WASHINGTON, March 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States will continue working with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan despite a report criticizing him over the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program in Iraq, the White House said Tuesday.

    "We continue to support the work of the Secretary General and we'll continue to work with him and the United Nations on the many challenges that we face," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told a news briefing.

    "We continue to support the United Nations. We continue to support Secretary General Annan in his work at the United Nations. We will carefully study the report," he said in response to repeated questions about Annan's future.

    Deputy State Department Adam Ereli also told reporters on Tuesday that Washington supports Annan, stressing "Secretary-General Annan and the United States share a common commitment to working together to reform the United Nations, and we will support him in his efforts to do that."

    An independent inquiry panel led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker released an interim report on its investigation into alleged corruption and fraud in the oil-for-food program.

    Annan was cleared by the independent inquiry team of any personal wrongdoing in the oil-for-food corruption scandal, but he was criticized for failing to detect and stop a conflict of interest with his son's employer in the bidding process.

    The report criticized the UN chief for failing to take adequate action to probe into the alleged scandal that complicated his son Kojo Annan who was working for Cotecna, the Swiss company that won contracts worth 60 million dollars in the world body's biggest humanitarian aid program.

    "The inquiry initiated by the Secretary-General into these matters was inadequate. The Secretary-General should have referred the matter to an appropriate UN department for a thorough and independent investigation. Had there been such an investigation of these allegations, it is unlikely that Cotecna would have been awarded renewals of its contract with the United Nations," the report said.

    Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard on Monday insisted that the UN chief would not step down over the scandal, and that he still intended to push through an ambitious series of UN reforms this year. Enditem