Mail Call.(Letter to the Editor)

Mauro Suttora's April 21 piece on the U.N.'s ineptitude ignited a heated debate among readers. "A great article!" cheered one. "The U.N. has proven weak and useless," chimed another. But the U.N.'s defenders accused us of "tabloid journalism." One reader simply urged that the U.N. be rehabilitated.

The U.N. Under Attack

I was disappointed to see NEWSWEEK descend to tabloid journalism with Mauro Suttora's "The Last Thing Iraqis Need" (April 21)--a farrago of gossip, unsubstantiated assertions and outright falsehoods masquerading as reportage. Allow me to rebut the most egregious of his misstatements. He says, "Today there is no sign that the United Nations will leave Bosnia," but we have already left. The U.N. troops have been gone since 1996, and we closed down our civilian mission last year. The U.N.'s role in East Timor changed with that country's independence in 2002; we are now there only at the government's request, to assist the authorities, not supplant them. The U.N. has 9,600 employees, not 65,000; even counting every international organization in the U.N. system--including the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization--Suttora's calculation is excessive. U.N. staff do not fly first class; only the secretary-general does. Suttora twists facts to substantiate his prejudices: he even criticizes the establishment of a tough audit mechanism, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, whose effectiveness is acknowledged by the U.N.'s major contributors. The U.N. may not be perfect, but its record needs to be examined with more accuracy and integrity than in this article that is unworthy of your magazine.

Shashi Tharoor

Under Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information

United Nations

New York, N.Y.