Security Council members expressed confidence in UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday, dismissing calls by some US legislators for him to resign over the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program for Iraq. Even US Ambassador John Danforth said he had ?great confidence? in Annan although he repeated the White House view that no one could make a definitive judgment until all the facts were in from investigations into allegations of corruption in the $ 64-billion program.

During a working luncheon of the 15-nation council, Annan expressed his determination to ?carry out the investigation and to make the facts known to everybody,? said Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali, the council president for December. ?There was certainly a unanimous view that this was the right thing to do,? Baali said. ?Nobody in the room called for Kofi Annan?s resignation. On the contrary, we all expressed our confidence in the secretary-general,? said German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger.

There is no evidence that the younger Annan dealt with the Iraq program, and no specific charges of wrongdoing on the part of the secretary-general in the December 1998 UN award to Cotecna to inspect goods under the oil-for-food program. But a handful of US Republican legislators have called on Annan to step down. Council members, however, said they wanted him to stay on. ?All the accusations are absolutely groundless. He personally is not engaged in any of the proposed facts of any mismanagement or fraud or anything else,? said Russian Ambassador Andrei Denisov. ?Let it be business as usual. We have a lot of work to be done.? sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.

Irwin ARIEFF