A decade after genocide in Rwanda took the lives of 800,000 men, women and children, U.N. Secretary General is finally stepping up to the plate and taking some of the blame:

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who headed the UN's peacekeeping department during the three months of massacres that claimed some 800,000 lives, said this blighted moment in history had deeply impacted him personally. At the time, he pressed dozens of countries to contribute troops. "I believed that I was doing my best, but I realized after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support," he said.

He could have gotten more troops, but it's unclear what good it would have done. Annan was reluctant to have peacekeepers keep the peace. In one incident, he personally ordered Belgian U.N. peacekeepers to stand down from the site of a Rwandan school house after some French nationals were evacuated. The remaining, 2,000 Rwandan men, women and children who had gone there believing the U.N. troops would protect them were left to watch those same troops simply walk away once the French were rescued. (Source: Independent Investigation Into U.N.'s Role In the Rwanda Genocide.)

After the Belgians left, Rwandan militants came in, slaughtered all 2,000 of the civilians, and threw their bodies down an embankment.

Opponents of President Bush believe the U.S. should obtain the approval of these same U.N. leaders before defending American lives.