the committee will come to order this morning we are quite privileged to be joined by the united states ambassador to the united nations dr susan rice as well as a distinguished private panel that will follow her testimony the question period i first want to begin on a somewhat different point by thanking abass for her tremendous efforts to rebuild the united nations human rights mechanism which has been badly compromised by a pathological focus on israel and tarnished by a failure to focus on some of the world's worst human rights violator but the purpose of this hearing is to examine the challenges faced by international peacekeeping operations and to explore various options for making such operations more effective particularly in protecting innocent civilians since nine hundred forty eight the member states of the united nations have supported sixty three peacekeeping operations on forgot today the un peals more than ninety thousand uniformed peacekeepers and thousands of civilian personnel in fifteen peacekeeping missions and that economies and lives not under the weight of war and for these reasons it's very important that we pay our un peacekeeping dues involved as we propose in the state department authorization bill passed by this committee in the house last create the political space for peace prevent mass atrocities and avoid the collapse of states as we consider the future of peacekeeping it's important to recognize that such operations have become increasingly complex more than ever before they are designed to address the root causes of conflict and to build sustainable peace this is reflected in this year scale of current operations which have an average of nine times as many troops observers employees and thirteen times as many civilians as the average operation did ten years ago but these expanded peacekeeping mandates have put a severe strain on the system the demand for resources often exceeds the supply provided by the international community and as a result peacekeeping missions frequently lack the troops helicopters and other equipment they need at a time when peacekeepers are increasingly deployed in complex and unstable situations and sometimes become the targets of combat and that can be a recipe for disaster the united states has taken some important steps to address the lack of capacity and resources for example the u s military has assisted in the strategic movement of troops equipment and supplies to support u s peacekeeping missions in dar for we have funded over twenty five percent of the cost of i bird u n african union peacekeeping operation and constructive unmaintained thirty four for over seven thousand african union peacekeepers and through the global peace operations initiative we will provide training and materials seventy five thousand emerging crisis are expanded peacekeeping mandate the right approach to dealing with the types of conflicts we face to face today or are we asking our peacekeepers to do too much and what steps can we take to help ensure that u n peacekeeping operations have adequate personnel and resources to carry out their missions one of the key tests of the international peacekeeping system is its ability to protect civilians consistent with the emerging genocide war crimes ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity should they fail to do so the international community has a responsibility to step in and protect threatened populations with the use of force if absolutely necessary but strong words have not always been matched by strong actions since nine hundred ninety nine when a u n peacekeeping operation was established in the eastern congo over five million people five million have died as a consequence of war an additional forty five thousand every month and in conflict zones from congo to bosnia for people peacekeepers have been unable to prevent the use of rape as a weapon of war and even genocide how can we equip the united nations to more effectively protect civilians and prevent mass atrocities what can the united states do at the security council to discourage or overcome political foot dragging as we saw in kosovo in rwanda that prevents rapid deployment times of humanitarian crisis what is our strategy for making sure that woman form a critical mass of peacekeepers and peacemakers both to reduce has contributed to the promotion of peace and stability for more than sixty years and the overwhelming majority of peacekeepers have served with honor and courage but to allow the operational failures and the  conscionable acts of misconduct that come to the un peacekeeping operations to go unchecked undermine the credibility of the un the united nations has over one hundred sixteen thousand personnel from one hundred twenty countries deployed across seventeen piece operations including two special political missions seven new missions requiring more than four thousand uniformed personnel have been authorized over the past five years alone the budget for july ninth through june twenty ten has swelled to seven point eight billion with more than two billion coming from us in the united states the days of traditional peacekeeping when peacekeepers deployed only to places where there was a peace to be kept monitored lines of disengagement and force only in self defense those days have long since passed experts say that we now have entered a second generation of peacekeeping where missions are increasingly complex and dangerous the mission in haiti which was which was preceded by a u s led multinational interim force was authorized in two thousand and four not a traditional monitoring mission the mission in haiti has been charged with securing a stable environment restructuring and reforming the haitian national police assisting in disarmament demobilization and reintegration programs supporting the political and monitoring human rights the mission in democratic republic of congo was originally deployed in the year two thousand as a traditional monitoring mission with just over five thousand five hundred uniformed personnel today it has an authorized strength of nineteen thousand eight hundred fifteen uniformed personnel and an aggressive mandate to use force to protect civilians forcibly disarm combatants train and mentor the armed forces of the illegal arms shipment and provide advice to strengthen democratic institution and processes at every level of the government the complexity and dangerous nature of the congo mission is eclipsed only by the hybrid un african union mission for sudan with multiple chains of command and direct interference by the sudanese regime the hybrid model presents unique challenges and now the un is being pushed to launch a new mission in somalia as the un general assembly has a concept of responsibility to protect  how the discussion is timely following last week's debate at the u n the united states has a strong record of support for peacekeeping since two thousand and four we have supported the provision of training and equipment for eighty one gentle lady alluded to haiti and the peacekeeping mission there if the united nations was not present in haiti today that they would be a significant united states both civilian and military presence there back in two thousand and six myself and the ranking member of the subcommittee mr r requested that the g a o compared the cost of the then current and still current u n peacekeeping mission in haiti with the hypothetical costs of what s only mission of the same size would entail and i read your testimony and you have referenced that but in terms of the american taxpayer i think it cannot be stated often enough that it certainly has proven to be simply on financial or financial basis a good investment it would have cost the united states taxpayer to support us only mission there eight times what it cost the united states taxpayer and more importantly as you well  know peacekeeping and i think your words where it has saved the united states not only treasure but blood again the gentle lady indicated that there is over one hundred given the multiple challenges facing the united states and recognizing that there are problems that have to be addressed and improvements can be ma it's my belief that one of the most favorable aspects of the united nations in terms of the united states is the peacekeeping operations and i know that many of us look forward to your testimony your leadership and i'm sure there will be consultations over the course of your tenure and i tenure here regarding peacekeeping operations because the gentle lady the ranking member as well a she was unanimously confirmed to this cabinet rank position by the u s senate on january twenty second two thousand and nine with only other confirmations come so quickly from two thousand and two to two embassador rice was a senior fellow at the brookings institution where she focused on u s foreign policy trans national security threat weak states global poverty and development and from one nine hundred ninety seven to why he's keeping in so much in our interests as well as a recognition of serious problems and a strategy for addressing colleagues congressman wasserman schultz we witnessed the important role played by the u n mission in haiti i strongly believe that the objective and the success of the mission they are crucial the u n peacekeeping mission there to help ensure maximum impact and efficiency for our efforts in haiti and how do you see the appointment of president clinton as facilitating this coordination and helping egregious human rights abuses and standing up against actively pushing back on the outrageous and ridiculous focus on israel that has been the pattern in the human rights council we know very well as a body that is  but i think that your work there made the conference better we my position is we know what john is going to say he says it every year i think that someone is there to refute what he says makes more sense than no one how you can assist countries that are willing to provide troops but are powers that do not have the equipment or the uniforms and other things to provide secondly as relates to somalia as you know that is probably one of the most important countries right now if somalia is lost to the extremists it will be a disaster for the horn and therefore but there are forty thousand turkish soldiers on the island and it would seem to me that if the united states could persuade the standing army is not needed for any legitimate  bring to the ambassadorship in the mission in the united nations i take a moment of personal privilege to acknowledge a very distinguished brother that you have as well that we are very excited about the efforts that he is  example your words about un peacekeeping allows us to share the burden of creating a more peaceful and secure world i think america needs to focus on that a little bit more as we relate to what the united nation actually does and then there is a point that you made to focus my questions on the cause and give you these three issues haiti what progress have we made and how is the envoy president clinton doing as relates to haiti with respect to sudan i met with the african union before the peacekeeping status was set up and i know that it was slow in moving and i'm interested in how the peacekeeping process is in today and as we talk about the comprehensive peace agreement and certainly have an envoy there  also believe it's important that we look at questions dealing with peacekeepers and i'd be interested in the work that the united nations is taking to establish and implement a zero tolerance policy for sexual exploitation has had the experience of dealing with racial discrimination racism and have come so far and can lead on this but have many issues that we need to address in an international forum so i'm very sorry that we did not participate and hopefully our commitments and our regular budget obligations we will also have eliminated significant arrears on the peacekeeping side accrued island new york the great city from which come as well and my district is incredibly diverse in fact as you talk about all the regions that the peacekeeping efforts are involved in it sounds like you're describing my district we have population outside of michigan is located in a district growing a jewish population in the city of new york as well i tell you all that as a as a segue to my invitation to you to please come to my district and i would love to have you at an event maybe at the college to talk about some of the work that you're doing because it is a very relevant to the folks in my district i have sent a letter to your office and i would like to just call it your attention request if you would take that under advisement secondly i'd like to go over w resolution seventeen zero one and you spoke about your concerns about that issue but i'd like to just maybe ask a little bit further what what specific actions for instance should the resolution itself be tightened be more specific sexual violence not just race but the violence that happens to women and what without mechanisms to hold individual soldiers accountable for their crimes will continue being and as a woman i can only tell you that i i take this issue very personally and i am i feel deeply and my colleagues on the security council with whom i  t we can quibble about was one to one tenth of one percent or a substantial issue but the fact is no one worked harder than you did to try and make it happen and we all appreciate that whatever however we view the final decision thank you very much for being here thank you so much mr chairman thank you then all of the members for your support your great commitment to this issue i very much appreciated this opportunity testimony and we'll see what time remains because there will be votes in less than an hour and we will never get people back after those  dr locke it's very good to have you here when we brought you into the part of the next panel but we learned at least perhaps since that time you become a special advisor to the u n secretary general and assistant secretary general of the united nations senior vice president also in addition the director of studies at the international peace institute which is an independent think tank dr like is currently on public service  as perfect a professor of practice and international public affairs at the school of international and public affairs at columbia university and is still the director of the center international organization he's a past president and c e o of the united nations association of the u s he served in the u n in a variety of cities as he is once again and taught at princeton and authored several groundbreaking books on international peace keeping because you are now here in your capacity as an employee of the united nations this portion of the would be treated as a briefing rather than as part of the official hearing record and i was asked to transcribe your briefing will be included in the record if you could summarize the briefing by minutes thank you very much mr chairman i can certainly do that and i'm sorry it's somewhat arcane but there is a u n role as an independent international civil servant t estify at a hearing thank you for this opportunity i really appreciate the paternity to this distinguished committee on the sponsibility protect and its implications for international peacekeeping operations at the outset let me express the standard s of an international civil servant briefing a member state parliament in accordance with past practice my attendance today before the committee is on a purely informal basis and nothing in my oral remarks and written briefing statement should be understood to be a waiver express or implied of the privileges and immunities of the united nations or as subsidiary organs under the one hundred forty six convention on the privileges and immunities of the united nations sorry but that has to be said let me begin with a few words about the evolving concept of the responsibility to protect commonly referred to by its acronym r two p and then turn to the implications of r two p for international peacekeeping  four years ago at the world summit as you noted earlier the assembled heads of state and government agreed to protect their populations from genocide war crimes ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to prevent the agreed as well on the need for the international community to assist the state in filling this responsibility to protect and to respond in a quote timely and decisive manner and quote under the charter rules and procedures when national authorities are quote manifestly failing and to meet their responsibility and peaceful means have proven quote in adequate subsequently the summit's outcome document was adopted unanimously by the general assembly and the security council affirmed its are to be provisions earlier this year united nations secretary general ban ki moon presented the general assembly with a detailed plan for implementing this historic unanimous and unqualified commitment drawing on the provisions the outcome document the secretary general posits that are pillars one the protection responsibilities of the state to international assistance and capacity building and timely and decisive response concerning the first pillar the secretary general has stressed that neither the united nations nor the international community at large have either the capacity or the desire to try to substitute state corresponds abilities to the population on its territory and we do mean population and not just citizens instead we should encourage states to protect their people from such atrocity crime we should help them they all the institutions legislation social structures education and procedures to do so as detailed under the second pillar civil society and regional sub region organizations may be important conduits past the building and the secretary general's report talks of neighbors helping neighbors and of trans national networks for learning and for the transmission of good best practices each of these dimensions was quite visible in the one in which the united united nations has applied the principle in the post election violence in kenya in early two thousand and eight there as elsewhere prevention and political mediation not military action are the key ingredient conflict too often begets more conflict atrocities have a way of laying the basis for further atrocities down the road here the un's new commission another key product of the two thousand and five summit could play a critical role in the post conflict post trauma period the international community tends to be the most engaged and thus has the most potential leverage for helping to foster those societal values and attitudes and those government own judicial structures procedures and institutions that would make a relapse less likely as a secretary general the quote is to help not just to react once they have failed to meet their prevention and protection obligations it would be neither or ality nor a wise policy to limit the strong preference for such non coercive and preventive measures in turning to the implications of our for international peace operations mr chairman it should be noted that in contemporary un parlance operations  extreme end of the spectrum with the course of use of force to compel national authorities and our armed groups stop threatening our committing mass atrocity perversely that is the aspect of art that is the most and eight of the charter ranging from mediation fact finding and working with regional partners to references to international tribunals sanctions and other enforcement measures including of course military enforcement in cote d'iv kenya for example quiet diplomacy led to the station of incendiary media that could have incited much greater domestic violence as the secretary general has underscored what is needed is a quote early and flexible response tailored to the specific needs of each situation and over the past decade the security council has regularly assigned u n operations the demanding task of protecting civilians attacks on civilians including large scale sexual violence by rebel groups and government forces alike have become an almost commonplace feature of contemporary conflict and if i might add in secretary general view even one case of sexual violence by un peacekeepers is one too many and a number of these peacekeepers are confronted by multiple armed groups as national governments cannot control their territory as the un's recent new horizons study the mandates placed an emphasis on quote rule of law human rights and humanitarian actors and components like the military ones tend to be in short supply at this point mr chairman i need to make one more distinction in our two p are related concepts they are not identical protection of civilians is a broader and more generic term  ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity such mass atrocities are at the extreme end of the spectrum and is implementing the responsibility to protect report secretary general ban ki moon identifies three possible involved several of its neighbors similarly with the consent of the government of south africa and then african union and finally united nations peacekeepers there to help keep the internal tensions and proportions they did in neighboring rwanda the third possibility is when the government is not the perpetrator of such crimes but they are being carried out by an armed group that controls a portion of the country's master williamson is a familiar face to many of us on the committee he is a partner in the law firm of winston and strawn he recently completed an assignment as a president's special envo sudan earlier you served in the reagan white house as special assistant to the president and deputy to the chief of staff and then on to the white house senior staff assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs as many diplomatic post included serving as a master of nations offices in vienna assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs ambassador united nations for special political affairs and ambassador to the u n commission on human rights great to have you here again aaron we're is the peacekeeping advocate at refugees international he has participated in field missions to see then democratic republic of the congo and somalia primarily on international organizations and sub saharan africa a frequent visitor to the region has written extensively on economic development and peace and security issues there and how they affect u s national interests from march two thousand and three to march two thousand and four schaefer worked at the pentagon as an assistant for international criminal court policy we employ avenues of directing professor of doctrine concepts training and education division at the u s army peacekeeping and stability operations institute located in the u s army war college in carlisle pennsylvania before this assignment he was senior foreign affairs analyst and booz allen and hamilton on contract to critical component of this responsibility is the ability and willingness to engage in these operations u n peacekeeping operations can be useful and successful if entered into with an awareness of their limitations and weaknesses this awareness is crucial because the civilian personnel this threefold increase from recent ago is two thousand and three as noted by itself quote the scope and magnitude of u n field operations today is straining the secretary and infrastructure that was not designed for current levels of activity frankly is overwhelmed this is contribute to serious problems of mismanagement fraud in this conduct for instance incidents of sexual exploitation abuse of taking place in nearly every un peacekeeping operation in fact the un just launched a fact finding mission into new allegations of sexual abuse in the congo mission a two thousand and seven report by the un's office internal oversight services once was i inspected general found that over forty percent of the total value of one point four billion dollars worth of peacekeeping contracts was tainted by corruption the us also revealed in two thousand and eight that it was investigating about two hundred fifty instances of wrongdoing according to the head of o o s quote we can say that we found this management fraud and corruption to an extent that we really didn't expect these problems cry out for improved accountability entranced unfortunately oversight is far less than it should be for instance the lido us investigator charges against the u n peacekeepers  congo was quote appalled to see that the oversight offices final report was little short of a whitewash unquote raising questions about why us is independent meanwhile the only truly independent investigator unit in the united nations t recently terminated for performing his job too well countries led by russian singapore oppose renewing the mandate for the procurement task force for two thousand and nine after investigations by that task force led to convictions for their national there's also a political problem with the in general the un and its member states had accepted the fact that un peacekeeping operation should not include a mandate to enforce outside of limited circumstances after reviewing pas after reviewing past failures and drawing lessons from the report stated very plainly the united nations does not wage war ignoring the lesson can be costly in terms of lives and long term peace and stability it also places excessive demands on resources management personnel as recently referred reaffirmed by this report this month un peacekeeping can only succeed as part of a wider political strategy to end a conflict and with the will of the parties to implement that strategy in active conflict multinational coalitions of forces or regional lack actors operating under un security council mandate may be more suitable or a viable peace process and indeed it is precisely these types of situations ones where conflict reigns where there is little genuine committed by the parties to work toward peace or there is insufficient support engagement by neighboring countries and regional actors or where the host country commitment on hindered operations in freedom movement is lacking which currently consume the bulk of u n peacekeeping the un peacekeeping budget account for the most uniformed personnel involved in un peacekeeping in some being more dishes in approving missions  up resources for other missions that are vitally important quite simply the security council's gone overboard in the attempts to be seen as being effective in doing something even if it violates dealy learned lessons at the un that un peacekeepers are not work fighters another aspect of the political problem is the great discrepancy in the financial burden among member states the notion that wealthier nations should bear a larger portion of the costs is strong entrenched in the united nations but a system that has the united states playing pain two billion dollars for peacekeeping while the states pay less than eight thousand dollars is indefensible and creates a free rider problem where in countries pain virtually nothing have little reason to conduct diligence on whether those missions appropriate and existing mission is meeting its mandate or if un funds are being used properly to conclude i would believe that i believe that the u s security council and other member states should first not let the pressure to do something trump consideration whether an operation would improve or destabilize the situation but that's a clear mandate an achievable objectives and have an exit strategy in case the mission goes south second they should improve oversight and accountability through an independent specter general perhaps modeled after the german task force dedicated to peace operations third in investigators  d should be embedded in every peacekeeping operation for the un peacekeeping scales scales assessment should be slapped and out to make sure that all un member states particularly those on the security council has skin in the game to encourage them to take their oversight responsibilities seriously to hold states that fail to fulfill their commitments to discipline their troops to account by barring the from participating in operations until they make a commitment to do so finally build up peacekeeping these various activities and what i'd like to do is summarize some of the initiatives that have taken place and some that are potential to bear some fruit to aid and assist in this great watershed events of the balkans rwanda and post conflict iraq have served as a catalyst to develop doctrine and concepts and various places the un capstone doctrine developed last year identified the safe and secure environment is a key issue for the u governance and getting all of the various parts of the u n together to act in unison and also that local national ownership was a principle that the u n ought to look at given the fact that this is the first capstone in the first time that these various principles were enunciated in a larger forum the answer is how does that then provide guidance to the force commander in the on how do you achieve safe and secure environment  the challenges for a sixteen nation forum that's been around for about ten years by the focal point of that academy out of sweden is a forum that can provide a place where various participants can provide non papers to the u n in order to address this the u s is part of this forum and right now they are focusing on how do you provide a safe and secure environment how do you provide that guidance to the force commander  is paired with pakistan on a working group to bring some of those thoughts to bear there will be a meeting this november in new york where the initial thoughts will be put out with a final meeting in australia in two thousand and ten putting out is how do you establish a safe and secure environment how can you establish governance and how can you bring all the people portions of the u n together in an integrated manner in order to do this so this challenges is an opportunity in order to fill one of the has a lot of expertise in that over the last couple of years and their various deployments and others and we're in coordination with the department of support in order to bring the expertise from the u s military in order to aid and assist which we think is a useful way to do that the other thing is police the essential task matrix in the essential task of police have just been established and put out there so the police now have some standards and a good way ahead to begin opportunity to begin to push and encourage these essential tasks and then take what the police learned and move these essential tasks back into the military formations in order to assist them in developing some essential tasks as far as the u s is concerned the u s institute for peace is just publishing a document hopefully by the end of this week on guiding principles for stabilization and reconstruction these principles are based upon significant information gathered from the united nations from the nato from the e u from the and from the u s laying out a framework on how to establish safe and secure environments how to go ahead with economics how to go ahead with governance and provide some excellent thoughts and guidance on that and i think we're looking forward to taking that document us ip and moving forward us army doctrine it is coherent with this new un capstone doctrine after five six years of work our doctrine has come into line with this matter of fact the framework in the new deal manual three o seven stability is very similar the framework in the un capstone doctor discussing such things as security sector reform which had never been discussed before the joint doctrine will be developed later in accordance with that the key here is how do you then move from doctrine to application in some of the areas one of the areas is what if you're faced with mass atrocities what if you're faced with some significant problems out there in that case the harvard school of the carr center at harvard and the peacekeeping institute has developed a mass atrocity response options and operations a way to take a planning process take this doctrine and figure out how do you address mass atrocities and and the requirement to protect and that will be part of an ongoing process developing with the un and with the department of defense in the mass atrocities response project the last of course is knowledge knowledge of the troop contributing countries on how the u n works and what the u n needs and how to interface well with the u n in various things and opportunities and i think that would that would go a long way to sort of stabilizing the situation and the u n can go through and generate the appropriate force and get in there we know the share break with us initially in the  should not allow the major engagement consequential to allow our military capabilities to take a pass on some of these other issues of consequence morally y first of all in the response of protect it sometimes to protect civilians against the host country secondly the host country may not in some areas have the capability to deal with  the so this notion of the critical nature of that country's permission or invitation is a little confused in my own mind in terms of how you start to thank you all very much we