House OKs $582M U.N. Back Dues

- - - - - WASHINGTON (AP) - The House gave easy approval to a measure that would pay $582 million in back dues to the United Nations. The measure, approved by voice vote, passed the Senate 99-0 on Feb. 7.

The House acted Monday just hours after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the international organization to play a major role in the fight against terrorism.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said that by paying the back dues Congress was helping ``to ensure that our policy-makers can keep the focus on broad policies that unite the members of the Security Council in the fight against global terrorism.''

The bill was written by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., a longtime U.N. critic and former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who pushed the measure after saying he was satisfied that the world body was streamlining its operations and reducing America's share of the U.N. budget.

The United States promised in a 1999 law that it would pay $926 million in back dues on the condition that the United Nations reformed its huge bureaucracy and cut the financial burden of the United States. The money has been set aside, but thus far, only $100 million has been sent.

The House tried earlier this year to reduce the arrears, voting 252-165 on May 10 to pay $582 million as part of the State Department authorization bill for 2002-2003.

At the same time, the House voted to withhold the remaining $244 million owed until the United States regains its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a post it had held since the panel was created in 1947.

For example, the House bill gradually reduces the U.S. portion of peacekeeping costs from 31 percent to 25 percent, rather than cutting these costs immediately.

The Helms bill also doesn't address the $244 million payment the House wanted to withhold until the United States is back on the human rights panel.

As for the United Nations, the United States and Russia supported Annan's call to play a big role in the fight against terrorism, although there was no clear agreement on what the organization can or should do.

6:19 P.M. - POSTPONED PROCEEDINGS - At the conclusion of debate on the Traficant amendment, the Chair put the question on adoption of the amendment and by voice vote, announced that the noes had prevailed. Mr. Traficant demanded a recorded vote and the Chair postponed further proceedings on the question of adoption of the amendment until later in the legislative day.

6:05 P.M. - DEBATE - Pursuant to the provisions of H. Res. 246, the Committee of the Whole proceeded with 10 minutes of debate on the Traficant amendment. Amendment offered by Mr. Traficant.

An amendment numbered 3 printed in House Report 107-218 to assign, at the request of the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, military personnel to assist in patrolling our borders; to provide for the establishment of a task force by either the Treasury Department or the Justice Department for the purpose of counter-terrorism and drug interdiction.

House Gives Final Approval to U.N. Dues Payment

by John Whitesides

Monday, September 24, 2001 4:18 p.m. EDT

- - - - - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives, hoping to smooth U.S. efforts to rally diplomatic support for the "war on terrorism," gave final approval on Monday to a long-delayed $582 million debt payment to the United Nations.

On a unanimous voice vote

, House members backed a quick transfer of the second installment of U.S. debt to the world body in the aftermath of attacks on Washington and New York that left nearly 7,000 people dead or missing.

The battle over owed U.N. dues has frayed relations between Washington and the United Nations for years and threatened the U.S. leadership role there.

The payment, approved by the Senate in February, had been hung up in Congress for months by a series of political skirmishes, including House Republican Whip Tom DeLay's efforts to link it to a measure preventing U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court.

But DeLay dropped his objections and House members quickly approved the Senate-passed measure so the issue will not linger while President Bush tries to rally international support for counter-strikes against the those held responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

"The United States cannot act alone and expect to prevail in this painful, long-term struggle against terrorism," said California Rep. Tom Lantos, ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee.

"The U.N. is the world's premier forum and will be one of the primary theaters for U.S. diplomacy on this matter," he said.

The payment is the second of three installments of back dues owed to the United Nations. The House approved it in May, but a House-Senate dispute over conditions for the payments and DeLay's attempts to link it to the international court issue delayed completion of the measure.

By passing the Senate-approved measure, the bill goes straight to Bush for fast enactment.

"Every day we fail to pay our debts to the U.N., we make our work that much more difficult," Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays said.

Under a deal brokered by former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Richard Holbrooke, U.N. members agreed in December to cut the U.S. general dues assessment from 25 percent to 22 percent of the $1.1 billion annual administrative budget, and a separate assessment for peacekeeping from 31 percent to about 27 percent this year and 26.5 percent by 2003.

The deal did not fully meet the conditions set by Congress in a 1994 law and in legislation sponsored two years ago in the Senate by North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms and Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden that required the U.S. peacekeeping contribution be capped at 25 percent.

But Helms and other lawmakers say the United Nations has come far enough on reform efforts that Congress should go ahead with the payments.

The United States made the first payment of $100 million last year. The House has voted to freeze next year's third and last installment of $244 million in U.S. arrears to the United Nations until the United States regains its lost seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

The Senate has not taken up the issue of payment of the third installment of the back dues.

This is really, really disgusting and stupid and represents gross malfeasance by Congress. It's like giving extra spending money to your intentionally unemployed drug addicted criminal step-nephew who hates you, while all the time you think that you accomplished something good.

Phil Gramm, what are you thinking!?!? You just raised taxes, Senator! The UN has gotten used to living on a budget since the US have not been paying the unfair and illegal UN "dues" that it thinks it can levy against us--"dues" which if we think we MUST pay constitute an illegal TAX on the American Public. Dues which we have already paid because THE HIPPOCRITES in the UN that are whining about us not paying them are the very ones that REFUSE to pay US for the bills we have sent, for example, for Desert Storm!

If you believe in small government, you've got to "PAY it SMALL." If you fund it BIG it will just grow in the MOUTH and BITE you. Thanks, Republicans, for not believing the party platform, and not believing in small government, and not believing that people who take money from you should demonstrate INTEGRITY in order to even THINK about getting more.

We have now taught the UN that if it promotes WAR that the US will get SCARED and then PAY it whatever it has been demanding. Spoiled brat child that it is.

If we give the UN a WINDFALL like that, basically a BILLION dollars, what are the America-Hating fascists of the UN going to do with the money? Well, for one, they will only really get do "do" anything with about HALF the money because the UN is incapable of accurately tracking such an amount on money. It is therefore likely that everyone and their brother will STEAL the money for IMPROPER use--even OBL and the terrorists will get a substantial chuck of it! And remember that money is fungible - if OBL can steal 50 million from a government and that government replace its losses through the UN, then it's the same as if we PAID the money to OBL!

This is a snap decision made in fear. It's a bad, bad idea. Even if we did decide to pay it should be in small chunks with intense oversight done at a time when it's clear that "War is NOT Good Business" for the UN. I hope some process in our government stops this before another dime is paid to the corrupt fascist UN.

Posted on 09/25/2001 06:18:21 PDT by Weirdad

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