Has U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad abandoned serious efforts to bring greater transparency and accountability to that troublesome body?

Has U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad abandoned serious efforts to bring greater transparency and accountability to that troublesome body? And, if so, does that represent a change in the Bush administration's policy? The early signs are not encouraging. Last January, U.S. representative for U.N. management and reform Mark Wallace uncovered a significant lack of accountability in the U.N. Development Program's activities in North Korea. Numerous loopholes in the program left millions of U.N. development dollars vulnerable to Kim Jong Il's pilferage. When Khalilzad assumed the ambassadorship this spring, Wallace was in the process of pushing for reforms to correct these and other problems. Since then, Khalilzad has tried to rein Wallace in, and is attempting to defuse tensions between the U.S. and the U.N. by helping the UNDP make the scandal go away. State Department officials aver that the North Korea allegations remain a serious concern and that the administration's U.N. policy has not changed. If that's the case, Khalilzad needs to ratchet up the pressure on U.N. secretary-general Ban Kimoon to appoint a special investigator and do a full, system-wide audit of the UNDP's North Korea program.