The Democratic Leadership Council, which represents the viable wing of the Democratic party, just turned up the heat on Kofi Annan:

[M]ismanagement, corruption, and manipulation of the [oil-for-food] program by Saddam Hussein allowed his regime to amass at least $21 billion outside of the United Nations’ control, with the great bulk of that sum — $17.3 billion — pilfered between 1997 and 2003 on the secretary general’s watch. In effect, the United Nations colluded in Saddam’s successful evasion of U.N. sanctions. The most damning charge so far — that a former chief of the oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, accepted bribes from Saddam’s regime — was made in October by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer, who led a Senate investigation into the scandal. The program is now the subject of at least four congressional investigations, three U.S. federal investigations and the U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

[...]

The secretary general should place this critical mission ahead of his personal interests, and step aside. Given his own lack of credibility on the oil-for-food program, this step is the price Annan must pay to help restore the U.N.’s credibility, and to salvage his legacy as secretary general.

The DLC issuing this statement is remarkably significant. As the organization whose ideology spawned the only two-term Democratic president since FDR, the DLC represents where the Democratic party should be if it wants to reconnect with the American voter.

When the only remaining viable remnant of the Democratic party turns against the leadership of the U.N., it’s big news. No longer can anyone credibly say that the calls for Kofi Annan’s resignation are the result of some right-wing plot. (Not that such claims would have been credible before!) The drumbeat is now bipartisan and multinational. Time to start the countdown on Kofi.