On Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on International Organizations held a hearing (video) on UN peacekeeping forces acting as a force multiplier for the U.S. with testimony from Tim Wirth, President of the UN Foundation; James Dobbins, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND and a former Assistant Secretary of State; Joseph Christoff, Director of International Affairs and Trade at the GAO; and Steven Groves, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
All in all, the hearing was positive for those who support the work of UN peacekeeping and believe that, because the UN is vital to U.S. national security, the U.S. should pay its full arrears. Chairman Bill Delahunt led off the hearing with the assertion that UN peacekeeping forces are a force multiplier and offer the U.S. "more bang for the buck," pointing to the oft-quoted GAO report that he and Congressman Rohrabacher requested last year. (Christoff testified about this report in depth.) He also mentioned that the "U.S. military is stretched to its breaking point" and that the UN could go where the U.S. might not be welcome, but where it has national security interests. He offered the UN force in Lebanon as an example, postulating that a U.S. force in the same position would engage in combat almost daily and suffer terrorist attacks. He finished by saying that this is not merely an academic argument. The U.S. is voting for all of these missions in the Security Council, but not fully paying for them, even as the international community is preparing to create the largest and most complex peacekeeping mission in history (the impending mission to Darfur).
Security Council meeting on the situation
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at
UN Headquarters in New York.
"The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Monday to deploy a U.N. peacekeeping battalion temporarily from Burundi to Congo to help with security during the country's first democratic elections in 40 years planned for June.
The resolution adopted by the council also authorizes the transfer of 50 military observers and a military hospital until July 1.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the council to approve the temporary redeployment to beef up the 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, the world's largest, during the election period." [Read more]
See also:
INTERVIEW-Fickle donors neglect Africa's worst wars-UN
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