Annan Warns U.S. Will Face Doubts

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 6 -- The U.S. failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has heightened international skepticism over the quality of American intelligence and may complicate efforts to use it in the future to build a case for action against outlaw regimes, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Friday.

"The bar has been raised," Annan said during a break in a U.N. conference on financing the reconstruction of Liberia. "People are going to be very suspicious when one talks to them about intelligence. And they are going to be very suspicious when we try to use intelligence to justify certain actions."

The U.N. chief's statement underscored the potential damage the questionable intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq is having on U.S. credibility at the United Nations. It coincided with a visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who traveled to the United Nations to rally support for the reconstruction of Liberia and to pledge $200 million in U.S. support for the effort.

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"I don't think any apologies are necessary," he (Powell) added. "We said that this was a regime led by a dictator who had every intention of keeping his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs going, and anyone who thinks he didn't is just dead wrong. And there is no evidence to suggest that that was an incorrect judgment."

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printed from Annan Warns U.S. Will Face Doubts on 2004-06-03 16:15:39