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White house opposes bill that would cut UN dues { June 15 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/international/15cnd-diplo.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/international/15cnd-diplo.html
June 15, 2005
White House Opposes Bill That Would Cut U.N. Dues
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
WASHINGTON, June 15 - The Bush administration moved today to confront the Republican leadership in the House by opposing a bill that would cut in half the American dues to the United Nations if it does not enact several specific budget and management reforms.
State Department officials formally conveyed the administration's position to Capitol Hill in the morning, one day ahead of a scheduled vote in the House on the measure, which is popular among conservatives. The bill, backed by Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, is considered likely to pass but also likely to face tougher prospects in the Senate in light of outright administration opposition.
Until formal word went to the House, the administration had indicated its uneasiness with the bill's withholding position but had not declared its opposition outright, hoping that Republican leaders would agree to quietly delete the provisions to which the administration objected.
"We have serious concerns with the bill," R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview today. "We are the founder of the U.N. We're the host country of the U.N. We're the leading contributor to the U.N. We don't want to put ourselves in a position where the United States is withholding 50 percent of the American contributions to the U.N. system."
Representative Henry J. Hyde, an Illinois Republican who is chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said he was not surprised by the administration's opposition but that he was unpersuaded. "The Constitution gives to Congress the power of the purse and we intend to exercise it in pursuit of meaningful U.N. reform," a spokesman quoted him as saying.
State Department officials say they fear that the withholding provision, were it to become law, would return the United States to the 1990's, when dues were withheld and Washington lost considerable credibility among its United Nations allies.
The administration argues that cutting off dues will jeopardize its chances of other reforms, like streamlining the budget, improving accountability to avoid a repeat of scandals like the one at the oil-for-food program and preventing human rights abusers from sitting on the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Aides to Speaker Hastert and other Republican leaders have argued that a dues cutoff provision is the only way to bring about necessary changes and that passing the bill will strengthen the hand of advocates of change.
The confrontation between the administration and Republican conservatives comes at a time when the issue of reform is heating up at the United Nations, in Washington and in capitals throughout the world. Much of the attention has focused on a bid by Japan, India, Germany and Brazil to become permanent members of the Security Council.
Many changes advocated by the administration are to be considered later this year, and President Bush has cited the need for change as a principal reason why he has chosen John R. Bolton, a longtime critic of the body, as ambassador to the United Nations.
Democrats and some Republicans argue that selecting Mr. Bolton, who has spoken disdainfully about the United Nations bureaucracy, will set back the cause of making necessary changes.
Some Republicans have also waged a campaign to remove Secretary General Kofi Annan, charging that he allowed corruption to pervade the oil-for-food program, which enabled Iraq under Saddam Hussein to sell oil and purchase humanitarian goods benefiting his political allies around the world. Some critics charge that Mr. Annan's son was caught up in the scandal.
Mr. Burns said he had conveyed word of the administration's uneasiness with the dues cutoff provision to Capitol Hill for several weeks and that cables had gone out to every American embassy this morning outlining which changes the administration supports.
These included, he said, budget and management reforms, disbanding the Human Rights Commission and replacing it with a council, setting up a fund to support democracies, establishing a "peace-building commission" that would support civil institutions in countries torn by conflict and a new treaty outlawing terrorism, defined as the killing of innocent civilians.
He said the administration supported most of the recommendations of a panel set up by Congress that released a report today criticizing the United Nations' management and proposing corporate-style oversight bodies, personnel standards and accounting reforms.
The panel was led by Newt Gingrich, a Republican and a former speaker of the House of Representatives, and George J. Mitchell, a former Democratic leader of the Senate.
Some close to Mr. Annan at the United Nations have criticized the administration for slowness to get behind reforms and hurting itself by flirting with the dues cutoff idea or at least not making clear its opposition. But Mr. Burns said the administration had never supported the dues cutoff and was assured that it would still have influence on the debate.
"We're very much in this game, and we've got now all summer to push these forward," he said of the reforms.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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