The second one was about the depleted uranium debate that is going on in Europe. According to a UN study, 8 out of 11 sites that have been analyzed have shown the presence of radioactivity. I would like to know if you think that this kind of news can create a real division among the NATO allies.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: On your first question on Security Council reform, Security Council reform is essential as part of the larger reform effort of the UN. As you all know, I pledged to the Senate during my confirmation hearings in June of 1999 that reform would be my highest priority. And we did that.

Two days ago, I reported to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on our reform efforts. We are very proud of what we have accomplished. In fact, what we accomplished vis-ŕ-vis reform and the money we liberated in Washington amounts to a historic turning point in US-UN relations and a historic evolution in congressional attitudes towards the UN, and puts the UN in a position to significantly strengthen itself.

But reform is not yet fully achieved. In fact, I don't know what organization can claim it's perfectly reformed. Everything needs to improve. The UN still has many areas which need to be cleaned up.

Before I get to the Security Council, I want to mention one or two others. We are still not satisfied with the implementation of the Brahimi Report. The Report has only been implemented by about 30 percent. I think the ACABQ's decision to reduce the recommendations of Louise Frechette and her implementation was appalling. I am extremely critical of the ACABQ for what they did, and they should be embarrassed that they killed or deferred the third Assistant Secretary General for DPKO. They actually killed a position that the Secretary General had reserved for the troop-contributing nations.

And I ask you how troop-contributing nations' representatives in the ACABQ voted against their own interests. It was really strange. They also cut the number of posts she recommended from 150 to 95. And I hope the UN -- I urge the UN to return to the Brahimi Report and continue to implement it.

Secondly, DPI, the Office of Public Information, all of you know that it is still a swollen mess, and I hope the next Director General, the next Under Secretary General of DPI, will cut that swollen office. I know that there are going to be member-states in the UN that are going to protest because they are afraid that their friends or relatives are going to lose jobs. Well, nobody needs to be fired, but attrition can be done effectively. And we don't need 120 people in the library here in New York; we don't need 130 outmoded technologically dated offices all over the world; we do not need to translate in paper every word in the UN into its official languages. All of us can use modern technologies to save money and time and personnel. So reform is an on-going issue.

Now, you asked about the Security Council. We all agree that the Security Council is the most important body in the UN system because of its unique character and the fact that it has acquired over the last 55 years the position of the highest legitimizing body in the world for the use of force. And we also understand that it ought to be reformed.

In April of last year, the United States announced -- I did this myself -- announced that we would now move beyond 21 as the limit that my predecessors had set for membership in the Security Council. We said we would go to a higher number, provided the effectiveness of the Security Council was not eroded. We were asked to be specific, but we were not; we said we'd discuss it. But people talked about 23, 24, 25, 26. You talk about 2 + 3 and so on; that's one of the formulas.

This is an issue for my successor and for the next Administration to deal with. I recommend again -- and I have already discussed this with General Powell -- I recommend that we work on an increased Security Council. It's an important thing to do, but not at expense of effectiveness.

And this brings me to the core of your question, as you posed it, and I want to be precise. You didn't say, "Is it desirable?" You said, "Is it possible?" It is desirable. Now, is it possible? You work for an organization based in Rome. You ask the Italians, you ask the Germans, ask Pakistan and India and Nigeria and Egypt and South Africa and Brazil and Argentina and Chile and Mexico. Now, I deliberately picked that group of countries because the United States position is quite simple: a larger Security Council, including Japan and Germany as Permanent Members.

But the list I just named, every one of those countries has its own view. And I left out one -- Spain. And I haven't even mentioned the smaller nations that want a larger Security Council but no new Permanent Members.

Sorting this out is going to be every bit as hard as the Scale of Assessments was, and as you all know, I've spent the entire last year working that problem. And the same kind of politics will be involved.

So my answer to your question, as specifically stated, "Is it possible," is, "I have no idea." (Laughter.) But I can tell you one thing, and I speak here specifically to my friends in the European Union: Unless and until the European Union straightens out a common position on Security Council reform, there will not be reform. The Africans and the Latin Americans, I am absolutely certain, can sort their own problems out once the EU has got its act together. And I believe the Asians, with a little more difficulty, will be able to.

So if people want Security Council reform, the EU will have to come up with a unified position, and that is not going to be easy. The US is prepared for this discussion. We were prepared. We wanted to initiate it in April, and it really never took off. Why? Because the EU, under the Portuguese and French presidencies, could not deal with the issue. And each time the Germans made a proposal, it was blocked by someone else, and vice versa.

Q About uranium?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: About what?

Q Uranium.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Oh, you know, it's sort of outside the UN situation. I knew nothing about it till I read it in the papers. The article -- the stories disturbed me greatly, but not knowing the technical details I think it would be unwise of me to comment on it.

Q I'm Carol -- (inaudible) -- from Bloomberg. Going back to the Iraq question, I'm wondering if the incoming Bush Administration has designated this as, I guess, a major hot spot. And they're talking about --

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Iran or Iraq?

Q Iraq.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I'm sorry. I misheard you.

Q Talking about the fact that the sanctions need to be strengthened, not weakened. Do you have advice, or do you have some sort of way of looking at this situation and saying what will happen next?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: My advice to General Powell, who is an old friend, is confidential, and I'm not going to give advice to my successors. I respect Colin Powell. I know him as a friend. I think he is going to be a great Secretary of State. And he and I have talked regularly on many issues, especially UN dues issues. He is very, very supportive and pleased at the outcome of the negotiations with the UN and with the Senate over the last two days. But on this issue I will leave it to them to speak.

Is somebody in Washington going to ask questions? Do you want to switch to Washington? Why don't we take a question from Washington?

Q Ambassador Holbrooke, this is Thomas Gorguissian of Egyptian Daily News. You recently mentioned that the United Nations shouldn't be used as a "propaganda" in the case of the Middle East. But as we know it's used -- even if it's not propaganda, it's used as a forum for Iraq.

What is the criteria of pick-and-choose approach for the issues to be handled in the United Nations?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I think you misunderstood my statements. I said the Security Council should not be used as a propaganda forum because it hurts both the UN and the Security Council's ability to play a constructive role.

On the question of Iraq, the Security Council voted unanimously to put into place Resolution 1284, and that resolution had teeth. The earlier question addressed the fact that it is no longer being fully implemented by every party. But that was not propaganda; that was the unanimous role of everyone involved.

What I have said is that I believe that the Security Council has an important role to play in that issue, but that that can only be done after the parties have reached some movement, and that the bringing it into the Security Council when one of the parties is totally opposed to it is unlikely to be productive. And I stick to that view. And I think the UN and the Mideast peace process are both hurt by that.

But I have no objection to people coming to New York and making very strong statements of national purpose. It is the use of the UN voting process to create crises rather than solve them that disturbs me. That was not the case in Iraq; it was the case in the last two UN resolutions in the Security Council and in the last resolution in the General Assembly.

Q Stefan Simons for the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. Given the fact that the new Administration seems to be set to go ahead with the implementation of a National Missile Defense program, how would it affect the transatlantic partnership with Europe?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Well, I will leave that to the Europeans to decide. Again, I am not going to use an official podium to second-guess my successors. I will reserve any comments on that issue for when I'm a private citizen.

Q Ambassador, Ronnie Berke with CNN. Before you keep referring to yourself as a future has-been, for those of us who have seen your great accomplishments in such a short time at the UN, perhaps you could just tell us what you feel will remain the greatest challenges for whoever becomes US Ambassador?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Well, on a narrow programmatic basis, I think it is to continue to get the UN to reform itself by constant pressure, and I'll talk in a minute about the technique that I think needs to be used.

On a case-by-case basis, on issues around the world, the worst time that my successor is going to have this year will probably be in the Mideast, going back to the previous question from the man from Egypt, who seems to have left. I guess he didn't like my answer. (Laughter.) The Mideast is going to be very tough.

Kosovo. The status of Kosovo has got be resolved, and that has got to be preceded by a Kosovo-wide election. Unlike Bosnia, where the United States ran a conference held on an American airbase in Dayton, Ohio, this is going to be a UN show because of Resolution 1244. And it's going to be very, very tricky, a very complicated issue.

East Timor. We have to oversee the transition to the first new country of the 21st century. And while that one is in better shape than most, the Secretary General yesterday raised some concerns he had.

Iraq, a subject you have raised, is obviously going to be an unresolved issue. So the agenda is very full.

Now, one of the most striking things about the UN is the way it has grown continually in importance since the end of the Cold War, and yet it has not grown in effectiveness. And that goes back to the reform issue, and that is what we have to address. And I hope my successor will do one thing, which I believe I can say in all sincerity I did: I made the United Nations my job; I didn't use it as a platform to work on other issues, or to go off and do extraneous things. This is what I did. I pledged to the committee I would.

I didn't travel as much as my predecessors. I went to Washington very seldom. In my trips to Washington, I went to the Congress some 50 or 60 times, but I only set foot in the State Department about ten times in the last 17 months. My job was here. And I called on Ambassadors in their offices from countries like St. Kitts and the Solomon Islands, and the Micronesian States and Gabon and Belize. I mention these sites obviously for a reason. They are small countries, each one of which said they had never had a US Perm Rep come to their offices before. I got to know the Perm Reps here as individuals.

I would suggest that the quality of the diplomatic corps in New York is probably the best in the world. You have the best Ambassadors in terms of technical quality here. You have many former and future foreign ministers, prime ministers, and the occasional president. And while the US was extremely aggressive in the last 17 months, we were very visible, as you indicated. And you helped report that at CNN.

I do not think we were ever -- to use the word most often attached to the United States -- I don't think we were ever arrogant. We were aggressive and assertive, but not arrogant. We dealt with the concerns of every country, no matter how small. In the Scale of Assessments issue, we had tremendous problems. We disagreed strongly with some countries we had very close relations with, particularly the European Union. But we did it from a basis of respect. And I hope my successor, whoever he or she is, will use this job only as an end in itself, not as a launching pad or a platform for larger issues. This is a great job.

I was asked in my confirmation hearings by Senator Helms whether I still held to the view I had stated in 1982 in The New York Times that I didn't think the job ought to have Cabinet rank, now that I am a member of the President's Cabinet. And I said, look, I accept the Cabinet rank because it now goes with the job, but it had nothing to do with my accepting this job. I would have accepted this job with or without the Cabinet rank because it's one of the great jobs that any American can be privileged to hold. And I hope that the next Administration continues to build -- I'm very confident that General Powell, Secretary-Designate Powell, will continue this.

Q Ambassador, would you be around to give advice to your successor?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I'm always available if somebody wants advice, but I'm not going to volunteer it. I don't think you should second-guess your successors in public, and I don't think you can find a single instance of my doing that over the last 25 years. I have very strong feelings about that.

But I will be involved in public affairs. It goes with the territory. I will do television and write articles, and various other things, and my views will be evident in that. But I'm not going to get up and say, this is what the Ambassador should be doing. That is unproductive.

Q Another -- (inaudible) -- ?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Yes, Washington.

Q Mr. Ambassador, my name is Adu Asari, editor of Africa Newscast.com. On reflection, what would you have liked to see done in Africa -- economically, politically and in peacekeeping -- relative to the positions of the United States?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Well, thank you very much for that question. As you all know, a year ago today the United States was the President of the Security Council during the month we devoted to Africa. The month of Africa, as I said at the time, was the Year of Africa. I have spent more time in Africa than any other region of the world, and I'm proud I did that.

I had lived in North Africa, but I had never really known much about Sub-Saharan Africa before, and for me it was a compelling and a powerful experience. And I will leave this job committed to continuing my work on African issues.

Now, what did we accomplish? I will be addressing the African Ambassadors to the UN on the 17th of January, next Wednesday, at their invitation, to give a final report. It will be a very personally important experience for me, and I will try to answer your question in great detail at that time. And that will be open to the press, if I'm not mistaken.

On AIDS, the most serious problem confronting Africa today, in my view the most serious problem confronting the world today, and too often we think it's just Africa. Well, it isn't just Africa. The sub-continent in Asia, Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union in areas, and many other parts of the world are in grave risk, and the disease cannot be contained. You can't do continental triage.

On AIDS, I have asked the President of the Security Council, Singapore, if they would, as a personal statement to us, if the last day that I am in this job, next Friday, a week from tomorrow, January 19th, if we can have an open session on AIDS. And that request has been granted. You will recall we had a closed session last month, and I protested very strongly that the press should have been allowed to attend.

Peter Piot will be coming from Europe. We will discuss the implementation of 1308, the only health resolution in the history of the UN. I have told you all when I came out of the meeting in December that I had expressed very serious personal misgivings about DPKO. The Peacekeeping Office was not adequately implementing 1308. I am looking forward to a vigorous discussion on that in the Security Council. And I have very symbolically asked that those two events, my meeting with the OAU Ambassadors and the AIDS, be my two final public events at the UN. So my own personal commitment priority should speak for itself.

In terms of policy, how did we do in Africa? Not so well, but not so badly. Nothing got dramatically worse in Africa on a year-to-year -- end-of-year to end-of-year basis. But in between, we faced an enormous crisis in Sierra Leone, and now things are beginning to straighten out, but only because we are getting very aggressive. I repeat -- and I stress -- that our failure to be more aggressive in Sierra Leone against the machete-wielding thugs who have now upgraded their machetes to shoulder-held missiles was a catastrophic event. The Lome Agreement was a disaster; its implementation was a disaster. UNAMSIL did not work out well. I'm glad it is going to be restructured. I consider this a very major problem. However, it never rose to the level of holocausts, as in Rwanda and Bosnia. So the UN should get some credit.

Secondly, Congo. We authorized 5,537 peacekeeping forces and observers in the Congo. We only sent a tenth of them or less because the situation did not afford itself an effective peacekeeping mission. Now the lesson in the Congo was simple: the signatories to the Lusaka Process broke the agreement themselves, and you can't send an external force in to impose peace. Even a half a million troops would not succeed in the Congo, unless the neighbors, the surrounding countries, the Lusaka signatories -- Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia -- correction, Zambia is the organizer -- but Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, and others -- took an appropriate and active role to implement. And while they all signed the agreement, they all violated it.

So I feel the Congo, which began last year as the biggest mess in Africa, although we've got some other serious one in Sudan, Somalia and Angola, remains the biggest problem. And I am very sorry about the OAU National Dialogue Facilitator has been unable to function. So I am very dissatisfied, sir, with the way we stand in the Congo.

The other problems in Africa -- Burundi, Sudan, Somalia -- also need to be addressed. And so I believe that Africa should continue to take up at least 50 percent of our attention in the Security Council, and I look forward to watching that progress. And I invite you all to the event on the morning of the 17th of January.

Q (Inaudible)…from the Associated Press Television. Any thoughts, Ambassador, on why Biljana Plavsic has decided to turn herself into The Hague, and whether or not -- or the UN War Crimes Tribunal, and whether or not this will lead to other leaders being (inaudible)….

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I know Mrs. Plavsic very well, and I was aware that she was indicted secretly nine months ago. I am deeply gratified that she made this decision. I think it is an historic moment in the pursuit for war criminals because she is the highest-ranking person to negotiate her surrender.

She really faced only two choices, though. NATO was going to pick her up, or else she could come in voluntarily. She did the right thing. We could have captured her some time ago, and we had extensive discussions on whether this was the right thing to do or not, because once there is a sealed indictment, NATO receives it. As you know, Carla Del Ponte gives a sealed indictment to NATO, and NATO is then supposed to go out and find the person. And in her case, we knew where she was, but NATO chose not to go after her, and rather negotiate. And I think that was the right decision. It was the right decision.

Now, I want to stress to the other indicted war criminals, and particularly Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic and Ratko Mladic, -- Mrs. Plavsic is going to explain what she knows. I don't know the details of this; that's up to Carla Del Ponte, who I have great admiration for. But she was there; she was in the meetings. And the others should think very hard about where they now are positioned. They can either do the same thing she did, and I call upon them to do that, or they can sit out there as fugitives who can run but in the end can't hide.

Q Hello, Ambassador. (Inaudible) -- South China Morning Post. I would like to ask you about China policy and your dealings with China. A couple of things. There has been criticism of an appeasement of China in terms of human rights. I would like to -- I wondered if you could comment on your legacy there.

And, also, what do you think your successors are going to have to deal with most? What sort of issues are going to face your successor most?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I have worked on China for 24 years and been there some 70, 75 times. I have great, great respect for the Chinese people. I have worked closely with every government leader in China from Deng Xiaoping on. And I should start by saying three or four things.

One, I believe that in a long-term sense, the great trends of history, half a century cycles, American relations with China, Sino-American relations, will be perhaps the single most important strategic factor that both sides need to get right. Secondly, that in no way diminishes the importance of the issues of human values, human rights, and specifically the issue that you all know I'm particularly concerned with, which is Tibet.

Now, I want to add a point about China and the Scale of Assessments that I made in the Senate the day before yesterday because I know most of you were not able to get to Washington. Of all 189 countries in the UN, the one that had the largest increase in percentage terms in the regular budget and the peacekeeping budget, the regular budget, was China. They went up 54 percent in the regular budget from .995 of 1 percent to 1.54. So over 54 percent, say 55 percent. They also went up over 60 percent in peacekeeping. Some countries took a 500 percent increase in peacekeeping so they were not the largest in peacekeeping.

Contrary to what everyone expected, China was a critical and positive component in UN reform. And since that is probably one of the least known facts about what we went through in the last few months, I want to draw it to your attention and I want to thank the Chinese Government and the Chinese people for their contribution to making the UN reform a reality.

I'm not going to turn this into a discussion of Sino-American policy or China policy because that is something I want to save for when I'm a private citizen.

Q Maggie Farley from the LA Times. Ambassador, you've had a life of diplomacy, and a great example in Dayton, Ohio, when you were able to get the players together and bash their heads together until an agreement was made.

When you came to the UN, you had to perhaps change your style of diplomacy. Can you tell us what different techniques you had to use and what do you recommend to your successor?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I don't think -- I think a lot of people don't think I changed my style, and I had a lot of the same team. My chief of staff, Rosemary Pauli, Don Hays, several other people who have been with me the whole way. Jim Cunningham had worked with me in the Department of State.

You have to match the style to the situation and the method to the moment. And the UN is a different place, and the UN is driven by process and Dayton was driven by outcome. We gathered some people together behind a high barbed wire fence in the middle of an American airbase and tell them we won't let them leave until we get a peace agreement. That's a little different than coming in to a 55-year-old institution, staying 17 months, and trying to move it.

But I've had experience doing both and I enjoy both. This was a different challenge and a very, very enjoyable experience. It didn't have the intensity of Dayton until the last week of the Scale of Assessments. And as I told all my staff for months, we were going to have Dayton on the East River. I didn't use that phrase publicly at the time because we didn't want to confuse people or think that there was -- well, we didn't want to make it a self-referential kind of thing. But that's what I had said privately; we just didn't put that phrase into public use.

And so last week was kind of sleepless nights. The last two nights on the Fifth Committee, if any of you were down there, you see these diplomats in their camel hair coats and their cashmere scarves sleeping on the floors and stretched out. It looked like a homeless shelter for very high-priced upper East Side diplomats, and it was quite something. But we got the job done.

The story about my yelling at people is much exaggerated. I yell a lot at Mary Ellen of course, but that's because she enjoys it so. (Laughter.) But I don't yell at people, but we do pressure them very hard and we pressure them quite openly, and sometimes the conversation gets sharp. But, first of all, I think most of the people we deal with know that our intent is sincere and it is genuinely idealistic, and that is to strengthen the UN.

And, secondly, everybody knew that we weren't terribly -- we didn't like aspects of what we were trying to do. We were very open about that. We weren't trying to pretend we had all the answers or that our position was morally perfect. We were talking about a choice between saving the UN and not saving it.

And, third, sometimes a degree of candor is important. I'm not here to win a popularity context as Mr. Congeniality at the UN. We're just here to get the job done. And those of you who were with us on the morning of December 23rd could see this amazing moment where people who were barely talking to each other at 8 o'clock in the morning, they were so tired and angry, were embracing each other and calling their mutual achievement historic by 10 o'clock. That's the way negotiations work.

So we are very satisfied with that. We had a bitter battle to keep Sudan off the Security Council. We won against all predictions. At the end of that, the people we'd beaten were very friendly to us. We lost some votes along the way and we were friendly to them; that's what diplomats do. Dayton was a whole different story.

Q (Inaudible) -- pressure on the US. Can you talk about that?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Yes. I believe that -- one of the things I was told when I got here by my predecessors was that the mood in New York was anti-American and that our arrogance and our overbearingness were resented, particularly because we were in arrears.

I concede the arrears point. It is no fun to go around telling other countries what to do when you owe the UN over a billion dollars. But that is why we made our first goal to get the money from the Congress so that we could turn to people and say, look, we've got $936 million sitting here now, and if you work with us we can turn it over to you.

And the day before yesterday -- well, 100 million we turned over in December '99. The day before yesterday, Senator Helms announced he would release another 582 million. So in one day, the day before yesterday, we got $582 million more for the UN, and there's more to come.

But in the course of doing all this, I have come to question the advice I was given. And this is the point I really want to make. Everybody knows the US is the world's most powerful and richest country, and we should not be ashamed of our strength. We should be polite. We should take into account every other member-state's sovereign views, one nation, one vote, one voice.

But to go around not pushing for things because we might create a backlash is a guaranteed way to make sure you don't achieve your goals. Let me give you an example. Israel in the regional group called the Western European and Other Group, WEOG. For 40 years, Israel was left in the wilderness, as you all know. And for 40 years, all my predecessors pledged to the Congress that we get them in, and we never did. And I was told categorically that this was not going to be possible and we should forget it, and if we pushed, we'd rally opposition against us from both the Arab nations and the European Union. And I just didn't understand this. It was counter-intuitive to me.

We've declared it's our goal. If we don't seek it, we just look like fools or hypocrites. So we just started out. And I went first to the Arab nations and I said I want to push for this, it doesn't affect you because it's not your group, just leave it alone. And they were very , very generous and understanding, and not one Arab nation ever went out and lobbied against Israel joining the WEOG. And I think that was a very positive development. It might have been a little harder in the present framework, but the beginning of last year things were in better shape.

Secondly, we then went to every European Union nation and said, what's the problem? And every nation in the EU said it's not us, it's someone else. So then we started playing this game of hot potato. Country X would say, we're okay; it's country Y. Country Y would say, we're okay; it's country Z. Country Z would say, it's X. And we just kept pushing and pushing and pushing until the opposition began to melt away.

Why did it melt away? Because the position that the European Union had taken for 40 years really wasn't right. And under exposure, they knew it wasn't right. And so the EU let the Israelis join "on a temporary basis." Well, if you know that at the UN "permanent" means "temporary" and "temporary" means "permanent," so we're very happy that the Israelis are in the WEOG.

Now, what's the lesson I've learned from that? That if you say something and you believe it, you just keep doing it. And not in a rude or aggressive way but just persistent, and you keep working on it and you get as far as you can get. And don't be embarrassed to stand up for what you think is right. We don't win every case, but I think the US should be unafraid to assert what it believes is right. But we cannot retreat behind saying, "It's right because we are the United States and we say it's right." That is not good enough. We have to prove our case. And if we have a case to prove, as we did on Israel and the WEOG, as we did on reform, we can get there. If our case is flawed, let it be exposed in the court of United Nations debate.

So I think the US should be assertive, but not arrogant. And I want to underline this because I'm not a unilateralist about the United Nations, as some of my more famous predecessors have been, and I don't think the UN is a bastion of virulent anti-Americanism, as was asserted by some of my predecessors two decades ago.

The UN is an important, indeed an indispensable component of world peace and world affairs. It is an indispensable institution of the United States. It serves American national interests, but it is deeply flawed. And our goal should be to make it stronger and better by working on reform and reducing the flaws, not to go around yelling about it. And that involves dealing head-on with these issues. I picked this example because it is narrow and concrete, but I could pick many others.

An example of where we failed was the -- (inaudible) -- peacekeeping, and I was really shocked when my staff came to me in mid-December and said in the middle of the night -- (inaudible) -- Secretaries of the ACABQ killed this proposal, which had been called for in the Millennium Summit by their own chiefs of state. And I can tell you the Secretary General and his colleagues were equally upset. And I hope it will be revisited.

So we have plenty of work left to do.

Q Aaron Patrick of the Australian Financial Review. How effective have the nations of the South Pacific been during your tenure, and can -- (inaudible) -- countries like we have down there really be effective in the US?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: The South Pacific forum is one of my favorite groups. I think I am the only US Ambassador to the UN who has ever been in most of these countries. I sat with your former Foreign Minister, Andrew Peacock, at the Solomon Islands Independence Ceremonies in Honiara in 1980. I have been all over the South Pacific, and I greatly admire the Australian contribution to stability in that region.

We met with them continually on Scale of Assessments. Two days before the final vote, I met privately with the South Pacific forum countries, and I met individually with them. On vote after vote, the South Pacific forum countries showed an independence of character, and a strength and a willingness to look at issues on their merits, which I thought was one of the most commendable ideology-free aspects of the whole UN. And I am happy to say this for the first time in public.

Q My name is Martin Suter. I represent Sonntagszeitung, of Switzerland. Since you have been so successful and committed, a hypothetical question: If President-Elect Bush had asked you to stay on, what would you have said?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: No, my time was done. I had geared myself for 17 months. I knew I would leave, regardless of who won the election. And it may not seem like a very long time, but we weighed out an agenda, we achieved it. Staying on would require a new agenda, working it out with the new Administration, and then implementing it, and that would take years.

And staying on for a few weeks or months is an empty ego trip. I don't need this job. I loved it, but I came into the job to get something done, and we stated it in the confirmation hearings what that would be, and we did it. And staying on just to stay on, to manage crises is not necessary.

Ambassador Cunningham will be Charges d'affaires starting on January 21st. I know of no career diplomat in the United States Government who is stronger or better qualified than him. He has the universal respect and admiration of his colleagues here in the UN. Ambassador Betty King will stay on until her successor is chosen. Nancy Soderberg will stay on for a few weeks. Don Hays will stay on for an unspecified period. The team we leave behind is first-rate, and there is no point in my staying on. It didn't fit my personal plans either.

Q I had a question concerning Africa -- (inaudible) -- pushing to end the embargo, the arms embargo, and whether the decision has been postponed. But do you think that you will manage to get that done maybe next week? And why are you pushing for that, knowing that anyway the arms embargo would end on the May 17th?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Well, I have really handed that issue off to Ambassador Cunningham to run for the time being. I was not in any of the meetings yesterday. I am really working on some final things to do with Africa, but not Ethiopia-Eritrea.

But you are quite right; the United States position is to lift the arms embargo right away, before the end of this Administration. And Ambassador Cunningham is working hard in that direction to achieve that goal.

Q Ambassador, Bill Reilly with UPI. We know you are in favor of Kofi Annan's performance as SG. Would you recommend to him to go for another term?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I promised him not to answer this question. (Laughter.) I will be more precise: I promised his wife not to answer this question. But I'm going to anyway.

Kofi Annan is, in my view, the best Secretary General in the history of the UN. Bar none. He is an historic figure, and without him I don't think we would be in the semi-congratulatory mode we are this morning. I don't think I would probably even be standing here. What he has done in strengthening the UN's image in the world, in strengthening the morale and operations of the Secretariat, in changing dramatically relations between the UN and the United States Congress, is extraordinary.

He has already had direct conversations with General Powell. They have a prior relationship. And I treasure the personal friendship that began between him and my wife 17, 18 years ago, through her book on Raul Wallenberg. Kofi likes to always say, as he did last night at a dinner that he knew Kati before I did, and that is certainly true. And the pleasure of working with somebody with whom you have total trust, so that whether we agree or disagree, we always are honest with each other, is extraordinary. And I am deeply honored to call Kofi Annan my friend.

Now, in regard to your question, I am not going to tell Kofi Annan whether to seek another term or not. That is entirely his decision. But I will recommend to my successors that if he does seek another term, the United States support him.

Q My name is -- (inaudible) -- from the Czech News Agency. Please, can you be more specific about the -- (inaudible) -- Kosovo -- (inaudible) -- personal opinion how to solve it is the first question. And the second one is, can you tell about the criteria for the NATO to choose who is arrested and who isn't?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: On your first question, I would like to respectfully not answer that question until I am a private citizen. There is no issue I have been more deeply involved in. I have very deep views. I am still a Government official. That is a whole different subject, and I will address that at length in writing at the appropriate time.

On your second question -- I will say one thing about the first thing, though. It has to be mutually acceptable to both the Kosovo-Albanians and to the leadership in Belgrade. But beyond that, the specifics I would like to defer.

On the second question, it is really a technical issue. The War Crimes Tribunal indicts people, sealed or unsealed. They turn the indictments over to NATO and ask NATO to help implement it. In the case of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, NATO has simply not acted. And if you are asking my greatest single disappointment over the last five years, that's it. I really find that the failure to pick up Radovan Karadzic, which I believe was well within the capabilities of the NATO command, that's the thing I most regret.

Q Through the political and social institutions --

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Where are you from, sir?

Q I'm sorry. I'm Mbalembou Pato of Television Togolaise -- (inaudible) -- Africa. Through the political and social institutions in most parts of Africa -- and I call in to your experience as the United States Ambassador at the UN -- what should African -- (inaudible) -- do to solve their problem?

My second question, your our best and worst experience as US Ambassador at UN.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: On your first question, sir, I again would respectfully defer until next Wednesday. I will make a speech entirely on that issue. Africa is the only region in the world I will address as a special issue, and I invite you to attend the OAU-sponsored meeting on the morning of the 17th at -- where? In the library at the UN. At 9:30 or 10:00? 9:30 or 10:00.

The best and the worst experience? Well, it may well be the same moment when, on December 23rd when Ambassador Hays woke me up and said the whole deal was falling apart on Scale of Assessments. And I came down there and saw these well-dressed diplomats sleeping on the floor, and that was our worst moment because most of you had already reported the deal was done. And we didn't have it. You had all gone home for Christmas, and -- well, not all of you. I think Evelyn and Edie were still hanging out, and some of the rest of you. But it was - Bill, you were there, too. It was a terrible, terrible moment, and probably our best moment was two hours later when we pulled it back. Very much like the last day of Dayton, the Dayton negotiations.

There were many good moments. This extraordinary thing in the Senate two days ago, where the same senators who had held the UN hostage for three years, ended the briefing -- ended the hearing -- with a standing ovation for the team, the UN team. And we were all there; I brought the whole team with me, so that everybody could share in this moment.

But I didn't realize that Senator Helms was going to ask for a standing ovation, which he said he had never done before. And I think that makes those of my colleagues who you don't even know, like Mel Atwool and Rosemary Pauli and -- well, you all know Mary Ellen Glynn and Rachel and Suzanne Nossel. It makes all those Sleepless in Manhattan nights in the Fifth Committee worthwhile. That was a great moment. Getting Israel into the WEOG was a great moment.

The other great disappointments relate to Africa. When Rwanda and Uganda went to war against each other in Kisangani, it broke our hearts. We were so close to making progress, and that fighting was so -- if you will pardon me in my honesty -- it was so stupid. And a great city, two million people, deep in the heart of Africa, became inaccessible, and it wrecked the diplomacy. The Pakistanis were ready to send two battalions. Those battalions have never gone.

When we were unable to stop Ethiopia and Eritrea from going to war in May and June of last year, over an issue which was a legitimate difference between them but could have been solved in negotiations. And several tens of thousands of people were killed, and the world will now pay hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for peacekeeping operations -- money that could be used to prevent the spread of AIDS or could be used for development assistance. That broke our hearts.

And nearer to your native country, Togo, what happened in Sierra Leone and Liberia -- and the illegal diamond trade, if I can be very specific, that continues to fuel it -- is just horrible. And I don't feel we have made more than a dent on those issues.

There is a large agenda out there, so there are many things to choose from that answer your question.

Thank you.