Ambassador Rice is set to testify in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this Wednesday. We'll be there, tweeting and live blogging. If you just can't wait, look to her remarks in front of the Security Council in late June where she delineated U.S. commitments on UN peacekeeping. The highlights:
First, we will seek mandates for UN peacekeeping operations that are credible and achievable. We will urge the Council to continue to weigh the full range of responses to a given challenge. Poorly armed and disorganized gangs, rebel groups, and others outside a peace process should not be allowed to thwart a peacekeeping mandate or block a UN deployment.
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At the same time, we recognize that UN peacekeepers cannot do everything and go everywhere. There are limits to what they can accomplish, especially in the midst of a full-blown war or in the face of opposition from the host government. Peacekeeping missions are not always the right answer...These lessons have guided our approach in a number of instances, most recently Somalia, where conditions are not yet appropriate for successful UN peacekeeping. But it is a country that still urgently needs sustained, if not increased, international support.
More after the jump.