ADDING, SUBTRACTING AT THE UN

One of the reasons that the United States blocked the re-election of the previous secretary-general of the United Nations was an assessment that he had not kept his pledge to streamline the international organization, thereby failing to control the rising operating costs.

To pressure U.N. action in this regard, the United States has withheld a huge portion of its assessment. Now the new secretary-general, Kofi Annan, is asking for some payments. But there is a big question in Washington:

How much does the United States really owe? The U.N. estimate is $1.3 billion. Congressional leaders put the past-due account somewhere closer to $800 million.

This half-billion-dollar discrepancy is enough to make anyone question U.N. recordkeeping. Surely any organization that says it wants to be paid more than a billion dollars could do better adding and subtracting than that.