Here is today's howler: Kofi Annan believes that the United States needs the United Nations as much as the United Nations needs the United States. He also subtly suggested that the investigation into the oil-for-food program should be dropped, as it has caused too much discord:

At a year-end news conference Tuesday, Annan said he had no intentions of stepping down over allegations of corruption in the Iraqi oil-for-food program, which have "cast a shadow" over the United Nations and especially over its relations with Washington.

"The United States needs the United Nations and the United Nations needs the United States," the secretary-general said. "And we need to find a way of working together."

"The current criticisms and the attacks have not been helpful for the relationship, regardless of which quarter it comes from, and we need to find a way of putting those kinds of acrimonious discussions behind us and move on," he added.

Some are not buying Mr. Annan's suggestion:

Annan once again shows his lack of understanding or a great talent for prevarication. As the US and UK plainly demonstrated, the UN needs the US a hell of a lot more than the other way around. Without the US to provide security forces, the UN becomes a completely toothless debating society, and to the extent that Annan and the flat-earthers attempt to keep America under wraps, they remain that anyway. In their operations without Anglo-American supervision, the UN has been hopelessly inept (Congo, Srebrenica, Sudan) or hopelessly corrupt (UNSCAM).

What has the UN done for America? They've ignored the terrorist threat by linking it to Israel's status, creating a stalemate on the Security Council and an abject surrender on the Human Rights committees that abound at Turtle Bay (and are usually run by the worst abusers). They allowed Saddam Hussein twelve long years to ignore the cease-fire accords that kept him in Baghdad, and then once we finally bypassed the UNSC, we found out that member-nations like Russia, China, France, and Germany continued selling Saddam arms in violations of the sanctions they insisted would be enough to render him harmless. The oil-for-food program that we hoped would ease the sanctions' bite on ordinary Iraqis instead was transformed by the UN into a vehicle to stuff billions of dollars into Saddam's pockets, some of which went to fund terrorism in Palestine and almost certainly against the US.

Yeah, we need the UN, all right -- like we need another 9/11.

Step down, Mr. Annan. You are a disgrace.