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U.N. reform agenda watered down

General Assembly adopts wording stripped of details

• Key points of draft document

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UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- World leaders are examining ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit in New York, but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from hunger, persecution and war.

Member countries reached agreement Tuesday on a watered-down document outlining steps to reform the world body.

President Bush was among the world leaders arriving for the opening of the annual U.N. General Assembly. He met privately at U.N. headquarters for nearly an hour Tuesday afternoon with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The Bush-Annan meeting occurred as a "core group" of ambassadors from more than 30 nations met to finalize the reform plan, which was later adopted by the full 191-nation General Assembly on its 60th anniversary.

"We would have preferred a stronger language in some parts of the text," Annan said at a news conference.

The 35-page document, to be submitted for General Assembly approval, includes U.N. operations reforms, commitments by the world's richer nations to aid underdeveloped countries, the establishment of a new human rights council to address "systematic violations," and the creation of a peace-building commission to help stabilize countries emerging from armed civil conflict.

"The big item missing is non-proliferation and disarmament. This is a real disgrace ... when we are all concerned with weapons of mass destruction and that they may get into the wrong hands," Annan said.

"I will appeal to the leaders that are coming here to really step up to the plate and accept the challenge and show leadership on this issue."

Bush did not comment on his meeting with Annan, but John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said internal management reform is the top priority for the United States, which pays more than 20 percent of the U.N. budget.

"We certainly obtained a number of priorities that we felt were very important -- on terrorism, on human rights, on management," Bolton said. "There are things we didn't get. This is a negotiation among 191 countries."

While the reforms "represent steps forward," Bolton said the reform plan was "not the alpha and the omega, and we never thought it would be."

Undersecretary of State Nick Burns cited as victories a proposed code of ethics for U.N. staff, "whisteblower" protection for those that expose wrongdoing and greater financial disclosure for top officials.

"This is not end of the reform effort. This is the must be the beginning of a permanent reform effort to strengthen the U.N.," Burns said. "We wanted to achieve summit outcome to unite the world around reforming the United Nations. We didn't get everything we wanted."

"Multilateral discussions lead to compromises," said incoming General Assembly President Jan Eliasson of Sweden. "We can only go as far as member states want to go."

Emyr Jones Parry, British ambassador to the United Nations, said, "Nobody is going to be 100 percent satisfied with this text, but I think it is a basis for all of us to say our main interest is covered by it and that we recognize it reflects the best consensus we can come to now."

The document supports strengthening the internal financial audit system, a recommendation of the Independent Inquiry Committee probing the U.N.'s problem-plagued, defunct oil-for-food program in Iraq. But the document does not reflect the committee's call for hiring a chief operating officer reporting to the secretary-general.

One reform idea now on hold is whether to expand the U.N. Security Council from 15 to 25 nations and to increase the permanent members with veto power over U.N. resolutions beyond the current five -- the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China -- as Annan has proposed.

"The issue of the Security Council has not been touched in this negotiation," Chilean Ambassador Heraldo Munoz said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard told reporters that his nation would support Security Council expansion, if it came up for a vote.

"Australia has always made plain its support for Japan being one of those countries. We think there is obviously merit in a country like India being considered, and also a country from South America, and one from Africa, and I personally think there's a case for including Indonesia, as being the largest Islamic country in the world," he said.

"If there is to be some expansion of the permanent members of the Security Council, not necessarily of course with a veto, but as permanent members, then they will be hard-bargained issues," he said.

The United States backs only the addition of Japan as a permanent Security Council member.

With all the focus on bureaucratic reform, Eliasson held up a glass of water to remind reporters of the tough problems the world body is called upon to solve.

"This water I can drink right now is a luxury for 1.2 billion people in the world. Three-hundred million people south of Sahara don't have this," Eliasson said.

"I have seen the women in Somalia receive those water bottles where the alternative for them is to walk for two miles to get polluted water and even run the risk of being raped. These are the realities that we have to bring into the halls of the United Nations. So we may ask for a higher degree of ambition in the document. The realities are there, and I think we will have to deal with those realities."

The secretary-general said he would have preferred stronger language in parts of the text, but "there were governments that were not willing to make the concessions necessary. There were spoilers also in the group; let's be quite honest about that."

While Annan refused to name any countries, Oxfam's Nicola Reindorp told The Associated Press: "Leaders will arrive to find that Cuba, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, the United States and Venezuela have held the summit hostage."

"There is very little to celebrate in the latest U.N. Summit outcome document," she said in a statement. "We wanted a bold agenda to tackle poverty but instead we have a brochure showcasing past commitments."

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