Sunday, November 6 2005 18:49 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: Senior officials at the United Nations had disregarded the damning findings of the Volcker Commission's probe into the Iraqi oil-for-food programme, the US envoy to the global body has said.

"In the bubble on First Avenue, Volcker is just ignored. I talk about it, but it's a solitary conversation. Nobody else will be fired unless people are indicted by outside authorities," the Sunday Telegraph daily today quoted John Bolton, the American Ambassador to the UN, as saying at a private dinner in New York last week.

"Corruption didn't arise out of thin air, it arose out of the culture of the place. Bribes, mismanagement etc. It would be unacceptable for executives in any normal organization," he said.

The Volcker probe, established by Kofi Annan, had criticised UN and the Secretary General himself for failures in running the programme from which former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein skimmed off an estimated 2 billion dollars.

Bolton noted that UN staff could accept gifts worth up to 10,000 dollars in a year without any requirement to disclose them.

The US last week said it planned to reduce the 10,000 dollars figure to 250 dollars under rule changes proposed by its new under-secretary for management, Christopher Burnham, a former Bush administration official.

Alleging a prevailing anti-American sentiment among many delegates at the UN, Bolton said, "Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the UN has become the focus for a lot of people who have an agenda against the United States."

"We are having the same debates we thought we were having 20 years ago," claimed Bolton, a favourite of Republicans.

"The UN is seen by many as a chance to counter-balance us," he added.