“Kofi, they’ve made an honest man of me”

Six weeks after the Iraq invasion, Mr. Annan wrote, Mr. Powell visited his 38th-floor office at the United Nations to privately exult with him over news that American forces believed they had found mobile laboratories in Iraq that the administration claimed were used by Saddam Hussein to make weapons of mass destruction — the core reason for the war.

“Kofi, they’ve made an honest man of me,” Mr. Annan quoted Mr. Powell as telling him. Mr. Annan wrote that “the relief — and the exhaustion — was palpable. I could not help but smile along with my friend, and wanted to share in his comfort,” even though Mr. Annan himself was far from convinced. Still, Mr. Annan wrote, “I could only be impressed by the resilience of this man, who had endured so much to argue for a war he clearly did not believe in.”…

In what may be a surprise to some of Mr. Annan’s conservative critics, he expressed great admiration in the book for President George W. Bush, despite their disagreements on the Iraq war and what Mr. Annan regarded as Mr. Bush’s flawed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Annan said Mr. Bush’s effort to combat the global AIDS epidemic represented “the biggest financial commitment by any country in history to fight a single disease.”