international mandate the role of the united states and american political jogen when states are required to implement a federal program but no federal funds are appropriated we call that an unfunded mandate while the international community has been tasking the united nations with more and more assignment particularly in the area of peacekeeping but the assignments really get the necessary level of funding and what funding they receive is often not to live it in a timely fashion so while u n peacekeeping may not be an unfunded mandate it certainly is an contribute troops and police india and pakistan for example provide all the twenty thousand personnel missions between between them and make gets fully underway a mission that president bush has said is urgent and has considerable support from the united states congress there will be because we do not contribute troops police only imagine the cost in american blood and treasure if u s military forces n did not exist we would most likely have had to address them directly and sometimes alone worth the investment especially when american troops are at risk formally a bit later but let me simply say that the woman who has kept the united nations peace keeping together over the past several years and she knows the challenges better than anyone she knows how money is spent and what the practical consequences when we don't give what is necessary in a timely fashion so now let me turn to the ranking member of california for any comments that he may wish to m thank you very much mr chairman well surprise surprise the united states can't afford to continue to pay more than any other country for united nations peacekeepers surprise surprise i mean it comes right down to it we pay more than any other country and we're not going to be able to continue to do this we are actually a little bit behind schedule in the payments and that's because we are in the middle of a financial crisis in the united states where millions of americans face foreclosure or we don't have the money and resources necessary to meet our own needs  we're not even able to adequately take care of the veterans that we have coming back that we have sent overseas and things like united nations peacekeeping is not necessarily on the top of the agenda when the very limited funds that we have are being doled out well i think when we're trying to analyze what that all means we need to take into consideration that when you look at the numbers we're not being told about the expense the american people are already paying over and above these peacekeepers for example what's not being considered is the cost to the american people  have to bear for the manpower and equipment that have been used in there continue to be used in afghanistan in iraq in japan in germany and italy in south korea that's just to name a few now aren't all of these american military personnel who are overseas involved in keeping the peace whether or not they are wearing blue helmets are not are we not doing our share more than our share throughout the world much less discounting that and then look at what we are doing within the united nations we have nothing to apologize  for now do i think that the nations that i just mentioned where we have troops like even iraq especially germany japan italy and all these other countries south korea should they be paying the bill for our military that are stationed on their soil yes has this congress done its part or is passed past administrations done their part to insist that when we do ever troops overseas whether it's iraq or elsewhere that those countries those governments pay for that involvement no where our government has not insisted upon that so considering the fact that we're so engaged even without blue helmets all over the world because we need to ask ourselves today we're focused on the united nation is what makes united nations peacekeepers so wholly and so much more worthy of our attention as part of the calculations and where we take our people out of the equation certainly the united nations what i can see  has not earned this great deal of unrelenting respect that some would heap upon it certainly if you look at the sexual escapades and downright cowardice of some of the un troops stationed in various parts of the world we need to put that into our calculation of whether the un is worth it even though their eight times less costly than our sending our own troops but maybe we should not forget when we did send our troops to be part of the us operation in somalia how our troops ended up having to run our men running there totally exposed and being brutalized because u n helmeted pakistani troops lost their nerve and ran out on that was one of the save the world un operations the un forces did nothing in rwanda  because its new york headquarters dithered while hundreds of thousands of tutsis were slaughtered there in africa the same shameful thing happened as dutch troops failed to respond to the murder of eight thousand muslim bosnians mr chairman i'm not shy about criticizing this administration or any administration when they've got it coming but there is one thing that this nation does not have to apologize about and that when it comes to our willingness to send our troops and our treasure in our people overseas in order to preserve the peace and to protect innocent people whether it's part of the united nations or not we need to give credit where credit is due and right now that credit is due to the american taxpayer they are literally losing their homes right now we are literally losing our homes and we are literally facing a crisis in finding money on the health care for our own veterans our own seniors but yet we continue to pay and what i believe is actually an unjust assessment by the united nations and we still put up with what i consider to be totally on just cost accounting techniques to determine what america's real contribution to the world is well i'm afraid that we are not going to be able to just put this bill forever and that whatever crisis we're talking about now in the terms or late payment should be understood that we are in the middle of a financial crisis and one of the reasons for that crisis is we've tried to do everything for everybody and trying to be all over the world including iraq i might add and it's about time that the people of the united states be given their credit for the sacrifices we've made and that we start looking at better ways to handle the situation than having us pick up the expense for all of us looking forward to asking questions of our witnesses to determine exactly what that accounting is in terms of our what we're contributing as compared to what other countries are contributing to world peace thank you very much thank you mr all back or we're joined by our colleague from arizona is married and has two daughters and would you care to make some opening remarks hit that button please chairman thank you thank you very much thank you to the other members of the committee for allowing me to come down and offer a perspective from the united nations on the role of peacekeeping first of all i would like to thank you for your support of the united nations and of the support of the other it's important to acknowledge the role the leadership role in the creation of this organization in the establishment of the basic principles that have guided the organization throughout its sixty plus year life and the continuing role that the united states plays not only on the security council but in every aspect of deliberations certainly as it relates to un peacekeeping mr chairman you mentioned and i take a great deal of pride in the fact of the american soldier spent the first part of my i'd say that it's clear up front what i what i bring to the table i am what i am but i'm also peacekeeping and also deeply believer in the role and function of peacekeeping and i suppose the thing that has struck me as i have served as a peacekeeper over the past five years what people do not know about peacekeeping is practically more impressive than what they do they do not know that with one hundred forty thousand peacekeepers in the world in twenty missions when the missions and darfur and chad are fully staffed will be the second largest employer in the world that we have over one hundred twenty nationality serving in peacekeeping missions so this is multi lateralism not hypothetically but actually and in reality on the ground of twenty seven thousand civilian staff serving again representing well over one hundred thirty nationalities represented in the united nations eighty percent of those civilian staff serve on contracts of less than one year forty percent of them have less than one year experience in peacekeeping sixty percent of them have less than two years of experience in peacekeeping peacekeeping is hard work we have no peacekeeping missions in paris they're in the most remote most dangerous most difficult most austere environments on the planet and there is nothing there is nothing very often when we deploy i've been at the united nations nearly five years in that period of time darfur in chad will represent the seventeenth and eighteenth new mission my colleagues and i have had the privilege to start up in the last eighteen months alone we have done five new missions including darfur and chad which represent the most difficult challenges peacekeeping has ever had to face this operational tempo as intense as it is is combined with the scope of work in peacekeeping that ranges from everything from sensitive political highly visible negotiations to complex integrated missions incorporating political discussions economic reconstruction security operations policing military presence social reconstruction and yes peace building on the ground and the scale was enormous we have experienced unprecedented growth in peacekeeping in every dimension no matter how you count peacekeeping is now either two or three or four or five or ten times larger than it was even a few years ago what does all this volume signal if you're an optimist it signals that there is great consensus in the international community about how to deal with some of the world's most vexing problem if you're a pessimist this growth signals that the international community is not certain about what to do in very difficult and challenging circumstances that threaten the security not only of the people involved in these crises but the security of the surrounding states and threatens the security of those even more for abroad as we have seen what goes into establishing a peacekeeping mission people have said that the united nations is slow perhaps people have said we're bureaucratic compared to what goes into a peacekeeping when there is nothing on the ground and these are peacekeeping missions that are established not by the secretary not by any peacekeeper not by any blue helmeted individual civilian military or police but by the member states of the united nations security council and what goes into these missions is a complex difficult involved and yes at times bureaucratic procedure of negotiation and engagement to obtain the authorizations and commitments necessary to introduce what can be up to thirty thousand peacekeepers on the ground of various nationalities to identify highly qualified and experienced senior personnel to deploy them to these austere environments to negotiate with the host government with the warring parties for the circumstances that will permit the introduction of peacekeepers on the ground to identify all the logistics transportation communications computer and other assets necessary as you mentioned bringing in food water building roads building buildings accommodation everything again from the ground up we have to establish a memorandum of understanding with each of the troop contributing countries and the police contributing countries in the p c c every single time again as you mentioned so that they bring the proper number of well equipped and well trained troops and police on the ground properly understanding the rules of engagement prepared to use force if necessary and certainly in all cases always prepared to uphold the standards of behavior expected of peacekeepers we have not always upheld the standards and we are rightly criticized for the shameful behavior of a few of our number that has tarnished the blue helmets but by far and away the tens of thousands of men and women who over the past sixty years have served peacekeeping have done so honorably the nine bangladeshi peacekeepers who were slaughtered in the eastern congo just a few years ago were some of their number and it is in their memory and is in their honor that i sit here before you today how are we improving ourselves to respond not only to the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse and the instances of that behavior but to the organizational shortcomings that we have recognized that the organization has been trying to mount these operations with such intense operational tempo scope and scale we've worked in five main areas over the past five years we work to develop doctrine of a kind and standard that would be recognized among any military and any professional organization around the world we work very hard in particular on initiatives to improve our personnel and improve  conditions of service for our personnel serving in the field we work very hard to establish standing capacities in the area of police and other areas so that they are readily available for immediate deployment we work in partnership with other regional organizations around the world with the european union with the african union as we are doing so closely in darfur with nato and with other regional organizations and sub regional organizations to meet the needs of peacekeeping because the u n cannot do all that needs  doing indeed no country can do all that needs doing in the area of peacekeeping and we have undertaken these initiatives of the same time that we have completely restructured peacekeeping that headquarters in new york and now have the privilege of leading over thirteen thousand men and women in the field and at headquarters who consider themselves part of the mission support up we are the load the communicators the specialist the engineers the administrative and personnel experts who support every mission we've been establishing this new department hiring new personnel rewriting all of the administrative instructions and subjecting ourselves to over one hundred seventy five audits last year alone for the kind of scrutiny that member states have come to expect in the modern age of peacekeeping member states have the right to expect from peacekeeping you have the right to expect that we could implement our mandate you have the right to expect that we can run ourselves effectively and efficiently and you have the right to expect that we can accurately account for the resources have been addressed and we have been working to improve our process in all of the many people have asked me what is the value of the  do many aspects of the work that we do in the field there are dozens of governments that are active in countries not their own in constructive ways in helping to bring peace to the world but there is only one with the legitimacy independence flexibility and ability to call on global resources whether nationally or internationally nationally to bring together the world strength to share the world's burden it is my privilege mr chairman to call myself a peacekeeper thank you seven point nine million dollars annually and it involved forty three uniformed personnel in the during that time frame they have been eleven fatalities of blue helmets and now the united nations obviously has a security council with five members that are referred to as the p five permanent members the united states being one and did we vote to support the mission yes  understanding is that there involved some nine hundred twenty five uniformed personnel there and that the number of fatalities over the course of time some one hundred  almost twenty one million dollars am i correct yes pretty much now in lebanon we had an incident not an incident  almost a full blown war with a full blown war i'll accept that coming from a full blown war that the united nations was called into play and currently there are some twelve by the united nations on that particular operation say that what would the united states have done if we didn't have the united nations peacekeeping operation of a little as as a reason as a resource my understanding is that the u s government rather than bearing the entire burden of seven hundred fifty million a year contributes one hundred ninety four i'm not going to go through every single one of the operations but i think it's really important that we understand what these peacekeeping operations are all about let me just pick out a few more area with which this country has had in the store all relations and i have a memory of having the prime the president of liberia coming in addressing a joint session of the united states congress we all stood up and applauded and it was a dollars annually the united states taxpayers contribute one hundred ninety million dollars of that seven hundred million dollars in haiti government was a lot of concern expressed by members of congress particularly in florida about the act that was expected of refugees fleeing the  both sides of the republicans and democrat congress and the administration and there's some ten thousand blue helmets and that's costing the united i'm not going to ask you a question but you can comment i think from our perspective altogether i mentioned maybe six or seven or eight but there are seventeen of these peacekeeping operations which one would you operation well let me phrase it a different way any of the operations that are currently on the way that you at some missions that have been close transitioned to other forms of un engagement development engagement or other kinds of engagement by the united nations it takes between ten and fifteen years to judge whether or not a peacekeeping mission has actually  succeeded that's our experience and we have a lot of it now we have some experience in understanding the conditions under which a mission is rightly put in place and we have some experience in understanding the conditions under which a mission can be safely withdrawn that violence  brought down under control the circumstance no longer constitutes a threat to international peace and security which is cambodia maybe mozambique at the moment but again it takes ten to fifteen years to has it done so with the support and the encouragement of the bush administration first off and the entire time at the united nations over the past five years i have had nothing but excellent relations with members of the administration members of the united states mission in new york i've always found them to be forthright constructive and helpful even if we have not always agreed on the details of the issue under discussion it has been a privilege to work with my colleagues who come from washington and work in new york on on these issues with us we are present both the united nations is present with the mission in afghanistan called it is it is a mission of approximately fifteen hundred people who work on a whole range of issues and political facilitation civil affairs development humanitarian assistance and this kind of work  menominee our mission which is the mission in iraq is much smaller it's much smaller particularly for personnel who are on the ground in iraq the third week i was on the job in new york we lost twenty two colleagues a targeted direct targeted explosion which killed them and killed some of the brightest and best colleagues we had we know it's dangerous work here too though these missions were put in place by the security council security council mandate and it is our job to staff them to the best of our ability and to implement our mandate on our shelves and account for the resources that have been entrusted for this purpose as the united states has any administration republican a democrat voted against initially voted against any of the peacekeeping operation if you are where i know you don't go thousand personnel in iraq and quite frankly i consider that a peacekeeping operation even though they're not wearing blue helmets and as i say when we try to determine whether or not the united states is doing its part and maintaining world peace i think it is basically unfair to us to the people united states simply to take a look at what we're doing through the united nations as an organization as compared to all the many other things we're doing outside of the united nations i personally feel it would be what we do outside of the united nations is far more effective than what we do inside and i do realize that that is eight times the cost for it sunday u s troops overseas as compared to a u n peacekeeper but that does not necessarily mean that the peacekeepers that are sent by the united nations are accomplishing the goals that are consistent with what the united states would like to accomplish and whether or not they are accomplishing goals at eight times the rate as to what our troops would be doing if execute their own people for violating freedom of speech religion etc well then that's something we don't necessarily be proud of it so i wouldn't be proud of standing shoulder to shoulder with chinese troops being sent someplace obviously the government of china then would say this is in our interests and these troops are the time when their mo in down the people and to bab or in tenement square or elsewhere about i don't have the exact percentage but a large percentage of the members of united nation the government members you know nations are either incredibly corrupt or dictatorships are both which when we're talking about u n operations that's got to have some impact on whether or not an organization can be successful which should indicate why we should or should not be dependent on such an organization for our international goals and especially our national  peacekeepers probably about five maybe four or five just a note the peacekeepers in lebanon had zero impact on stopping wars between israel and the forces at play in lebanon and syria in that part of the world i'm sorry there are there and the rules of engagement are such that they have not been effective in the rules of engagement are determined by negotiations with our countries in the things that happen as a force put forward by the fact that you have an organization that is flawed by the nature of its membership and i don't believe it can be more effective that that's a basic flaw of the united  they are basically at that point quite often being paid actually by united states and other contributors to the united nations every single member state of united nations peacekeeping right and so when we send our troops there we don't get credit as a part of our donation for the salary that we pay for our troops that we donate to missions but then we end up as part of our assessment paying for the salary of other countries it i don't put it in separate categories you have to take a look at the whole of what's going on what's going on there's a double standard in analyzing what our contribution is so it makes it look like we are not contributing as much as we are when other countries in fact are benefiting by sending troops there the united states is the largest contribution is the largest contributor to u n peacekeeping that's absolutely correct just like we're the largest contributor nations and when we send our troops overseas part of that equation let me just say that when i take a look at the list of the things that chairman has brought up in terms of the areas that the u n has been involved in i don't even i don't see something and i'm i know i'm happy that you're very proud to be in the role that you're in i would just suggest that the success of the united nations and its goals and i noticed you said we're trying hard to do this that we've worked hard to do this and that i would say the success rate is not something to be proud of your very you could be very proud of what you're doing and what your motives are there are a number of people who are very idealistic that are very very proud of what the united nations is doing but i do not see the united nations as accomplished what it portends to have accomplished when we talk about the for example thirteen hundred thirteen thousand support personnel and in new york about it will get into that people say what we're donating this much to help afghanistan and by the time you get through the cost of those personnel and the cost very little it's like trying to put water through cotton in order to get somebody  tory as what most people would be led to believe and with that said i i'm not saying that you and other people who have dedicated your lives to these higher ideals shouldn't be proud of that you should because you are working for something you believe then that is a higher to whatever the purpose of recruiting the former insurgents who are attacking u s military forces are as far as the overall goal  there should say lucrative but it's it's a good arrangement for their country i'm not making a value judgment on that at all but i just want to clear that that not every country pays commensurate level of peace i think you have appeared to respond to some of the observations that i made and others have made including my good friend and colleague who will be joining us shortly mr rohrabacher so if you have represented a veto on the mission but whether or not the u s has withheld support i don't know the answer and what we can ok my point was that in all of the seventeen peace keeping operations that twenty four hundred approximately twenty four hundred and that's from the commencement of peace keeping operations were checking the and what was the most united nations personnel in algiers which resulted in one of our colleagues in the u n development program who were killed these are people who the term and i continue to be proud to count myself among their number let me focus for a moment on lebanon can you give us a review of the history of the united nations in lebanon hundred seventy and it was on the in the in the process of drawing down significantly its number was about twenty one hundred in two thousand and six july on the eve of the hostilities broke out that no one expected the middle east as we all know disagreement with my friend from california about the effectiveness of the peacekeeping operations because i would suggest i wonder what would happen between that border of lebanon in israel if there was not the presence of u n peacekeepers numbering in the excess of ten thousand i wonder what the position of the israeli government would be i wonder what the position of the united states government would be expect we will hear that the next panel which is secretary silverberg and why the bush administration made the decision to support the intervention of the request u n security council to have those troops present my memory is that there was a conflagration that was growing daily reach with with my friend and ranking ranking member i wonder if that say that it was in effect would have supported the introduction of american soldiers on that particular border  i wonder if the bush administration would have come to this particular committee the full committee i requested an authorization from congress u s military  interesting to note that secretary albright as well as former president clinton regarded that as a blemish on their record in terms of what ought to have happened but the u n doesn't business in the support for peacekeeping that is rendered over sixty years in the financial contributions and other material contributions with member states that are so critical to the success of peacekeeping on the ground without peacekeeping for a way congress has appropriated almost one point seven billion for the account including five hundred fifty million to support the mission and are for we are also seeking appropriations of another three hundred thirty million in supplemental funds in a way to cover the full share of unum its budget so should congress meet this request total payments during would reach over two point two point one billion a substantial increase over previous years i think it's important to keep in mind that just a couple years ago just in two thousand and six un us contributions were just over a billion so they've gone up very rapidly in recent years i know the committee wanted to talk about the question of u arrears to peacekeeping operations and i assume we can talk about this morning q and a but i just wanted to by way of introduction start talking about some of the numbers you've heard from the u n first the u n continues just as a thousand and five and then again in two thousand and eight for that period it was in place another about one hundred sixty million and so called arrears were accumulated in congress i'm sorry the administration has asked congress to lift the cap retroactively for that period to allow us to pay back those funds in addition each year we defer some payments at the end of some school years because of shortfalls in the account shortfalls were about fifty four million at the end of two thousand and about thirty seven million at the end of two thousand and seven but these amounts were subsequently paid at the beginning of the next fiscal year and sometimes this is a matter of our budget cycle here in the us it may highlight that this is an estimate by definition budgeting for u n peacekeeping is inherently unpredictable because it was covering situations that change very rapidly on the ground conflict situations things that can change change rapidly but there does more of them so we have you know we have about one hundred forty thousand authorized now which is a massive increase you know just a few years ago i think two thousand for just before i took this job it was close to sixty thousand so this is that we've seen really massive because of that formula because of the formula that goes into the regular budget even countries that have very large g d p get a substantial discount when there's a low per capita income and that's the impact you're see that results in china's payment is this substantial discount for the fact that the per capita income is quite low we have said repeatedly that we need to revisit that formula and when the us scale that it would have repeated we have well it's been interesting because when we debated the of assessments about a year ago we did a couple things we joined some japanese proposals to try to revisit the scale including a japanese proposal to create a floor for permanent members and that was directed not only at china and russia but directed at any new permanent member who could be added to the security council in the future and what as you know there are a number of countries aspiring to eventual permanent membership most of those countries have said the countries like brazil for example have said they would be quite happy to assume responsibility for a floor we have not heard from the china's on the russia the existing permanent members we also made a pitch for revisiting the way that the formula  equations like purchasing power parity so other kinds of things that can read in the foreign milena way ultimately what we ended up with was something very close to the existing to the preexisting scale that  was it was disappointing that we didn't get an improvement the scale but the one very good thing about it is that we held on to the u s on assessments and that's essential because the one of the biggest we had in the entire debate was making sure that observer mission at this point and so we think a strong case can be made for drawing that mission out completely and replacing it with a political mission or purely an observer and that's a discussion that's ongoing with the secretary general right now the mission in kosovo is another one where the mission can sometimes operate as an excuse for a failure to move on the political process or sometimes the very stability that's essential and created by the peacekeeping mission is the same reason that keeps the parties from dealing with the underlying problem and so we hope for example in cyprus that this recent meeting has basically created an open window for us to explore underlying political agreement we've had something with western sahara we've had a credit for the commitment that we're making around the world and creating peace and stability and at times doing the job that the u n is supposed to be doing actually doing part of the u n job and then not getting credit for even and only two hundred forty now i happen to have visited kosovo recently i think i saw more than two hundred fourteen people there were americans in uniform i guess they ten years yet that does not count as part of the statistics of what we are giving to the united nations peacekeeping now are those people not or are they not a major contribution by the united states of america  world view that it is not to put our money through the united nations as compared to doing things directly ourselves or helping people in the private sector giving them incentive when i was a young man i left perfectly i certainly don't think it's done everything we hoped it would do done a couple things that are useful to permit the deployment of the lebanon lebanese armed forces to the south for the first time in forty years and that that really is important because it eliminates assumption that there were really two lebanon on the lebanon that was controlled by the legitimate government and then the lebanon that was controlled by hezbollah in the south and now for the first time we have a presence of the legitimate government in the south and hope to keep you posted on that with the brazilian same concern has been raised that we have now these training materials we know they've been distributed but we don't have the kinds of mechanisms in place at the u n that can tell us what the basically include the extraterritorial abuses not just trafficking within countries borders but the kinds of evidence of things that a country's military contributions might do outside their borders that's incredibly useful in terms of our keeping pressure on government because the one fundamental point is how government is how whether governments accept impunity for their own forces or whether they're prepared to take action and that's something that we the u s government have to follow on a case by case follow up every time we have an allegation with the ambassador country with my counterpart we're taking the seriously and we hope you do  too but that's something that literally have to be handled on a one off basis every single time to make sure that there is follow up because left to you know left to their own devices many countries will sweep it under the rug and move on one thing that i think the u s doing that's useful in this deal of sunshine if things could change but i know that we will be engaged with you in the state department if there was this movement that i still believe is possible but in any event to make this what it should be it certainly is and your assessment of the un's activities period if you have not touched on my pacific question and that is are we still with peacekeeping troops in sudan if you have an answer that you can do it quickly  my last i was there in august and my last word was it was a land problem so i just want to know as the u n improved linkage in terms of for and  think we might be able to get to about seventeen thousand by the end of the year but again this is much much more slowly than we hoped and i think there are a lot of reasons for that i think one the obstruction of the government of sudan has been part of it and we've seen everything from the objections to some of the troop contributors particularly the top ineffably contributions we've seen some administrative obstacles the issue you referenced in terms of land use survey delay in granting visas and other things and then we've seen some but also some very serious cases at one point lebanon i'm sorry at one point the sudanese armed forces opened fire on a un supply convoy and that of course is the kind of thing that spooks troop contributors very seriously we've also had we think some plugins sluggishness and that involves mostly administrative and the un and that involves mostly administrate of issues regarding relating to contracting so for example we have a number of troop contributors who are prepared to deploy but don't have the capacity in place to be self sustaining for a long period of time and we want the u n to use all of its existing contracting authorities to take care of that situation to do contracts they can basically ensure that these countries are self sustaining and they've been reluctant to do that so some of it is working through you know i think maybe these is the most straightforward way of saying it is that the u it applies to standard peacekeeping operations but this peacekeeping operation is a hybrid it's unprecedented in that regard and we need to create a new world book and one that can allow for a very rapid and aggressive deployment and then the other major problem has been the failure of their national community and i think everyone bear some responsibility for this in failing to come up with some of the resources the mission needs and particularly helicopter transport and some of the other important equipment that can assure mobility of this force which is essential when we're talking about an area for a troop of even at twenty six thousand that's obvious not enough to cover this entire area unless we have real mobility so i think there are a lot of reasons for the flood appointment i think we are now in the point where we're hoping this will move more quickly and the special envoy ritual and set a goal that we deploy thirty six hundred new african troops that would be made up of ethiopian egyptian and rwandan troops and i colleagues are working very closely with each of those governments to make sure they have the resources they need using the money that congress appropriated both in zero seven to support hope that the state department will be diligent in their constant reminder and really insistence on the u n but also the sudanese government albeit you know the relation we had when i was there i think shortly thereafter unfortunately through accident or otherwise one of our certainly public servants and national public servants lost his life it is not a pleasant place it is very difficult to get visas members of congress an elbow grease and a little bit of sternness and i guess our international neighbors likewise have to join in because people are still dying as they are in some places or other places around the world but they're still dying and it seems like that is an area questions to be asked or answered this hearing of the international organization human rights and oversight committee and briefing is now