UNSCAM UPDATE:

April 30, 2004 — WASHINGTON – The State Department’s No. 2 official said yesterday that those guilty of corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program “ought to hang.”

The blunt remarks by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to a House subcommittee were the strongest comments the Bush administration has made since accusations surfaced in January that Saddam Hussein ripped off $10 billion from the program.

This should have some people worrying.

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s reputation has gotten so bad that even the Canadians are jumping ship:

WASHINGTON — With yesterday’s landmark speech, Paul Martin tacitly acknowledged what Canada’s foreign policy establishment has refused to accept for decades: that the United Nations is a failure, for which there is no solution.

The Prime Minister’s proposed alternative is a new international body, the G-20 summit of world leaders, representative of North and South, developed and developing, rich and poor: a working group unfettered by the UN’s bureaucracy and its anachronistic Security Council.

What hath Kofi wrought?