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S. HRG. 110–734 

U.N. PEACEKEEPING: OPPORTUNITIES 

AND CHALLENGES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS 

AND 

ORGANIZATIONS, DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 23, 2008 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Staff Director 

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND 

ORGANIZATIONS, DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS 

BILL NELSON, Florida, Chairman 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator From Wyoming, prepared statement .......... 11 

Durch, Dr. Bill, senior associate, Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, 

DC .......................................................................................................................... 28

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 51 

Hook, Brian H., Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Organizations, Department of State, Washington, DC ................................................. 3 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 3 

Nelson, Hon. Bill, U.S. Senator From Florida, opening statement ..................... 1 

Schaefer, Brett D., Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, 

Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC .............................................................. 27 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 41 

Soderberg, Hon. Nancy, distinguished visiting scholar, University of North 

Florida, Jacksonville, FL ..................................................................................... 24 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 38 

Vitter, Hon. David, U.S. Senator from Louisiana, prepared statement .............. 9 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Additional questions submitted for the record to Acting Assistant Secretary 

of State Brian Hook by Senator Richard G. Lugar ........................................... 56 

(III)

(1) 

U.N. PEACEKEEPING: OPPORTUNITIES 

AND CHALLENGES 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND

ORGANIZATIONS, DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:05 p.m., in room 

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Nelson, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Bill Nelson, Vitter, and Barrasso. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA 

Senator BILL NELSON. The hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights will now come to order. 

Today we are going to examine the United Nations peacekeeping 

challenges and opportunities, and we are going to have a focus on 

the role of the U.S. support for U.N. peacekeeping. 

We have two panels. On the first panel, Acting Assistant Secretary Brian Hook, who heads the Department of State’s Bureau of 

International Organizational Affairs, will offer his expertise and 

the administration’s perspective on the current U.S. role in U.N. 

peacekeeping. 

And then in the second panel, we are going to be joined by a 

group of experts. Mr. Brett Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Fellow in 

International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Dr. 

Bill Durch is a senior associate at the Henry Stimson Center and 

authored an analysis of the implementation of the U.N.’s Brahimi 

Report on Peacekeeping Reforms. We will also be joined by Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, who is currently a distinguished visiting 

scholar at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. She 

served as Alternate Ambassador to the U.N. during the Clinton administration and recently published a book, ‘‘The Prosperity Agenda: What the World Wants From America and What We Need in 

Return.’’ 

Today’s hearing is particularly timely since this is the 60th anniversary of the founding of U.N. peacekeeping operations. U.N. 

peacekeeping has developed over time, helping to create conditions 

for peace, conditions for stability in countries that are torn by conflict. And there have been a total of 63 U.N. peacekeeping operations since 1948. Today there are 17 ongoing. And over the past 

2 

10 years, the number of U.N. peacekeepers deployed around the 

world has increased almost fivefold, to over 110,000, military and 

civilian, serving in the field today. 

Now, the U.N. Security Council has mandated several new missions now in Chad, Sudan, Coˆte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Haiti, TimorL’este, and Darfur, and all of those in the past 5 years alone. 

But the budget requests have not kept pace with the growth in 

missions. For example, the President had requested $1.5 billion in 

the fiscal year 2009 budget to pay for our U.N. peacekeeping bill, 

but we know that the cost of our contribution to the U.N. peacekeeping in 2008 will be at least $1.7 billion. So assuming a larger 

bill even in 2009, with the demands on the mission in Darfur and 

other missions, these low requests put us on a perpetual state of 

arrears in the United Nations, making the operations difficult for 

the Department of Peacekeeping Operations since we in the United 

States pay almost 27 percent of its budget. 

The significant increase in the U.N. peacekeeping missions in recent years signals a growing confidence in the capacity of the 

United Nations and a willingness by Member States, especially the 

United States, to help solve conflicts by international cooperation 

and global burden-sharing. However, this rapid expansion has created significant political and operational challenges for the U.N. 

Department of Peacekeeping Operations in standing up U.N. operations. 

In the aftermath of the U.N. experiences in Somalia and Rwanda 

in the 1990s, the U.N.’s Brahimi Report, which offered recommendations on improving the efficacy of U.N. peacekeeping activities, concluded that U.N. peacekeepers can only be deployed 

where there is a peace to keep. Yet, this month in Darfur, eight 

peacekeepers were ambushed and killed by Khartoum’s government-backed militias, and the African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force is now mired in problems, including a drastic shortage of troops and necessary equipment. And this is just on the eve 

of its 1-year renewal. 

It is critical that the United Nations address the serious problems of corruption and sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers. In 

2007, there were approximately 127 reported cases of sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers out of over 100,000 in the field. Now, 

that is an unacceptable number. We must hold the United Nations 

to the highest standards of accountability in investigating these 

abuses and making systematic changes to prevent these crimes 

from occurring again. 

Yet, with all the challenges and difficulties, the importance of 

U.N. peacekeeping to the U.S. national security agenda is significant. 

Did you have a statement for Senator Vitter? 

Senator BARRASSO. I do not, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BILL NELSON. All right. What we are going to do is we 

are going to put our witness’ written statement, Mr. Secretary, in 

the record. 

Senator BILL NELSON. What we will do is we will just get right 

on into the questions. I am certainly accommodating to my colleague if he would like to go first. 

3 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Go 

ahead. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Mr. Secretary, the first two peacekeeping 

missions deployed by the United Nations in the Middle East in 

1948 and then again in India and Pakistan in 1949 still operate 

today. Why is the United Nations keeping these operations ongoing 

in these missions? 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN H. HOOK, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. HOOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, first of all, for holding the 

hearing. 

When I joined the Department and went into International Organizations, I too—you know, when you start surveying the peacekeeping operations and you see ones that have been on the books 

since 1948 in the case of UNTSO in Palestine and UNMOGIP, it 

is fairly unsettling when you see it. It is just hard to imagine that 

we have had a presence there for that long. 

In Palestine, we only have 153 military observers there, and we 

hear from folks on the ground that it does provide a stabilizing 

presence. We do look to the views of the people on the ground 

there. I cannot imagine President Bashir would say UNAMID is a 

stabilizing presence in Darfur, but in the case of UNMOGIP and 

also in UNTSO, we hear that it is making a difference. 

In the case of India and Pakistan, it is there to observe and report if there are any cease-fire violations. Its mandate is going to 

come close to expiring when we can resolve the problem of Kashmir. But it does help to keep the parties honest. And some of these 

peacekeeping operations are tied to political disagreements that go 

back for decades. But when the parties on the ground say that it 

is making a difference, it is helping—and they are not a lot of people—we think this may be a small price to pay in light of the benefits that we hear that it is helping dialogue, it is keeping the parties honest, so it can be useful. 

But I know that the optics of it are difficult because they have 

been around. I mean, 1948, 1949—it is just amazing these folks can 

argue over an issue for that long, but that is where we are. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hook follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRIAN HOOK, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to address this subcommittee today on 

the topic of our support for United Nations peacekeeping operations and our efforts 

to help them become more effective instruments to promote peace, stability, and reconciliation in some of the world’s most difficult conflicts. The administration seeks 

to work in close partnership with Congress in addressing the many challenges the 

United Nations peacekeeping operations face today. In today’s testimony, I will discuss trends in peacekeeping, the challenges of peacekeeping, and the lessons we 

have learned from them, and how our efforts to improve U.N. peacekeeping have 

led to significant, hard-won successes in countries such as Haiti, Liberia, and the 

Democratic Republic of Congo. I will also discuss the many ongoing challenges that 

still hinder U.N. peacekeeping operations and impede them from becoming fully 

effective, most prominently the UNAMID operation in Darfur. But even when facing 

significant challenges, it is clear that U.N. peacekeeping operations not only contribute to the prevention or mitigation of conflict and the resulting protection of 

4 

civilians, but also provide good value for the U.S. in sharing the burden to respond 

to peacekeeping needs and requirements around the globe. 

United Nations peacekeeping serves the United States national interest. While we 

have a stake in the outcome of events in virtually every region of the world, there 

are many conflicts in which our direct military intervention would not be appropriate or effective. United Nations peacekeeping provides an important alternative. 

U.N. peacekeeping missions engage and commit the international community to 

seek solutions to these conflicts. By partnering with the U.N., we share the burden 

and the costs of peacekeeping missions, even as we continue to use our leadership 

in the Security Council to shape their mandates, and to strive to make them as 

effective as possible. 

In recent years, peacekeeping operations have expanded rapidly in size, complexity and scope. Since 2001, the number of authorized peacekeepers has nearly 

tripled, from under 40,000 to almost 120,000, as the Security Council has authorized 

large missions in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Coˆte d’Ivoire, 

Lebanon, Southern Sudan, and Darfur. Peacekeeping operations have taken on complex new tasks. Traditional peacekeeping operations, such as the longstanding operations in Cyprus or Kashmir, consist mainly of blue-helmeted troops monitoring a 

green line or buffer zone between the parties to a conflict. In another example, part 

of the mandate of the UNIFIL operation in Lebanon, established in 2006 by resolution 1701, is to play such a role, but its mandate also includes other activities like 

facilitating humanitarian access, and assisting the Government of Lebanon to extend its control over its territory and to secure its borders. 

In recent years, peacekeeping operations have tended to become more complex. In 

operations in Liberia, Haiti, East Timor, Coˆte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic 

of Congo, cease-fire implementation has been only the first of a peacekeeping mission’s many tasks, which may also include: Facilitating the demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration of ex-combatants; providing logistical and security support to elections; helping a post-conflict government reform its security sector and 

other governing institutions; even supporting operations by the national security 

forces against recalcitrant militia factions or criminal gangs. U.N. peacekeeping 

operations are increasingly multidimensional, integrating military and police components with expert civilian technical assistance. This dramatic expansion in peacekeeping efforts has presented new opportunities for the international community to 

assist local populations as they end dangerous conflicts, promote reconstruction, and 

build lasting reconciliation. However, we must also acknowledge that this expansion 

has resulted in unprecedented demands on the U.N. Secretariat, on troop contributing countries, and on the Member States that share the cost of peacekeeping 

assessments. 

We have learned some important lessons from our experience with peacekeeping. 

One lesson is simply that peacekeeping is challenging. Peacekeepers have always 

had to contend with shattered infrastructure and hostile operating environments. 

The new multidimensional operations have additional layers of complexity. For such 

operations to be successful, many military, police, and civilian components must 

work together effectively—in particular, the parties to a conflict must learn to cooperate with the mission, however much they mistrust each other. In Sudan’s 

Darfur province, the environment is not permissive and some of the parties to the 

conflict have not cooperated with the multidimensional operation UNAMID. This, 

and UNAMID’s difficulty in coordinating among its own components have caused 

the operation to struggle. 

Another lesson we have learned is that successful peacekeeping and reconciliation 

can take a long time and require a sustained commitment; setbacks are to be expected. The peacekeeping operation that began almost a decade ago in the Democratic Republic of Congo monitored an uneasy cease-fire among a plethora of foreign 

troops and domestic militias. Since that time, U.N. peacekeepers have assisted with 

the democratic election of the current government, the demobilization of ex-combatants, and the stabilization of much of the country. Even after so many years, however, the peacekeepers still must contend with armed groups that threaten to renew 

conflict in the eastern portion of the country. 

By far the most important lesson is that peacekeeping can be an effective tool to 

help war-shattered countries make the transition from war to peace; peacekeeping 

can help traumatized people to rebuild their governing institutions, economies, and 

futures. Liberia stands as an example of successful multidimensional peacekeeping. 

The conflict in Liberia caused devastation and chaos—a nonfunctioning government, 

shattered infrastructure, and no trace of law and order. The UNMIL peacekeeping 

operation and its predecessors provided a framework of security and technical 

assistance as Liberians rebuilt their country and their government from the ground 

up. Today, UNMIL continues to assist the democratically elected government of 

5 

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to restore law and order and rebuild Liberia. Peacekeeping has also had successes in Haiti, where a multidimensional peacekeeping 

force has broken criminal gangs and helped train and mentor Haitian security 

forces, providing a security umbrella for the political process. While Haiti’s political 

impasse is far from resolved, the dispute is now conducted peacefully through the 

political system. In Timor-Leste and later in Kosovo, peacekeeping has sheltered 

newly independent countries while they built their own governing institutions from 

the ground up. 

Peacekeeping may be difficult and fraught with challenges, but it is well worth 

our efforts to collaborate with our U.N. partners to make peacekeeping operations 

more effective and to make them work better. Many people in countries such as 

Haiti, Liberia, Kosovo, Timor-Leste and Congo, who once feared the scourge of war, 

can now look forward to rebuilding their future. They surely would agree that it is 

worth the international community’s efforts to make peacekeeping work. 

While we can be pleased with the many successes of U.N. peacekeeping, we also 

must recognize and learn from the challenges that still hinder some peacekeeping 

operations, most notably the UNAMID operation in Darfur. UNAMID’s difficulties 

in reaching full deployment and operational effectiveness are well-known, and exemplify many of the constraints facing the United Nations and African Union during 

this period of extraordinary growth in peacekeeping. Understanding these problems 

is the first step to working with our partners to improve the effectiveness of 

UNAMID and of other important peacekeeping operations. 

One important constraint is cost. U.N. peacekeeping assessments have increased 

as peacekeeping has expanded, and all Member States are feeling the strain. Our 

payments for U.N. peacekeeping assessments have escalated from $1.022 billion in 

FY06, to $1.4 billion in FY07. We estimate our FY08 payments could reach $2 billion. Assessments for UNAMID, a massive operation with major startup costs this 

year, will be a significant proportion of those costs. We are grateful for the supplemental funding that will enable us to make payments for UNAMID assessments 

during fiscal year 2008 and 2009. 

Force generation has become another significant constraint to U.N. peacekeeping. 

With record numbers of blue-helmeted personnel already in the field, troop contributors are struggling to meet the requirements for large new multidimensional operations such as UNAMID. Certain specialized units are in short supply. To date, no 

troop contributing country has come forward with pledges for force multipliers such 

as the helicopter units that UNAMID needs to be fully effective. Pledges for other 

key units, including heavy transportation, engineering units and especially formed 

police units have so far fallen short of UNAMID’s needs. We are supporting the 

U.N.’s effort to generate troop contributions for UNAMID with our own diplomatic 

outreach to countries that might pledge these important missing assets. We have 

active discussions underway with potential troop and formed police unit contributors 

as we explore options for U.S. assistance to upgrade their equipment so it meets 

UNAMID’s requirements. 

Many countries that are willing to participate in UNAMID need assistance in 

training and equipping their troops to a level that meets U.N. operational standards, with transporting their troops to the area of operations, or with sustaining 

their troops in the field once they arrive. The United States has extensive bilateral 

assistance programs to train and equip peacekeeping troops, especially African ones. 

We administer this assistance through programs such as the Global Peacekeeping 

Operations Initiative and its African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program, commonly referred to as GPOI and ACOTA. Earlier this year President Bush announced a $100 million plan to provide equipment and training to an 

additional 6,000 African soldiers for deployment to UNAMID. Since then we have 

initiated ‘‘train and equip’’ programs for three infantry battalions from Rwanda, and 

one infantry battalion each from Ethiopia and Senegal. When these programs are 

completed in August, we will launch a new round of train-and-equip programs for 

UNAMID participants, with troops from Burkina Faso and Tanzania. We continue 

to provide substantial bilateral military assistance to countries who contribute 

peacekeeping troops to UNAMID and to other peacekeeping operations worldwide. 

Over the past 5 years, the United States has spent over $800 million in such direct 

and indirect support to multilateral peacekeeping. 

UNAMID’s structure—to date unique—as a hybrid United Nations-African Union 

operation has proven to be another constraint. Before the U.N. Security Council established UNAMID, the African Union multinational force AMIS had deployed to 

Darfur, with significant assistance from the U.S. and other donors. In July 2007, 

the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1769 to establish UNAMID. Resolution 1769 specified that UNAMID was to incorporate the AMIS troops, and deploy 

certain specialized logistical, engineering, and transportation units that would lay 

6 

the groundwork for deployment of a much larger UNAMID force prior to the final 

transfer of authority from the AU to the U.N. on December 31, 2007. However, the 

dual command structure proved cumbersome and difficult to manage in practice; 

furthermore, most of the specialized units were not ready to deploy in the timeframe 

specified. Sudan’s membership in the African Union gave it leverage over the terms 

of the hybrid operation’s deployment. Sudan used this leverage to insist that 

UNAMID be a predominantly African operation and that the African units deploy 

first, even when specialized and urgently needed non-African units were ready to 

deploy. This hybrid structure clearly impacted UNAMID’s effectiveness. 

Increasingly, peacekeeping is constrained by the limited capacity of the U.N. 

Secretariat, which further complicates the problem of generating forces and deploying forces quickly to peacekeeping operation in the field. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which has traditionally coordinated peacekeeping has simply 

been unable to expand its personnel, planning, and logistical capacity quickly 

enough to keep pace with the rapid growth in peacekeeping. We strongly support 

the ongoing restructuring of the U.N. Secretariat, including the establishment of a 

new ‘‘Department of Field Support’’ to help support peacekeeping, and authorization 

of over 400 new staff positions related to peacekeeping at U.N. Headquarters. The 

effort to reform the U.N. Secretariat and increase its capacity to deploy complex 

peacekeeping operations is still a work in progress. It will take time for the 

Secretariat to incorporate the new personnel and procedures. In the meantime, the 

United States will support force generation through its diplomatic efforts to rally 

troop contributors, and its assistance to train and equip them to an effective 

standard. 

One additional constraint on effective U.N. peacekeeping bears particular mention, and we must continue to take the necessary measures to address and prevent 

it. Sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children is prevalent in far too 

many conflict situations in which U.N. peacekeepers are present. In most of these 

cases, regular troops, militias, and rebels are the perpetrators and use rape as a 

weapon of war. In some particularly shocking cases, U.N. peacekeepers are accused 

of perpetrating sexual exploitation and abuse, preying on the very people they are 

to protect. The United States has led international efforts to eliminate sexual abuse 

and exploitation by U.N. staff. With our strong encouragement, the United Nations 

has instituted a wide range of preventive and disciplinary actions to carry out its 

policy of zero tolerance toward sexual exploitation and abuse by military, police, or 

civilian personnel. Sexual abuse is unacceptable; especially when the protectors 

become the perpetrators. 

One of the greatest challenges for effective peacekeeping is matching a mandate, 

its authorities, and its associated rules of engagement with the requirements in 

theater. Empowering a mission to respond appropriately and effectively to the conflict situation is critical. The mandate is potentially either the greatest constraint 

or the greatest contributor to an operation’s success. The United States uses its 

leadership in the U.N. Security Council to shape peacekeeping mandates that are 

clear, credible, and defined to what is achievable. That said, there is no simple, onesize-fits-all formula for designing effective peacekeeping mandates. 

As a case in point, we can look to the three peacekeeping operations established 

to deal with the interrelated conflicts in Chad and Sudan. The MINURCAT operation in Chad is primarily a police operation, charged with protecting vulnerable 

civilians who have fled from the subregion’s conflicts; troops from the European 

Union operation EUFOR provide force protection to MINURCAT, and secure a safe 

haven in eastern Chad. MINURCAT has no mandate to resolve the underlying conflicts in the region, but only to mitigate their effects. As MINURCAT deploys, it is 

on track to succeed in its limited, but vital goal of protecting vulnerable civilians. 

In Sudan, UNMIS is a complex multidimensional operation, charged with facilitating the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two 

decades of civil war between the north and the south. The peace process is fragile. 

We can expect implementation of the Agreement’s many provisions to be slow, and 

often contentious. Fostering reconciliation will be a long-term effort. UNMIS has a 

distant goal, but with the continued support of the international community and of 

the parties themselves, it is achievable. The third operation is UNAMID, in Sudan’s 

troubled Darfur province. Like MINURCAT, UNAMID has a mandate to protect vulnerable civilians, and, like UNMIS, it has a mandate to support a peace process. 

However, Darfur today is deeply factionalized and the Government of Sudan has not 

yet demonstrated its willingness to cooperate with UNAMID or to facilitate its objectives. These factors clearly complicate UNAMID’s ability to carry out its mandate. 

Ideally, the peacekeeping operation would deploy only after a peace process is well 

underway, and all of the parties view the peacekeepers as welcomed partners in implementing a settlement. However, the brutal conflict in Darfur has caused appallVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:23 Feb 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\47434.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
7 

ing human suffering on a truly massive scale, with new fighting and displacements 

occurring regularly. Suffering people in such a desperate situation cannot wait for 

a political process to mature. For this reason, we support a two-pronged policy for 

Darfur—to facilitate UNAMID’s rapid deployment, while simultaneously promoting 

the peace process. 

Mr. Chairman, in my testimony, I have been able to touch only briefly on the 

many important dimensions of U.N. peacekeeping. These issues could be usefully 

explored in much greater depth. I stand ready to respond in detail to any further 

questions from the committee. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Look at a place like Somalia. Do you think 

we are going to get around to a U.N. peacekeeping force there? 

Mr. HOOK. You would have to have the right conditions, sir. The 

Security Council has, on three separate occasions, expressed an interest in looking at follow-on operations to AMISOM. In the case 

of Somalia, there are not many good options. It is sort of the least 

bad option. In light of the fighting, in light of the unrest that has 

been going on there since the overthrow of the regime, the Security 

Council is interested in looking at contingency operations. What 

would they look like? 

The Secretary General a few months ago came back with some 

options. The Security Council did not think they were in enough 

detail, and so they asked him to go back to the drawing board and 

come back with more information. We were expecting that report 

in mid-July. We still do not have it. I think probably the smartest 

thing to do is wait to see what we get back from the Secretary General and look at what—you know, he has a special representative 

there, SRSG Abdullah. AMISOM is there. 

I was involved—I negotiated the resolution in New York that authorized AMISOM. It is an issue of particular interest to me, and 

it is also a very sensitive issue in light of what happened, you 

know, the deaths of America soldiers in Mogadishu. So all of these 

things are very much in our minds as we look at options. 

We have been very pleased with the—I think you may have seen 

the Security Council passed a resolution on piracy to try to combat 

it. We did that. That was a U.S. resolution. Canada has since announced that it is going to be sending some battleships into the 

waters. We have a presence there. There may be a way to take— 

we are seeing a little bit of an incremental approach. You know, 

address piracy, you know, make some gains there. Right? And convey a presence there that does not put people in harm’s way. But 

I think we need to be very, very careful and we need to be very 

smart about it. 

We will have to wait and see what the Secretary General comes 

back with, and then I think we look forward to just talking about 

it with you and your staff and seeing what sort of ideas come back. 

Senator BILL NELSON. The military force that is there, other 

than the Ethiopian troops, are what? 

Mr. HOOK. It is an AU force. It is the AMISOM, African Union 

mission in Somalia. It is a tough mandate. It is a very, very, very 

difficult environment to operate in. 

Senator BILL NELSON. It is kind of a no man’s land. Is it not? 

Mr. HOOK. Well said, yes. It is a no man’s land. 

The council is focused on it. I do not think it is suffering from 

inattention, and I think the fact that the council has three times 

gone to the Secretary General and asked for more information reVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:23 Feb 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\47434.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
8 

flects the kind of commitment to make some progress there. And 

the fact that they passed that resolution on piracy was a real good 

step, but as I said, there are no good options. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Well, now, one area that there has been 

some progress is the U.N. mission in Haiti. 

Mr. HOOK. Yes. 

Senator BILL NELSON. How long do you think the U.N. peacekeeping mission will stay there—the forces? 

Mr. HOOK. We have a long-term commitment to Haiti. Yesterday 

I placed a call to Mr. Annabi, who is heading MINUSTAH, to get 

a report from him. He was in Geneva, and so I spoke with his deputy. They are going to be filing a report. I think their renewal is 

up in October. They are finishing their report for the Security 

Council. They will probably have it done in September. They are 

going to ask for a 1-year renewal. You may remember the council 

was doing 6-month renewals on Haiti. We pushed to have a 1-year 

renewal and we got it. That shows a long-term commitment there. 

I think MINUSTAH has been a success story. I think it has 

transitioned from a military force to really doing a lot with police. 

And we are seeing certainly improvements. 

The United States has 50 police officers serving with 

MINUSTAH, and we are trying to root out corruption. I think you 

know the $20 million that we gave to focus on Cite Soleil led to 

1,000 arrests. When I talked with the deputy head of MINUSTAH 

yesterday, he said that made a real difference. And in April, when 

we had the food riots, I think if you would have asked people if 

there was rioting, where would it be—sort of the flash point, it 

would probably have been in Cite Soleil. There were no riots. So 

our aid there and I think our focus and our commitment has made 

a difference. 

The kidnappings are down. 

I know that the absence of a Prime Minister and a functioning 

government—when I spoke to the MINUSTAH deputy yesterday, 

he said it is having a severe negative impact. We are very hopeful 

that they get out of this position and get a prime minister named 

and have a functioning government. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Are we going to be able to still make ends 

meet with the rising cost of fuel? 

Mr. HOOK. Well, this is part of the difficulty of the budgeting. 

There are so many variables that go into this, and some of these 

factors are outside of our control in terms of parties to the conflict, 

whether they decide to become more belligerent and adversarial, 

rising costs of food, the weak dollar, the cost of oil. There are a 

number of factors that play into this. 

But I know that we are very committed to Haiti and we think 

we are making a lot of progress there. And I think we should continue. MINUSTAH is trying to further democracy. It is trying to 

create the kind of conditions that we are going to see better economic growth. It is helping on the humanitarian assistance side. It 

played a role during the food riots that we saw there. 

When I was up in New York at the U.S. mission, Hedi Annabi 

was the number two in DPKO. So I worked a lot with him, and 

from all accounts, he is doing a good job in Haiti. 

Senator BILL NELSON. The Senator from Wyoming? 

9 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have 

a statement, if I could just include it in the record. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Without objection, as will be the statement by the Senator from Louisiana. 

[The prepared statements of Senator Vitter and Senator Barrasso follow:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID VITTER, U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA

Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this important hearing today. 

The issue of U.N. reform, and the need to demand greater accountability and 

stronger results from an organization to which we provide billions in funding, resources, and personnel, is one of great importance. As ranking member of this subcommittee, I have repeatedly called for greater American oversight of the U.N.’s 

functions. This is particularly true regarding the U.N.’s peacekeeping apparatus, 

which has a separate budget, includes two full departments, and involves tens of 

thousands of personnel. I welcome the chance to shed some light on the peacekeeping process and examine whether the latest round of reforms have decreased 

the number of instances of waste, fraud, and abuse, or if we need to further reassess 

our policy toward U.N. peacekeeping. 

Sadly, the end of the cold war almost 20 years ago has not brought about the 

peace and prosperity for all countries as we might have hoped. Today, there are too 

many countries in distress or in conflict or on the edge of failing. And, as we have 

learned, failed states are a threat to our own national security as well as to regional 

and global stability. The knee-jerk response to troubled states by the U.N. and the 

international community has increasingly been to send in U.N. peacekeepers. As a 

result, millions of people now rely on the U.N. and its peacekeepers to provide the 

stability and support necessary to put their countries on the road to peace and 

recovery. The United States itself has invested significant resources and funding in 

U.N. peacekeeping. Therefore, it is our responsibility to ensure that American time, 

energy, and resources are utilized in the most effective and appropriate manner 

possible. 

The U.N. has 17 active peacekeeping operations worldwide, located in every part 

of the world including Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. 

These operations involve 88,000 uniformed personnel representing 117 countries, 

plus an additional 19,500 U.N. volunteers and civilian personnel. 

The U.N. budget for peacekeeping operations, which is a separate funding stream 

from the U.N.’s regular budget, is $7.4 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. This is 

a 10-percent increase over the preceding fiscal year. The United States contributes 

over a quarter of this budget, on top of the 22 percent of the regular U.N. budget 

that it contributes annually. 

All of these numbers are just a narrow snapshot of the U.N.’s peacekeeping operations, but they do give a good sense of the U.N.’s peacekeeping activities’ growing 

significance. In fact, since the end of the cold war, the number of U.N. peacekeeping 

missions has increased markedly. For example, from 1945 to 1990, the U.N. Security Council established only 18 peacekeeping operations. Yet, from 1990 to today, 

the Security Council has approved 40 new operations, and half of all current operations have been approved since 2000. 

The scope and responsibilities of these missions have increased dramatically as 

well. In the post-cold-war environment, peacekeepers are more likely to be involved 

in intrastate conflicts and civil wars, where lines of allegiance are blurred and they 

are not always guaranteed to have the acquiescence of all parties involved. This has 

also resulted in an increase in attacks on the peacekeepers. And, even as the environment becomes increasingly hostile to the U.N.’s peacekeepers, these soldiers find 

themselves responsible for more than just simple border and cease-fire monitoring. 

In addition to their traditional roles, peacekeepers are now also involved in military 

intervention, nation-building, and civilian law enforcement. 

It is important to examine the reasons behind this expansion, to make certain 

that broadening U.N. peacekeepers’ responsibilities and increasing the size and 

number of operations is indeed the right response to help those countries struggling 

with the challenges of the post-cold-war environment. This is particularly true because, while the nature and size of the challenges have changed, the structure underpinning the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations has not been properly 

or effectively restructured to meet the new demands and challenges. The upshot is 

that the U.N.’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations, struggling to keep up with 

10 

its expanded mandate, has been plagued with scandal within its contract and procurement departments and within its operations on the ground. 

The sheer volume of waste, fraud, and abuse in peacekeeping-related procurement 

contracts is staggering. The U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), during a recent audit, found at least $265 million of $1 billion in contracts over a 6- 

year period was subject to waste and abuse. By its own admission, this is just the 

minimum amount tied up in corruption schemes and lost in wasteful practices. 

On the ground, acts of sex exploitation and abuse (SEA) have been repeatedly 

committed by peacekeepers against the very citizens they have been sent to protect. 

Allegations and incidences of SEA, including human trafficking, forced prostitution, 

and rape, committed by U.N. personnel have occurred with increasing and disturbing regularity, engulfing operations in Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, 

Guinea, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. 

In addition to engaging in acts of abuse and exploitation against local populations, 

peacekeepers have been accused of selling back confiscated weapons to rebels for 

gold. 

I am very disturbed that it appears the U.N. is incapable of addressing the abuses 

occurring through its peacekeeping operations. After a 2006 OIOS audit of peacekeeping accounting found serious instances of fraud and waste, the U.N. Department of Management, which holds the procurement contract portfolio, and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations adopted the majority of the 32 OIOS audit 

recommendations. Yet an OIOS report released early in 2008 revealed that the 

OIOS found that 44 percent of the total $1.4 billion value of peacekeeping contracts 

was tied to corruption schemes. 

Global outrage over sex-related abuses by peacekeepers in 2004 spurred the U.N. 

to announce a ‘‘zero tolerance’’ policy toward SEA, as well as adopt stricter standards for peacekeeping units and their contributing countries. After a 2005 report 

was released by the Secretary General’s special advisor on SEA, the U.N. General 

Assembly moved to endorse many of the recommendations, some of which have since 

been implemented. Yet despite this flurry of activity, just this past May, Save the 

Children accused aid workers and peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, Southern Sudan, 

and Haiti of sexually abusing young children in war and disaster zones. 

Compounding this crime against the victims, the perpetrators were rarely punished. 

Discouragingly, it does not appear that bureaucrats at the U.N. understand that 

abuse of any sort is unacceptable and must be dealt with immediately, severely, and 

in a transparent and publically accountable manner. Even the OIOS itself does not 

appear immune from pressures to gloss over fraud and abuse found during audits 

and investigations. After accusations in 2006 that peacekeepers in the Congo were 

involved in a gold smuggling and weapons trafficking scheme with Congolese militias, a lead OIOS investigator stated that his team was removed from the investigation after they rebuffed attempts by officials to influence the outcome. The BBC and 

Human Rights Watch have since provided substantiating evidence that U.N. officials covered up evidence of wrong-doing in the Congo. 

And finally, just this past weekend, I read a very disturbing report regarding the 

neutrality and objectivity of U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon as part of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). According to Fox News, during the prisoner exchange between the terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. Peacekeepers 

were photographed saluting the coffins of the returned bodies of terrorists, as well 

as a large image of Imad Mughniyeh, a top-ranking Hezbollah terrorist killed last 

February. 

Peacekeepers, in this mission, are supposed to be neutral actors put in place to 

form a buffer between Lebanon and Israel and to disarm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon—the very terrorists they were seen saluting. It is appalling that U.N. peacekeepers would honor murderers and criminal terrorists. I am hardly reassured by 

the response provided by the UNIFIL spokesperson regarding the incident, whose 

dismissive remarks that the salute was simply military tradition only served to underscore that the U.N. bureaucrats just do not get it: It is a very big problem when 

soldiers serving under the auspices of the United Nations honor terrorists and law 

breakers and when they break with their position of neutrality. 

I know that I do not speak only for myself when I say that I am very concerned 

that American dollars are going to pay these individuals and provide them with support when they clearly are not supportive of the rule of law, their U.N. mandate, 

and certainly not the values and principles of a free, peaceful, and democratic society. I am very interested in hearing from our witness, Acting Assistant Secretary 

Hook, about what the Department of State is doing to address this very disturbing 

event. 

And I am looking forward to hearing from all of the witnesses about what they 

feel would be the best way to address the very serious problems of abuse and fraud 

11 

that persist within the U.N. peacekeeping structure despite attempts by the U.N. 

to ‘‘reform the system’’ or ‘‘police itself.’’ 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to look into this very important matter. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would also like to welcome the witnesses. 

The United Nations’ peacekeeping efforts are extensive and demonstrate the 

international community’s desire to prevent genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other 

atrocities. 

Despite the U.N.’s commendable and essential efforts, U.N. peacekeeping operations often lack proper management practices, properly trained and equipped personnel, and sufficient resources. 

There are many issues that contribute to the U.N.’s failure with peacekeeping efforts, and it is difficult to get nations with different ideologies and prioritiees to 

agree. 

While U.N. bureaucratic red tape contributes to its share of these problems, it 

does not let Member States off the hook for failing to work together to find effective 

solutions. 

The United States has a significant role in contributing funds and other resources 

for peacekeeping operations. 

The U.S. should be a leader in the U.N., but Member States must be more willing 

to implement needed reforms and contribute appropriate funds that truly reflect 

their commitment to support peacekeeping operations. 

Congress should demand reforms, accountability, and effective participation by 

Member States. 

Without these changes, the U.N. will be unable to achieve its objective to promote 

peaceful resolutions to conflicts. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. Chairman, since the topic is U.N. peacekeeping opportunities and challenges, what I would like to do, rather than to get into some of the specific points around the world, 

just more of an overview, if I could, Mr. Hook. 

When I look at the peacekeeping costs, I see them as being kind 

of unevenly covered by different members of the United Nations. I 

understand the importance of peacekeeping operations and the role 

the United States plays in covering a significant part of those costs. 

Do you believe that the costs of these peacekeeping efforts really 

are fairly configured in how the assessments are made? Do the 

rates that are assessed to each country fairly reflect the ability of 

the Member States to contribute to the peacekeeping operations? 

Are we getting a fair deal at this point? 

Mr. HOOK. We pay an enormous amount, and this is the problem 

I have seen in the United Nations broadly where the United States 

and Japan together account for almost 40 percent of the U.N. budget. We have 192 Member States and there ought to be, I think, 

greater fairness in how these assessments are made. 

I think on peacekeeping, the formulas—our assessments are very 

high. We are at $1.7 billion this year, and that is out of a $7.1 billion total cost for peacekeeping. It is something which I think 

broadly I would like to see more fairness in assessments. I think 

we end up shouldering a very large burden of those. 

And I think as a consequence, it makes us a little more vigilant 

about waste and fraud and profiteering and mismanagement. I feel 

a fiduciary duty to the taxpayer to make this work. It has been a 

lot of my frustration with UNAMID. Congo is the largest and most 

expensive operation. UNAMID is likely to overtake that. And if it 

12 

does, as we were talking about earlier, these peacekeeping missions 

can go on for decades and decades. And I think it is very important, as part of that fiduciary duty, to make sure that we have 

mandates that are clear, that we have benchmarks for progress, 

and that when those benchmarks are met, there is an opportunity 

to withdraw. 

Sierra Leone is closed. We have a drawdown for Liberia that is 

underway. We expect to draw down next year in Coˆte d’Ivoire. As 

I was saying earlier, Haiti has moved from a military mission to 

a peace mission. UNMEE is closed down, not through any positive 

action of the United Nations, but because Eritrea kicked out the 

peacekeepers along the border there. 

Whenever we have these renewals that come up in the council 

for mandates, I think it is imperative—and I have instructed my 

staff to take a very, very hard look at these renewals to make sure 

that if there is an opportunity to drawdown because of benchmarks 

that are being met or because the conditions have changed, then 

we ought to do that because we do pay a lot of money in peacekeeping. 

Senator BARRASSO. I would also like to discuss the effectiveness 

of U.N. reform. I agree with you that there ought to be greater fairness in U.N. assessment payments and how to accomplish it. If 

other Member States were really seeing the financial consequences 

of their decisions, would you feel that then they would be more 

likely to support the reforms you are talking about in terms of the 

waste and the abuse within the system? And then how do we accomplish that? 

Mr. HOOK. There may be a way to illustrate that. I would be 

open to exploring that. If there is a way to demonstrate to them 

the financial consequences, that may be a way to sort of graphically 

demonstrate how we would like to see more fairness in some of this 

pricing. 

Senator BARRASSO. Well, in the past, Congress has used its authority to withhold funds from the United Nations in exchange for 

needed reforms. What is your assessment of that? Has it been successful? Is that something we need to give serious consideration to 

now? 

Mr. HOOK. Well, we have seen the case when we do deploy these 

missions, we have troops in the field. They need to get paid. They 

need the logistical and administrative support. 

The fact of the matter is our assessments are what they are right 

now. And when we fall behind and when we are not making our 

payments in terms of the assessments, it does have an effect in the 

field at the missions, a lot of them that we care about. And we need 

to somehow strike that balance there of fairness, but then also not 

putting the troops that are in the field, the peacekeeping operations—and in a case like MINUSTAH, we have 50 police who are 

there helping with policing there. 

But I think that troops need to get paid. If they are out in the 

field, they need the logistical and administrative support to accomplish their mission. So that is one thing that I am sort of sensitive 

to about if commitments have been made and troops have been deployed, then we need to make sure that they are getting what they 

need. 

13 

But I have been in this position now just for less than a month, 

but it is an issue that I want to explore further and see if we can 

make some progress on it. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Senator Vitter. 

Senator VITTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a number of 

concerns on this topic, many of which are common to my colleagues’ concerns, and some of which many not yet have been mentioned. 

One issue is the importance of ensuring peacekeeping troops always maintain proper impartiality. This has not always been the 

case, and I am especially concerned about a few recent instances. 

Probably the most dramatic, at least according to media reports, 

was a recent instance when U.N. peacekeepers who were part of 

the U.N. interim force in Lebanon saluted the coffins of Hezbollah 

terrorists and saluted an image of a top Hezbollah member killed 

in Damascus in February. What is your reaction to that? What is 

the appropriate U.S. response to that? 

Mr. HOOK. I saw the picture the day it was released, and I 

thought it was appalling. UNIFIL’s credibility depends on its impartiality, and when you have pictures being sent around the world 

of it saluting Hezbollah terrorists, that creates a real problem for 

UNIFIL. When I saw it, I sent it around the Department and made 

people aware of it. All we have is the picture, but I was deeply 

troubled by it. I know that Ambassador Gellerman, whom I worked 

closely with up in New York, expressed his outrage over it. 

Just today I have received probably as much information as I 

have on the issue. There was a letter that was released to the 

media from UNIFIL which tried to explain what was going on. 

Senator VITTER. I think I read those statements. They tended to 

heighten my concerns not allay them. 

Mr. HOOK. Right. Obviously, UNIFIL was asked to help with this 

exchange between Israel and Lebanon, this prisoner exchange. 

UNIFIL is then helping in that capacity, but UNIFIL needed, I 

think, to understand the political sensitivity of that situation. And 

they ought to understand exactly what was going on in that case. 

Now, that was a convoy of what? I think eight different vehicles 

carrying the remains of hundreds of people. They have said it is 

the custom of troops, if there are coffins draped with flags, to salute, and it may be the case they were saluting the entire convoy. 

But it seems that that sort of skirts the issue of I think UNIFIL 

being sensitive to the importance of its impartiality and sort of anticipating exactly the sort of thing that we are having to sort of 

talk about today. I think this is something which could have been 

avoided. It is unclear if—I do not know if they knew what they 

were doing. I do not know. I have not interviewed these two soldiers. 

Senator VITTER. I read those statements, and again, they heightened my concerns instead of providing any sort of reassurance. 

This is because the statement suggests that the peacekeepers did 

nothing wrong when they saluted Hezbollah terrorists and that it 

was simply tradition. The statement completely misses the point 

that symbols, such as saluiting a flag, image, or coffin, conveys a 

great deal of meaning. 

14 

Mr. HOOK. They do. I know. 

Senator VITTER. And for the United Nations or a branch or agency of the United Nations to blur the distinctions between traditional combatants or soldiers and terrorists is a big deal in my 

mind. 

Mr. HOOK. It is. 

Senator VITTER. This is a serious problem. 

Has the State Department, on behalf of all of us, issued any formal statement about this or taken any formal action? 

Mr. HOOK. I have asked my staff to follow up to find out the 

facts. As I said, I have learned more today. I read some communications from our Embassy there. I wanted to have all the facts, 

and then I think once we have our facts, then I think we can figure 

out how to respond appropriately. I share all the concerns that you 

have raised, but part of it is I did not want to just, starting with 

this picture, sort of take some action. I wanted to at least find out 

exactly what was going on there. I would have liked to have seen 

a quicker response I think from UNIFIL. 

Senator VITTER. Well, I would ask that you follow up with 

me—— 

Mr. HOOK. I will. 

Senator VITTER [continuing]. And I am sure the whole committee 

would be interested—— 

Mr. HOOK. Yes. 

Senator VITTER [continuing]. After you understand all the facts. 

I am not arguing with that, but I would hope that if the media reports are confirmed, the State Department would make a formal 

statement and take other appropriate strong and formal actions—— 

Mr. HOOK. I will follow up with you. 

Senator VITTER [continuing]. That go beyond just having a conversation with someone. 

Mr. HOOK. Yes; I will follow up with the committee and you. 

[The information referred to above follows:] 

Mr. HOOK. On instruction from Washington, our Missions raised this issue with 

the U.N. Secretariat in New York, the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and UNIFIL officials in Lebanon. In these discussions we noted these U.N. 

peacekeepers must be cautioned, and that the U.N. must take steps to ensure peacekeepers never give the appearance of taking sides in an internal conflict. Rendering 

honors to a terrorist is simply unacceptable. 

Department of Peacekeeping Operations Assistant Secretary-General Edmond 

Mulet confirmed to us that the U.N. was also displeased at this occurrence. 

UNIFIL staff were instructed by U.N. Headquarters to be more cautious and attentive to detail in the future. UNIFIL and our contacts in New York also advised 

us that the soldiers in the photo were not involved in any way in the Lebanese ceremonies, and were carrying out their assigned duties along the road used by the convoy as it passed. 

The soldiers are from a western European troop-contributing nation whose soldiers, as in most armies, customarily salute whenever mortal remains in coffins 

draped with national colors pass in procession. According to the U.N. and UNIFIL, 

they saluted at their own initiative following that tradition; they were reportedly 

unaware that the coffins contained the remains of Hizballah terrorists and that the 

photo displayed was of Mughniyah. 

Senator VITTER. Great. Thank you. 

I also share Senator Barrasso’s concern—as I am sure many of 

us do—that the U.S. could do much more to ensure that we are effectively leveraging our major participation, particularly in terms 

15 

of funding, to demand reforms. Many of the reforms we are talking 

about are reforms that have been already proposed within the 

United Nations by the Secretary General or others, but has not 

been effectively implemented, if implemented at all. How can we 

better ensure that reform be taken seriously at the United Nations 

and changes and reforms be incorporated immediately and effectively by Member Countries, U.N. officials, and bureaucrats? And 

if the answer is not withholding funds, what is the answer short 

of that? A lot of us think we need to be more effective at pushing 

reforms. And therefore we are looking for some answers, including 

withholding funds. I would ask if the State Department does not 

want the Senate to withhold funds if reforms are not implemented, 

then we are going to need a good, effective alternative. 

Mr. HOOK. We do leverage our significant contribution to the 

United Nations. I think you know about our UNTAI initiative, the 

U.N. Transparency and Accountability Initiative, that has been a 

real priority. Getting an ethics that is systemwide at the United 

Nations, promoting internal audits—we have got UNTAI ratings 

now with different missions to try to get an assessment of how accountable and how transparent they are. 

Transparency and accountability I think are very important for 

the credibility of any institution, particularly the United Nations, 

and in light of the fact that we fund the U.N. more generously than 

any other country in the world, our voice gets heard and we do leverage, I think, our deep financial commitments to try to achieve 

the kind of reforms that you are talking about. I know on the procurement side, as of October 2007, we have seen about 47 percent 

of the reforms implemented. 

I, in my capacity in this position, will keep pressing for reforms. 

Personally it is a priority for me. When I was up in New York 

working with the U.N., I saw firsthand, I think, how important it 

is for the U.N. to be transparent and accountable to its donors. And 

when you have procurement fraud taking place, it is very important for allegations to be addressed. 

I know that OIOS has been—their Procurement Fraud Task 

Force we think has been doing pretty good work. Just in the short 

time the task force has been understood up, it has found 10 fraud 

schemes, $25 million in misappropriations, and six staffers have 

been charged with misconduct. I think that is important work for 

the task force to be doing. That can also provide a real deterrent 

effect. Making sure that we have very good, strong qualifications 

for vendors, better vetting process—— 

Senator VITTER. I do not mean to interrupt, but what about with 

regard to peacekeeping forces and peacekeeping situations specifically? There are a lot of issues there and there are a lot of proposals regarding sex exploitation and abuses. What is being done 

specifically there to promote and demand those reforms? 

Mr. HOOK. Well, I think the United States has taken the lead at 

the U.N. on zero tolerance for sexual abuse and exploitation. Prince 

Zeid, as you know, did his report in 2005 after the abuses in the 

Congo, which are unacceptable. One instance is too many. And 

then the council adopted those recommendations from Prince Zeid. 

I am pleased with some of the progress we saw just in the last 

year. I mean, sometimes the council will take action like in this 

16 

case, 2005, and they feel like the itch has been scratched, but we 

even saw some instances also of sexual exploitation in the context 

with some Sri Lankan troops. 

But even after Prince Zeid’s report, then just this last year the 

General Assembly passed a new template for a memorandum of 

understanding between the U.N. and troop-contributing countries. 

We already have seven that have been completed with TCCs. They 

have not been signed yet, but when they are signed, they will go 

into effect. And these revised MOUs do a better job, I think, of 

strengthening the standards of conduct and providing some help for 

victims and making sure that the governments are going to be following up with victims of sexual violence committed by peacekeepers. 

The U.N. has very little leverage on this in terms of the actions 

that it can take after the fact. But what it can do is restrict—there 

was even some talk about trying to restrict some of the peacekeepers from going to bars and going to places where you can have 

some of these instances which can take off and then lead to some 

sort of sexual violence. 

Senator VITTER. Again, I do not mean to interrupt, but if I can 

make a suggestion. 

Mr. HOOK. Yes, please. 

Senator VITTER. As I understand it, a lot of the troop-contributing countries are developing countries. These countries get far 

more funding per peacekeeping soldier than the true cost they 

incur by putting that person in the field—— 

Mr. HOOK. Yes. 

Senator VITTER [continuing]. The funding these counties receive 

is far greater than their soldiers’ wages and all of the other related 

costs. Providing peacekeeping troops then becomes a significant 

source of cash which—particularly for a poor, developing country— 

makes peacekeeping a very attractive and important activity. 

What if we developed a metric that measured any problems with 

a country’s soldiers with a peacekeeping deployment and then penalized these countries based on these problems by tying it to future funding and deployment? This would affect the future income 

of countries with a record of deployment violations because peacekeeping funds are a source of income. It would seem to me that you 

are going to get some people’s attention very quickly if you threaten future income because it is an income source. In some cases, developing countries are dependent on that income source and find it 

very significant. 

Do you have any reaction to that? 

Mr. HOOK. Well, I think you’re right. The U.N. benefits from 

TCCs, but then TCCs also—— 

Senator BILL NELSON. What are TCCs? 

Mr. HOOK. I am sorry. Troop-contributing countries, TCCs in the 

U.N. parlance. 

But these troop-contributing countries also receive a benefit, as 

you said, in terms of better wages, and then they also get training. 

A lot of these missions provide good training for some of these 

countries and better training than they might otherwise get. One 

of the limitations we have seen in UNAMID is when Bashir had 

put that condition on predominantly African troops, a lot of these 

17 

African troops lacked the capacity to field an effective force. And 

so the U.N. provides that training. There is a benefit that accrues 

to them. 

I think that is part of the MOU. The MOU I think that the G– 

8 passed is trying to leverage some of that. 

Punishment for perpetrators of these crimes varies from country 

to country. It would, I think, be unacceptable for people to be sort 

of given some sort of free pass when they are out of their country. 

There ought to be consequences when they go back home, but it is 

often up to the military to decide how to handle these sorts of violations. The U.N. gets rid of them. 

Senator VITTER. Well, again, just to be clear, what I am suggesting is a metric so that when there is a clear instance of abuse 

coming from troops of a certain troop-contributing country, then 

there is a penalty associated with the use of more of those troops 

from that country for the next year. That is a financial penalty to 

the government. I guarantee you in many instances that will instill 

the will and the discipline to have the training and whatever else 

is necessary to make sure that does not happen again simply because that military and government find their participation in that 

program very beneficial and do not want to lose their status as a 

troop-contributing country. 

Mr. HOOK. Well, Senator, let me look into that and see if there 

is a way to develop that nexus. I will follow up with DPKO and 

see if that can be explored. 

Senator VITTER. Great. Thank you. 

[The information referred to above follows:] 

Mr. HOOK. The United States has been at the forefront of those insisting that 

peacekeeping troop contributing countries recognize and exercise their primary responsibility for preventing sexual abuse and exploitation on the part of their national contingents, and for taking prompt and effective action, in accordance with 

their own national administrative and judicial process, to deal with accusations and 

to punish the guilty. 

With our leadership, the U.N. has instituted a wide range of preventive and disciplinary actions to carry out its policy of zero tolerance of SEA by military, police 

or civilian personnel. In addition to providing pre- deployment training modules for 

troop contributing countries to use in preparing their personnel for deployment, 

Conduct and Discipline Teams (CDTs) have been established in all missions to train 

all peacekeeping personnel on standards of conduct upon their arrival in the mission 

area. 

CDTs also publicize complaint procedures to local populations and conduct preliminary investigations of any allegations of misconduct by U.N. peacekeeping personnel. When a member of a peacekeeping contingent is found to have engaged in 

misconduct, then that individual’s own military service has the responsibility for 

disciplining the member. Typically the individual is sent home or dismissed. 

The U.N. and the troop contributing country must deal with issues of chain of evidence, proper investigation, and the rights of the accused and the accuser. We are 

actively discussing these issues with the U.N. and international colleagues. The 

U.N. General Assembly recently approved a Model Memorandum of Understanding 

laying out standards of conduct and procedures which the U.N. is using as a basis 

for negotiating new agreements with troop contributors. 

The U.S. also raises specific allegations of misconduct on a bilateral basis , with 

troop contributors. 

We believe that all of these measures can have a direct impact in helping the 

U.N. to combat sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. personnel, and ensure the 

punishment of perpetrators. 

We are interested in the idea that withholding funding from certain troop contributors may assist with these efforts to combat SEA, and will be exploring how this 

proposal could be administered fairly in practice, and support other ongoing measures to combat SEA. 

18 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BILL NELSON. How many cases in 2008 have been reported of sexual exploitation and abuse? 

Mr. HOOK. There were 105 allegations reported to the Office of 

Internal Oversight Services this year. 

Senator BILL NELSON. And of that number, how many have been 

investigated? 

Mr. HOOK. There were 14 that have been investigated. Eight 

have been substantiated. And some were repatriated and sent 

home and some have been disciplined. 

Senator BILL NELSON. So substantiated means they were found 

guilty. 

Mr. HOOK. Right. This is in OIOS. Three people have been repatriated and five have been disciplined. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Of the eight. 

Mr. HOOK. Well, you had 105 allegations, and you had 14 so 

far—— 

Senator BILL NELSON. You had 14 that were investigated. 

Mr. HOOK. Right, so far. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Out of 108. Why do you think the big difference between 108 reported and only 14 investigated? 

Mr. HOOK. I would imagine that conducting an investigation out 

in these circumstances in some of these places like in Congo is very 

hard where the evidence is very hard to come by. 

One of the things which I know is being discussed and which I 

would support—we ought to have units there in the field who can 

respond quickly to allegations of sexual violence so that they then 

can collect the evidence and preserve it because I think in some of 

these cases it is well after the fact. The victim is probably impossible to find. And the evidence is probably very thin. And this is 

taking place in a place like the Congo, which is the bloodiest war 

since World War II. 

But we may be able to expedite more investigations if we can anticipate out in the field, if we know that there are certain areas 

like in the Congo where we have had problems, DPKO should be 

maybe looking at how they can get people deployed there to investigate crimes and then report that back to OIOS so that we can 

have—you know, if we have 105 allegations and we only have 14 

investigations completed, those are numbers we need to improve. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Well, just put it in context. When my wife 

and I could not get into Darfur because the government would not 

let me in because I had been quite critical of the government, we 

went to the back door through Chad. And, of course, here are these 

refugee camps that the women are sent outside of the perimeter of 

the camp to get firewood. Now, they are attacked and they are attacked by the various roving bands that are in there. But when the 

women have to worry about the U.N. peacekeeping force being the 

attacker, this is absolutely unacceptable. 

Mr. HOOK. Agreed. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Let me ask you about—are you through 

for the moment? I mean, just hop in whenever you want to. 

What is the criteria that the United States uses to decide for a 

peacekeeping mission, and how do you express that criteria in the 

Security Council? 

19 

Mr. HOOK. It was actually a PRST that the council passed in 

1994 after the tragedies in Somalia, and they set forth a series of 

factors which the council should take into account before it deploys 

a peacekeeping mission. President Clinton had also issued a Presidential directive, PDD 25, that also set forth factors, and interestingly, there was a fair amount of overlap between those two. 

I think that there is broad agreement on the kind of factors that 

we look at. In our case, there has to be some sort of international 

threat to peace and security. It has to advance U.S. interests. I 

think the mandate needs to be very clear, very well defined. And 

we also need to not impose a mandate upon a mission and not give 

it the resources to do the job. We see when that goes awry in 

UNAMID and the problems we are having there. There are other 

factors that are complicating that, obviously in the case of Darfur. 

Making sure that the forces are going to be robust enough to execute the mandate and they are going to have the money they need 

to do the mandate. 

I think there is broad agreement on the kind of factors that people look at, the criteria that we sort of bring to this. The problem 

comes when we have got very, very difficult circumstances like 

Darfur where a lot of these criteria are challenged pretty vigorously. I mean, they are pushed up to the limit. And you can sometimes deploy a mission. For instance, in the case of Darfur, President Bashir did say that he will permit—he unconditionally accepted the hybrid mission, and then after the fact, he imposes conditions. 

Now, historically peacekeeping missions have the consent of the 

host country. The very traditional U.N. peacekeeping missions 

which are blue helmets on a green line are—they want them to 

come in. It is a useful presence to keep everybody honest. 

But in the case of UNAMID, this hybrid operation, I think there 

will be lessons that we will take from this for years and years and 

years to come. You can actually feel like you are meeting your criteria when you deploy it, but then facts on the ground change, for 

instance, the host country deciding that it does not want it there 

and it is throwing all sorts of poison pills into the mix. That makes 

it hard. 

But I feel like there is general agreement on a lot of the criteria. 

I think where we would probably get into arguments is whether on 

a case-by-case basis, the facts that are relevant to the criteria are 

in fact met. 

Senator BILL NELSON. We will insert in the record this chart 

showing the 17 ongoing operations now and where they are in the 

world. 

[The chart and information referred to follows:] 

20 


nel2.eps
21 

Senator BILL NELSON. Of those, what is your favorite? 

Mr. HOOK. Haiti. As I said earlier, I think Haiti is doing a very 

good job. 

We have had, I think, some success in Liberia. I think Liberia 

has met most of its benchmarks. President Johnson-Sirleaf—we 

had a nice combination of sanctions that were there. We had timber sanctions, diamond sanctions. But we also had a peacekeeping 

force there, and it is helping a war-torn country make the transition to democracy. 

We have seen the same thing I think in East Timor, in Kosovo 

and, as I said, in Haiti. 

Congo—I think we are in a much better place than we were 5 

years ago with the DRC. I think 5 years ago I would not have said 


nel3.eps
22 

that we are in a very good place. There are a lot of challenges still 

in Congo. I do not want to overstate success on Congo. 

But Coˆte d’Ivoire—as I said, we are probably going to see a drawdown there. 

And then we have also places with more limited mandates like 

in Cyprus, and in the case of Cyprus, which I think is—these are, 

I think, largely observers. It is a limited mandate. It is nothing like 

the multidimensional mandates we see in places like the Congo, in 

UNMIS in south Sudan, in Darfur. But they are accomplishing it. 

They do not get as much attention, but we think they are executing 

their mandate. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Let us up that next chart. Why don’t you 

share with us how you justify a budget request of $1.5 billion for 

fiscal year 2009 while the mission, for example, in Darfur is still 

growing? And if it is going to be fully deployed, it will be the largest with 25,000 troops. 

And you can see from the chart the total number of U.N. peacekeeping personnel on the ground, which has gone from the year 

2000 to 2008 from 18,000 folks to 107,000. 

And you can see the assessment from the U.N. to the U.S. in the 

blue line on the chart at the right, whereas the administration request is far below that in each of the years 2001 through 2008. 

So tell us why the difference. 

Mr. HOOK. Mr. Chairman, as you know, our requests are made 

in the context of the constraints on the overall budget. That is one 

thing that I would say. 

You mentioned Darfur. We had originally requested—we had ex- pected that it would be $884 million. In fact, it is going to end up 

being less than that because of the slower deployment. 

In a lot of these cases, as I was saying earlier, it is hard to predict the size of missions. For example, at the beginning of the year, 

UNMEE. UNMEE was something that we had budgeted for 

UNMEE, on July 31, is very likely going to cease to exist. These 

are missions deployed in very difficult areas with parties whom we 

cannot control, and it makes some of our predictions—it makes it 

very hard to do. There are a lot of variables. It is often unpredictable. We have the constraints of the overall budget. 

We try to keep you and your staff apprised as best we can on 

changes in terms of shortfalls. I know that my staff meets with 

your staff every month, with Senate Foreign Relations staff, to discuss peacekeeping operations around the world. I know budgets are 

discussed in that context. But I understand your frustration with 

what that chart illustrates. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Well take, for example, the force in 

Darfur. What is our, the United States, strategy at the U.N. for improving the mission? 

Mr. HOOK. What is our strategy for improving the mission for 

Darfur? 

Senator BILL NELSON. With the budget that you have put out. 

Mr. HOOK. Well, I am sort of looking ahead—I do not know if you 

mean in the budget context or just in terms of making it more effective. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Both. 

Mr. HOOK. OK. 

23 

Our preliminary estimate is higher than what, in fact, DPKO 

came back to us with. We thought it was going to be more. I think 

we were surprised it is going to be less. So that number has been 

revised. 

You have heard me say, I think, that—we were talking about 

how important it is to have the consent of a lot of these governments to absorb and take in a peacekeeping operation. If we can 

make progress on the political track, it is going to help Darfur and 

it is going to help UNAMID in the same way that we are seeing 

progress in southern Sudan with UNMIS. And we would like to see 

Darfur head in the same direction that southern Sudan did. 

For some time we have asked for a single, full-time mediator for 

the AU, and we now have one in the form of the Foreign Minister 

from Burkina-Faso, Foreign Minister Bassole. He is going to be 

full-time in Darfur. He has moved there. He has taken up residence there. Recently we had rebel groups splintering into like 25 

factions. I think that is now somewhere around five or six. He is 

somebody who I think enjoys the respect of the parties to the conflict. He does not bring any baggage to, I think, the negotiating 

table. So we think that that could be useful. 

The new head of the Department of Field Services, Susana 

Malcorra, whom we have met with, did a great job at the World 

Food Program which has enormous logistical challenges. There was 

a period, during some of the worst fighting in Darfur, where the 

World Food Program was still delivering 90 percent of its aid to its 

intended beneficiaries. I think she is going to be very good. 

This reorganization that the Secretary General undertook to split 

the formation of military police and civilians from the administration and logistics piece we think is going to speed deployment. 

We have a lot of confidence in Malcorra. 

We have a new French head of DPKO coming in, Le Roy. 

So better efforts on the ground on the political track and some 

encouraging sort of leadership in DPKO and DFS and the Friends 

of UNAMID that we are leading. I attended the first meeting in 

March of the Friends of UNAMID. We have 14 members. Susana 

Malcorra is engaging very intensely with us, trying to fill a lot of 

these administrative and logistical gaps. 

So I am hoping the trend line is going to improve. If the trend 

line improves on the political side, it is going to help UNAMID. 

And also, the President’s Special Envoy, Ambassador Williamson, 

has met with President Bashir a few times, and we are going everything we can on the political track because if you make progress 

there, 1,000 flowers bloom especially for the peacekeeping operation. 

Senator BILL NELSON. As the new Africa Command is being set 

up this fall, has it coordinated with existing U.N. efforts in the continent of Africa? 

Mr. HOOK. Well, I think you remember when the President was 

in Africa in January, he announced $100 million to train 6,000 African troops to deploy into UNAMID. We have already done 3,600. 

A lot of these folks are ready to go. Because of the impediments 

that we are seeing by the government, it is very hard for UNAMID 

to absorb these. 

24 

If we are going to have very robust mandates, sort of multifunctional peacekeeping operations, that places a real demand on 

peacekeepers from troop-contributing countries. And you sometimes 

have countries that have the will but they lack the capacity. And 

that is what the President’s initiatives are about, trying to improve 

the capacity and the training. In the case of this GPOI and 

ACOTA, these are both initiatives which are going to pay dividends 

for U.N. peacekeeping operations as we ask them to do more in 

more places and take on more complex mandates. 

Senator BILL NELSON. My question is, is the U.S. Africa Command going to be stepping over the U.N. peacekeeping operations, 

or is it specifically, as it is being set up, being coordinated with 

these peacekeeping missions. 

Mr. HOOK. I will have to follow up with you on that. I have been 

looking mostly at GPOI and ACOTA in terms of the UNAMID context. But I will be glad to follow up with you on that and talk about 

the relationship between the two. 

Senator BILL NELSON. OK. Why don’t you just respond to us in 

writing on that. 

Mr. HOOK. Sure, glad to. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

Mr. HOOK. The creation of AFRICOM will not change the authorities, roles, or 

missions of the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the United 

Nations with regard to U.N. peacekeeping. AFRICOM will work through the interagency process, as other Combatant Commands currently do, to coordinate with existing U.N. peacekeeping operations. 

Senator BILL NELSON. OK, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. 

Mr. HOOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BILL NELSON. We appreciate it. 

May I ask the second panel to come up? Mr. Brett Schaefer, who 

is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs 

from the Heritage Foundation; Dr. Bill Durch, who is with the 

Henry L. Stimson Center; and Nancy Soderberg, who is a visiting 

scholar at the University of North Florida. So welcome to all of you. 

Each of your statements will be put in the record, and thank you 

very much. 

You are a very distinguished panel. We have heard from the U.S. 

Government witness. Why don’t you all characterize for the committee the support that the administration has given for the U.N. 

peacekeeping missions? Does it vary mission by mission, or is it 

consistent across all the missions? Who wants to start? 

Ambassador Soderberg. 

STATEMENT OF HON. NANCY SODERBERG, DISTINGUISHED 

VISITING SCHOLAR, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA, JACKSONVILLE, FL 

Ambassador SODERBERG. First of all, it is nice to see you and 

thank you again for holding this hearing and having us for what 

I consider to be a very important issue. 

I think it is important to look at why we care about peacekeeping. I am always happy to hear a discussion about how we can 

improve the U.N., how we need more transparency and efficiency, 

but I think we need to look at the big picture. We need U.N. peaceVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:23 Feb 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\47434.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
25 

keeping and they need us, and I think it is fine to talk about sexual 

exploitation and push the U.N. to be better, but ultimately I think 

we need to look at how can we help the U.N. do better. 

And to answer your question, I think we are beginning to get 

there, but very far from sufficient support. You have to remember 

that Osama bin Laden fled to two failed states when he was kicked 

out of Saudi Arabia. One was Sudan. The other was Afghanistan. 

We are in Afghanistan. The United Nations is now in Sudan. There 

are 17 of those peacekeeping operations on your chart, 11 of which 

are in Africa. We know al-Qaeda is monkeying around in Africa. 

We know that we are the ones with the target on our backs. So unless we help the U.N. get this right, we are going to have to do it. 

Now, U.N. peacekeeping missions are less than half the cost of 

U.S. peacekeeping missions, and we get a quarter of that bill. That 

is a lot. Nobody else gets a quarter of that bill. We actually get 

charged for 31 percent. So we are continuing to accrue arrears on 

that, and that is something this committee I am sure has dealt 

with many times. But we need to be doing this. 

To answer your question on AFRICOM, I have actually been 

looking into this quite a bit myself with the National Defense University on a project, and we did a paper, which I brought along for 

folks who are interested, and it is: What the U.S. Has Done and 

What it Should do to Support U.N. Peacekeeping. It is a great 

project over at NDU, and there are copies in the back for those of 

you who are interested. 

Senator BILL NELSON. And a copy of it will be entered in the 

record. 

[The information referred to above will be maintained in the 

committee’s permanent files.] 

Ambassador SODERBERG. Thank you. 

Essentially AFRICOM is a great idea and it has been poorly executed. There was no consultation with the Africans or the United 

Nations in setting it up. Its focus was antiterrorism, not peacekeeping. I think that is changing and there is a connection now between the two. 

In 2006, the Pentagon put in its Quadrennial Defense Review a 

commitment to do more for U.N. peacekeeping in areas of its expertise: Training, equipment, doctrine, things like that. And so there 

is now a real look at what the United States can do. It is a lot of 

the Pentagon doing it, frankly, and there is a big debate between 

whether it should be the Pentagon or the State Department doing 

this. But the Pentagon happens to have the money and so they are 

doing it, which is fine as long as someone is doing it. But that is 

a big debate within the community. 

AFRICOM I think is ideally placed to try and help move this forward. What they really need to do is work in partnership with the 

U.N. The first meeting between the United Nations and AFRICOM 

occurred in May, and they have committed to begin biannual meetings at senior levels. And I hope you will push to make sure that 

that does occur. 

When I talk to the AFRICOM officials, they have no Presidential 

directive to cooperate with the U.N. They are looking for one, but 

it has to be a Presidential directive to AFRICOM to cooperate with 

26 

the U.N. They do not have that authority to do that. So they have 

not been able to do much. That was a discussion I had with them 

in May. I do not know if that has occurred or not, but that would 

be something this committee could absolutely look at. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Now, that is interesting because the forerunner to AFRICOM is the U.S. Southern Command where they 

are taking a diplomatic approach to a military command. And I 

have seen our commander of Southern Command work very well 

with the U.N. mission in Haiti, for example. 

Does anybody have any different information on the question of 

AFRICOM while we are on it? 

Ambassador SODERBERG. They work very well. They just need to 

get there. I think they are willing to do it. They just need the directive. They have had a lot of problems. They do not have a headquarters yet. Nobody wants them. There was no diplomacy done 

before it was announced. It was announced with no consultation. 

I think they will get through that, but it is going to take a while. 

They are technically operational in October. They are still in Stuttgart. 

The AU on its level has a fair amount of its own problems as 

well. So they have got a few challenges ahead. 

But the most important mission for the U.N. peacekeeping operation right now is trying to get Africa right in the United States 

perspective because al-Qaeda is there, and unless we get it right— 

and the Pentagon recognizes this. They call them under- and 

ungoverned spaces, and essentially it means failed states. 

So I welcome your interest in this and I hope you can help promote a dialogue on what AFRICOM is doing and how—— 

Senator BILL NELSON. You pointed out how many in Africa of the 

17 were—— 

Ambassador SODERBERG. The last time I counted, it was 11. I 

think there are 17 on that chart. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Yes. 

Ambassador SODERBERG. And I believe there are 11 of them in 

Africa. Just look at what is at risk here. 

Senator BILL NELSON. That is the reason for the question. 

So that is a message we will convey to the Department of Defense. 

Ambassador SODERBERG. The other thing I would suggest is that 

the troops—and you get into the sexual exploitation, the mistakes 

that some of these troops have made. Ultimately it is up to the Africans to do their peacekeeping for themselves. The region’s forces 

will go in faster. We went into Bosnia. The Australians went into 

East Timor. The Latins can take care of themselves, but Africans 

are not capable of taking care of themselves. 

Our training and equipping program and the State Department 

programs, ACOTA, that were mentioned on the last panel are terrific, but they are short-term training programs. There is no sustaining equipment, training. They go through a training program. 

A year later, there are no troops to deploy. 

So in my view, the challenge of the African peacekeeping missions is an enormous challenge for the United Nations and the 

United States, and we need to work together on it. AFRICOM is 

the place to have that coordination. I have called for a core group 

27 

where we sit down and say, OK, let us duplicate what the State 

Department is doing with those 3,600 troops going to Darfur. 

Brazil, you take three. China, you take four. And they are yours 

for 10 years. You know, partner with them and sustain them. And 

eventually 5 to 10 years from now, the next time there is a Darfur 

that happens, you will actually have a contingent of peacekeepers 

who can get there and do the job and sustain themselves. But it 

does not exist. 

The U.N. mission was authorized a year ago at 26,000. There is 

about a third of it in the ground right now. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Mr. Schaefer, what do you think have 

been lessons learned as we have been working with this U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations? 

STATEMENT OF BRETT D. SCHAEFER, JAY KINGHAM FELLOW 

IN INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, HERITAGE 

FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. SCHAEFER. A couple of comments about AFRICOM before I 

start that, and that is, it is brand new. It will stand up fully as 

an independent command next fall. It, for the most part, inherits 

the area of responsibility formerly assigned to EUCOM, which does 

have a long history of working with the U.N. in various operations. 

So I am sure that relationship will build as AFRICOM stands up. 

I know that from talking extensively with a number of people 

about AFRICOM, that the command is strongly focused on trying 

to enhance the capabilities of African troops so that outside intervention from the United States or other countries is not necessary 

to the extent it has been thus far. So that is a concentration. That 

is an interest. And it has specifically been mentioned by General 

Ward and others. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Lessons learned. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. As far as lessons learned, what we have learned 

from a number of mistakes from various United Nations peacekeeping missions, unfortunate incidents in Rwanda and Srebrenica 

and Somalia and other places, is that the U.N. is not an organization that is capable of doing warfighting. Having the U.N. to go 

into a conflict zone where the parties to the conflict are not willing 

to have and support the U.N. mission or are actively continuing the 

conflict, is unwise because it makes more likely that the mission 

will fail or result in an unsuccessful outcome. 

Unfortunately, in its increasing willingness to approve missions 

in areas like Darfur where there is an ongoing confluct, the Security Council seems to have forgotten the lessons of those earlier incidents, ignore the recommendation of the Brahimi Report that the 

United Nations is not suited to warfighting. These decisions need 

to be taken with extreme care because it holds the potential of 

leading to disaster or making the situation worse. 

Acting Assistant Secretary Hook mentioned earlier that the Sudanese dictated some terms to the United Nations about how its 

involvement in Darfur specifically focused on African participation 

in the mission. That has led to significant constraints that undermine the mission, and we need to be aware of that as well. It is 

something that should not have been tolerated as a condition for 

U.N. participation there. 

28 

Also, the increasing size, scope, and number of U.N. peacekeeping operations have revealed a number of flaws in the U.N. 

system. Senator, you pointed out the number of instances of sexual 

misconduct on the part of U.N. peacekeepers and other U.N. personnel. We have also seen a number of instances of fraud. The U.N. 

Procurement Fraud Task Force, which was mentioned earlier, conducted an investigation of U.N. procurement of about $1.4 billion 

in contracts, and they found that over 40 percent of those contracts 

had serious instances of corruption, fraud, or other improper involvement through the procurement process. 

There are also problems with the enforcement of conduct on 

peacekeepers. We need to be aware and cognizant of the potential 

for peacekeeping missteps if the U.N. Security Council engages in 

peacekeeping operations without conditions likely for success. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Dr. Durch. 

STATEMENT OF DR. BILL DURCH, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, 

HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. DURCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to speak before the panel. 

I would like to go back to your initial question on characterizing 

the administration’s support for U.N. peacekeeping looking at a list 

of missions and assessments and budget estimates going into fiscal 

year 2009. 

It seems like the State Department consistently underestimates 

the larger missions by as much as a third and I think partly because of a tendency to do best-case planning for these. We tend to 

hit the United Nations for not doing worst-case planning in planning its own missions, and then we do best-case planning for our 

own assessments, which I think fairly reflect our position in the 

world economy. We are assessed extra for peacekeeping because we 

are a permanent member of the council and we can veto any mission we do not like. We pay about 22 percent on the regular budget, which is far less than our share of the whole global economy. 

So if we are talking about ability to pay, I think the payment structure is not so bad. 

In terms of support for U.N. operations and AFRICOM when it 

gets going, this will facilitate the United States being able to give 

in-kind support to U.N. operations in Africa, and by in-kind, I 

mean things like airlift and other logistic support. We have traditionally helped regional missions and the U.N. mission in Darfur 

with contractor support. That is traditionally going back more than 

a decade. And that is good. Now we will have the focused ability 

to coordinate with the United Nations and their missions to provide more strategic support as they need it, especially to move 

some of these battalions of Africans that we have trained into the 

mission area. 

It is an interesting comment on the use of mostly developing 

country forces by the United Nations for both police and troops. 

Certainly the salary structure of developing countries is lower than 

in developed states. And so they do in that sense get paid back 

more by the United Nations than they spend in sending forces into 

operations. And when they are trained, they should be held acVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:23 Feb 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\47434.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
29 

countable to perform well. I agree on all the points that have been 

made on accountability. 

But equipment is equipment and fuel is fuel. And so the costs of 

maintaining and sustaining equipment, once we train and equip a 

battalion or a brigade, especially in Africa, and the costs of paying 

to operate it are something that we have to consider not just the 

initial training. So it is kind of the sustainability of these forces 

that we are investing in under ACOTA and under the GPOI that 

we need to consider with our allies. Where is the sustainment of 

these groups? If we let the cost fall back on national budgets, probably these forces will fall apart in fairly quick order, and they compete for money for development goals and other things that the 

country would like to accomplish, say, on the civilian side of peacekeeping. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Well, how would you rate the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon? 

Dr. DURCH. How would I rate it, sir? Having listened to the discussion earlier, I would say there is a certain amount of retraining 

that could go on. 

The U.N. operation in Lebanon is, as the U.N. operation in Lebanon has been since 1978, much more of a traditional border monitoring force, even though it has got many more troops now than it 

had 2 years ago or 3 years ago. It is not a complex operation. It 

is really not about solving the region’s problems. We do not see 

rockets flying back and forth between Hezbollah and Israel these 

days. That is to the good. But it still should be regarded as a traditional force. 

Senator BILL NELSON. What do you think about the interaction 

between the State Department’s Global Peace Operations Initiative 

interacting with the U.N. peacekeeping operations? 

Dr. DURCH. I think it is all to the good, sir. I think as some of 

my colleagues have mentioned, the investments that are being 

made in training African forces in particular pay major dividends 

when they deploy to U.N. operations because you get a more professional force, you get a better equipped force. As I said, the question would be sustaining that capability when they come out of the 

U.N. operation. When they are deployed in the field, the United 

Nations does have procedures for reimbursing them for equipment 

and paying for fuel and so forth. It is when they are back home 

that the problems arise of keeping these forces trained, equipped, 

and ready to go for the second and third deployments. So I think 

there is a very positive interaction between the training and the 

operations. 

The trouble occurs when there is resistance on the part of a government, as we noted with Sudan, where they simply cannot be deployed. And that is beyond the U.N.’s ken and it is beyond GPOI’s 

reach also. 

Senator BILL NELSON. And any of you, if you had a magic wand 

to straighten out the peacekeeping operation in Darfur, which really needs to be done, what would you do? 

Ambassador. 

Ambassador SODERBERG. I have a whole action plan on Darfur 

that is perhaps a wish list. But there are a couple of problems in 

Darfur. It starts with the Government of Sudan, whose President 

30 

has just been indicted for war crimes. Clearly, the government is 

the one who is conducting the genocide, obstruction of the peace. 

But the Security Council has also gone along with that obstruction. It has let the Sudanese dictate the terms of this mission. It 

needs to stop doing so. That’s the P5. So we need to get together 

with China, Russia, Britain, and France and say, no, we are not 

doing this. China is likely to veto that effort because it gets lots 

of oil from Sudan, billions of dollars a year. It also afraid that we 

will start poking around in its back yard, does not want to have 

interference. But we should be out there screaming from the rooftops that Sudan does not get to dictate the terms of the peacekeeping mission. 

Second, there is no peacekeeping mission. It is a number of poorly trained African troops who cannot sustain themselves. And so 

we need to have other troops go in until the Africans can be 

trained and equipped or send in troops ourselves. We are a little 

busy. So I would look toward the Asians and the Africans perhaps. 

Latins have terrific peacekeepers. Right now they are in Haiti, but 

there are a lot of others who are not particularly busy in their own 

hemisphere for thankful reasons. 

And we need to provide airlift, logistics, and transport units. You 

can get all the troops on the ground. If they cannot move and if 

they do not have basic sanitary conditions, places to sleep and food, 

you do not have a peacekeeping mission either. 

So it is essentially three things: Stand up to the Sudanese obstruction of this mission, not just insisting on African missions, but 

trying to determine the deployment sequence. It has objected to 

Thai and Nepalese troops. It says that certain troops cannot go in 

until the Egyptians get in and these troops cannot go there and 

these troops cannot go there, and the rest of the Security Council 

sits there and says OK. You can get mad at the United Nations for 

that, but it is the Security Council that has the right to stand up 

to Khartoum, not the U.N. So begin to tell Khartoum no, and that 

has to come from the P5. The Olympics has been a good leverage 

point to get China not to veto that effort. 

Second, provide the troops immediately. They have only got less 

than half ready to go. 

And third, you have got to train, equip, and sustain them, and 

the U.S. has to lead in that effort. It does not have to do it itself, 

but it has to get on the phone and say will Brazil do this, will Australia do it, will other countries do it. Then you will have a peacekeeping mission on the ground. 

Last, there needs to be a reinvigorated peace process in all of the 

crises in Sudan, not just Darfur. It was alluded to before. There is 

now finally one negotiator. So hopefully that effort will move forward. 

So it is a four-part process, all of which are difficult, by the way. 

I do not mean to minimize the possibilities here. But that is what 

needs to happen. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Mr. Schaefer, do you want to add to that? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Senator, I think your last point was the most important one. That there must be some sort of impetus for reconciliation between the two sides of the conflict or the multiple sides of 

the conflict because unless you have that, you do not have the cirVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:23 Feb 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\47434.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
31 

cumstances under which you can move forward toward a lasting 

peace. That is the heart of the matter. The Security Council has 

been unable to apply pressure to the government in Khartoum 

largely because of protection from China but other difficulties as 

well. Until pressure is applied, I do not see a successful outcome 

moving forward in Darfur, unfortunately. 

The other problems are significant: The constraints imposed by 

Khartoum restricting U.N. peacekeepers to African troops, lack of 

African troops with the necessary skills to fulfill those operations, 

the lack of infrastructure to support those troops, and the lack of 

other equipment as well. But the prospects for peace, the willingness to actually enter into a peace arrangement—that is the crux 

of the matter. 

Ambassador SODERBERG. If I could just add one other point for 

the record. I did an op-ed answering that question a little while 

ago. Perhaps you could put that in the record as well. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Without objection. 

[The op-ed referred to follows:] 

[The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2008] 

THE WAY FORWARD ON DARFUR

(By Mia Farrow and Nancy Soderberg) 

Next month the United States will assume the presidency of the U.N. Security 

Council, and not a moment too soon. The Bush administration will have perhaps 

its final opportunity to address the Darfur genocide, preserving its legacy as an architect of the imperiled U.N. peace agreement for Sudan. 

In the past few weeks, the carnage in Darfur has escalated. Government bombing 

campaigns continue apace, with tens of thousands of terrified survivors joining the 

more than 2.5 million people already displaced. 

Aid workers are being targeted—the director of Save the Children in Chad was 

shot and killed at the Chad-Darfur border. A primary school in north Darfur was 

bombed, killing and wounding many children. Countless people in the camps are 

slowly dying of hunger and disease, yet the World Food Program has been forced 

to halve food rations due to insecurity. Just this week, the violence spread beyond 

Darfur to the outskirts of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan itself. 

Never has the need for a protection force been greater or more urgent. Last July, 

the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution authorizing the deployment 

of 26,000 peacekeepers under the U.N. Mission in Darfur (Unamid). But the Sudanese regime is blocking the deployment of the full protection force, as it has for 5 

years mocked the international community’s pleas for security. 

The U.N.-mandated force was to have been ‘‘predominantly African in character.’’ 

But Sudan has twisted the clear intention of the resolution, and ‘‘predominantly’’ 

has become ‘‘exclusively.’’ Khartoum has rejected offers of troop contributions from 

several non-African countries, knowing full well that most African battalions are 

undertrained and underequipped for the complex and difficult protection mission in 

Darfur. 

Just 9,000 troops are currently on the ground in various locations in Darfur. U.N. 

officials have expressed the fear that as things stand, peacekeepers in Darfur will 

be unable to protect themselves, let alone Darfur’s tormented civilians and the humanitarians struggling to sustain them. 

Sudan is playing a deadly game. But there is a way to save the people of Darfur 

even under the regime’s crooked rules. African nations willing to contribute peacekeepers need partners, nations with capable armies to provide training and essential logistical support. The U.S., the U.K., Canada, France and others have already 

initiated such partnerships. More nations need to step forward, with a commitment 

to sustain the battalions for several years. 

The U.S. should expand the effort to assemble a group of volunteer nations. Then, 

once it assumes leadership of the Security Council, it could host a ‘‘Unamid pledging 

conference’’—a meeting of troop contributing countries—to announce partnerships 

and logistical support for struggling African battalions. The bare-bones contributions 

32 

necessary to stop the slaughter would be minimal: Currently, U.N. peacekeeping is 

calling for 24 helicopters, two transport units and one logistical unit. 

All 15 Member States of the Security Council will visit Khartoum in early June. 

This is an auspicious opportunity for the U.N. to unify in its commitment to the 

deployment of the protection force. 

China has a significant role to play here. Given its vast oil investments and brisk 

arms trade, Beijing has unparalleled influence with Sudan. The entry of a full protection force into Darfur would likely give China the international ovation it craves 

in the leadup to the Olympic Games. 

Rations of hope are meager in Darfur. But this is an opportunity for the international community, for the Security Council, and especially for the U.S. and China, 

to step up and protect a defenseless population. Will they do it? 

Ambassador SODERBERG. But it kind of lays out exactly the answer to your question a little more eloquently than I just put it. 

Senator BILL NELSON. What peacekeeping operations has China 

vetoed? 

Ambassador SODERBERG. Macedonia and Haiti. Macedonia because the new government recognized Taiwan in a failed effort to 

get substantial foreign aid from Taiwan. They vetoed it overnight. 

It was actually the best successful preventive deployment in history. I think it was in 1996, if I am correct. And it was the last 

substantial participation by U.S. forces in the mission as well. I 

think we had a battalion there. And it did prevent the Balkans 

from spilling over into Macedonia. China vetoed it right away. 

Also in Haiti, when one of the governments—again, I think this 

was in the 1990s—flirted around with Taiwan, then China—I do 

not recall exactly whether they finally vetoed it or whether the 

Haitians backed off. But it is a red herring for the Chinese. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Because of the Olympics, has China’s behavior been much more gold star? 

Ambassador SODERBERG. Maybe a green star or a red star, but 

not Olympic star, not gold, silver, or bronze certainly. 

There are indications that the Chinese have been urging the Sudanese to accept the terms of the new mission. The Chinese have 

sent some engineers to the mission as a sign of willingness to participate. There have been some problems with that. But there are 

indications that the focus on the Olympics and the power of the 

Chinese to move the Sudanese Government has prompted the Chinese Government to move, but only incrementally. They could 

clearly do a lot more. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I will point out that—— 

Senator BILL NELSON. Yes, please. 

Mr. SCHAEFER [continuing]. That point of leverage is going away 

very quickly. 

Senator BILL NELSON. And how do you see it down the road? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I expect China to quickly return to acting like 

China has done historically in regards to Sudan, and that is being 

an obstructionist. 

Dr. DURCH. And if I may, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Please. 

Dr. DURCH. We also have to realize that the Sudanese Government is really playing the international community like a violin as 

long as it is not subject to substantial high level and economic pressure, and by that I mean not just obstructing the deployment of the 

troops in Darfur but obstructing the mission of the United Nations 

in the south. And as the referendum approaches in 2011 on posVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:23 Feb 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\47434.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
33 

sible independence for the south, I think you will see more and 

more activity to try and disrupt that referendum much as there 

was activity to try and disrupt the referendum in East Timor in 

1999. So we have an unsettled political outcome in the south that 

may or may not be able to secede if it wishes to. We have an unsettled, basically no political agreement in the west, and we have a 

lot of oil sloshing back and forth. 

There was discussion earlier about not putting in a force where 

there is no peace to keep, and I basically agree with that. On the 

other hand, the international community has not been willing to 

put in a fighting force to stop a lot of killing and displacement in 

Darfur. So what is left to do other than wring our hands and do 

nothing? So the Security Council reaches for a peacekeeping force, 

even a robust peacekeeping force. But then it is not willing, as Ambassador Soderberg and Mr. Schaefer said, to put the pressure on 

the government to accept that force under the terms to which it 

agreed. So this is all very high level, global politics we are talking 

about, and it is all playing out in the Sudan. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Since China is pumping a lot of that oil 

for the Sudanese Government—so are you suggesting that they 

have to be in bed with the Sudanese Government and are ineffective in helping the world community to put together such a U.N. 

peacekeeping force? 

Dr. DURCH. I would suggest—and my colleagues could chime in 

on this—that the Chinese Government is behaving consistent with 

Chinese interests as they define them now and in terms of the relative cost-benefit calculus they make about whether that causes 

them problems if they do nothing to pressure the Sudanese to stop 

the killing on the ground and admit the security forces. If they are 

not under pressure or not willing to pressure the Sudanese and the 

world is not willing to pressure China, I think nothing is going to 

change in a positive direction. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I will add most of the oil is in the south. There 

is a referendum coming up involving independence for the south. 

That is an interesting dynamic and has led China to start exploring ties with the south, which may lead them to perhaps moderate 

their support for Khartoum. But it also is a potential source of instability if that leads to a resumption of the conflict between the 

north and the south. It is a very complex situation, but China is 

acting right now as the protector of the government in Khartoum, 

temporarily moderated by the Olympics situation, but I think it 

will quickly return to its historical pattern of behavior unless circumstances change. 

I will add that China with Russia also vetoed a sanctions resolution on Zimbabwe, which is a country in which they have far less 

direct interests than they do with Sudan. So they certainly are not 

shy about stopping Security Council resolutions to countries where 

they see the United Nations acting on internal affairs, even if they 

do not have strong national interests at stake. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Is it possible in south Sudan that until 

such a referendum would be held, that since that area would be ostensibly under the control of the Sudanese Government, that they 

would put the arm on China to support them in whatever they 

34 

wanted with regard to a peacekeeping force since China gets its oil 

with an arrangement through the Government of Sudan? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. There is a U.N. peacekeeping force in Southern 

Sudan right now, that is distinct from what is going on in Darfur. 

Whether southern Sudan which operates with a fair amount of autonomy, is going to be motivated to act on Darfur, is uncertain. It 

depends on how they determine their interests there and whether 

they would be willing to risk what could be substantial consequences. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Let me ask you about this Global Peace 

Initiative that wants to train 75,000 peacekeepers primarily for Africa by 2010. Does this complement the U.N. peacekeeping? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Absolutely. I think to the extent that the United 

States can increase the capabilities and professionalism of African 

troops, the better the African troops will be able to address problems in their region. The AU has shown a distinct inclination to 

try and assert its authority in the region, and I think it is to the 

best interests of the U.S. to try and increase their capabilities so 

that when a crisis does arise, the AU is capable of acting quickly 

under a U.N. mandate, an AU mandate or in the context of a U.N. 

peacekeeping operation. I think it is all to the better and it serves 

the interests of the United States and it serves the interests of African countries. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Dr. Durch, any comments? 

Dr. DURCH. I actually agree with my colleague from Heritage. 

[Laughter.] 

Ambassador SODERBERG. If I could just point out, though, from 

this committee’s perspective on GPOI, it is a good program but it 

is wholly inadequate to the task. It is underfunded, understaffed, 

and not anywhere near broad enough. Their training—I am not 

criticizing the individuals involved. I know them. They are committed public servants doing as much as they can with the little 

resources that they have. 

But the United Nations today is the second largest deployed military in the world. You compare the Pentagon to the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping or even NATO headquarters and how many 

troops does NATO have in Afghanistan? I think it is under 30,000. 

They have, depending on how you count it, about 100,000 actual 

troops and then personnel, military, civilian is 140,000 people, armies that they are deploying around the world with very few people. 

They cannot do it. There is no way the U.N. can train and equip 

these troops that you see on that map up there. The only way to 

do it is to have Member States, and the only way to get Member 

States to do it is to have the United States taking a much stronger 

leading and coordinating role in doing in it. Nobody else can do it 

but us. 

And it is not just training them like GPOI does. It is sustaining 

them, equipping, training them, and basically partnering with 

them until they can do it on their own, which is at least a decade 

away. 

So 2010—if you talk to the State Department, they will say they 

are on target to meet that. They have actually gotten the G–8 to 

endorse it at these summits that they have. The Europeans are 

35 

helping out. Japan is actually very eager to do more. So on paper, 

they will meet it, but these are not troops that are ready to go into 

Darfur and stop the genocide. 

You asked earlier about Lebanon. Lebanon is the cadillac of 

peacekeeping operations because it has got first world armies capable in there, the French and others. They can fight and they will 

fight if they have to. There are other political problems in Lebanon 

but it is a good peacekeeping mission. A bad political situation that 

they are deployed into, but it is the only peacekeeping mission that 

has got a fighting force out there. 

Senator BILL NELSON. How big is it? 

Ambassador SODERBERG. I do not know off the top of my head. 

I think it is around 17. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Oh, 12,383. 

Ambassador SODERBERG. What is the date on that chart, though? 

I think that is last year. I think it has been increased. That is October 2007. I think it is bigger now. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. As of June 30, it is 12,325 troops. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Do either of you gentlemen have any comment? Ambassador Soderberg has already commented about the 

sexual exploitation and abuse. 

Dr. DURCH. Since the stories emerged in 2004 and 2005, the 

United Nations has taken a number of steps both structurally and 

procedurally to deal with this problem. They have greatly increased 

the number of investigators in the Office of Internal Oversight 

Services. They have embedded some of these investigators in some 

of the key U.N. peacekeeping operations so that they have a little 

faster response. 

We find that the number of allegations in 2007, although unacceptably high, is roughly 55 percent of what it was in 2006. So that 

when you have got the initial ability to take allegations, the numbers ballooned, and now that the system is in place to investigate 

them, we are finding that some of the other measures to prevent 

abuse I think are beginning to take hold. The investigations are beginning to work better, and there is a little bit more deterrence. 

As has been said earlier, with military forces, the militaries 

around the world take responsibility and demand command responsibility and discipline, as do we, for their forces. And the trick has 

been to get them to accept their responsibilities. As you noted, the 

revised memorandum that troop contributors are now signing contains many of these stipulations in it. So that is all to the good. 

So as countries rotate into new missions, more and more will be 

under these strictures. 

We have a project of our own looking at accountability of civilians and police in U.N. missions, and we think there really ought 

to be much improved measures for criminal accountability and not 

just administrative. Right now, the United Nations is limited to administrative sanctions, which means someone’s pay is docked, they 

are blacklisted from further missions, they are fired, they are sent 

home, but that is about all that really happens to them unless 

their sending state, their state of nationality, has extraterritorial 

jurisdiction over crimes their citizens commit while abroad. Not too 

many countries do. So this is a problem in general. 

36 

But there is a conduct and discipline unit in the Department of 

Field Support with at least a dozen members full-time now overseeing conduct and discipline units in every major U.N. peacekeeping operation. So in terms of structures to monitor, structures 

to investigate, and structures to kind of hold troop and police contributors’ feet to the fire, the United Nations is making some 

progress. Are they where they ought to be? No, not yet, but it is 

in the right direction. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I will just add a couple bits to that. 

As you probably know, there have been incidents, accusations 

and findings of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct in virtually 

every peacekeeping operation around the world. The list includes 

Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Guinea, Haiti, Ivory Coast, 

Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan. It is far too prevalent in 

U.N. peacekeeping operations, far more prevalent than it should 

be. 

he rules suggested by Prince Zeid were adopted in 2005, and the 

contact discipline teams have been in place on an increasing basis 

and that is welcomed. But there does not seem to have been the 

dramatic improvement that we would like to see. There was a report by Save the Children last year which concluded—and I will 

quote from it—‘‘children as young as 6 are trading in sex with aid 

workers and peacekeepers in exchange for food, money, soap, and 

in a very few cases, luxury items such as mobile phones.’’ At 6 

years old. That is absurd and appalling. 

Mr. Durch puts his finger on the problem here. The United Nations is somewhat limited in its ability to discipline peacekeepers. 

Basically what they can do is send them home. It is up to the 

troop-contributing countries to actually discipline them. The United 

Nations needs to be much more serious about this with troop-contributing countries. I would think that if a country shows repeated 

problems with sexual misconduct on the part of its peacekeepers, 

the United Nations should seriously consider not accepting them 

for future peacekeeping operations until they make a commitment 

to investigate, try, and prosecute as appropriate, peacekeepers that 

have been accused of crimes. I know that may impede the number 

of peacekeepers that the United Nations has available, but the 

Member States need to make sure that U.N. peacekeepers are protectors, not predators. 

here are some additional steps that the United Nations can 

take—and some of these have been implemented to some extent 

but not universally or completely. Every U.N. peacekeeping operation should embed an auditor and investigator on the ground to 

immediately investigate crimes when they are alleged because, as 

was talked about in the earlier panel, in places like Congo, it is not 

easy to go back to a scene of a crime and gather the evidence that 

you need. It is far better to have somebody readily available when 

the alleged crime took place, to take DNA samples and gather 

other evidence that may be able to lead to exoneration or conviction 

in the courts of the countries where the peacekeeper came from. 

The United Nations should also take this investigatory and this 

auditing element and make it truly independent. The way the system works right now, the OIOS is part of the U.N. budgetary system. In essence, they have to go to the United Nations and say, 

37 

‘‘Hello, we are here to investigate you. Would you please provide 

us money to do that?’’ Obviously, there is a conflict of interest. 

There needs to be an budgeting for the OIOS and other investigation or oversight bodies to avoid this type of conflict of interest. 

T4Soderberg. If I could just add one recommendation, which is 

difficult for the United States on the issue of sexual exploitation 

when it comes to minors. I personally believe that it should be 

made a crime under the International Criminal Court and make it 

universally unacceptable. Now, the United States has its own problems with the ICC, but it is up and running and it is functioning. 

And they are investigating and they are prosecuting. This is one 

area, particularly given the international problems with the U.N.’s 

jurisdiction issues, where the ICC could and should have jurisdiction over any international organization’s sexual abuse of children 

in my view, and it should be made a crime of that serious nature. 

Senator BILL NELSON. The only thing that has been done was the 

General Assembly passed a resolution. It calls on the Member 

States to work toward prosecuting nationals for these crimes. That 

same resolution called on the Secretary General to name and 

shame countries that do not prosecute the perpetrators. 

So thank you for your comments. 

Final question. I am going to give you a test. You are now the 

National Security Adviser to the next President of the United 

States. And this President likes brevity, and so in one paragraph, 

advise the next President what to do about Darfur. We will just go 

right down the line, and we will go alphabetically. 

Dr. Durch. 

Dr. DURCH. I knew that would come to haunt me some day. 

[Laughter.] 

I would advise the President to meet with the permanent five 

members of the Security Council, which includes, of course, China 

and Russia, major oil recipients from Sudan, and work out an 

agreement that they will, in fact, press the Government of Sudan 

to comply with the commitments that it has made, that we would, 

regardless of the Government of Sudan’s responses—hopefully, 

they would be positive—provide airlift and logistic support to the 

UNAMID operation in Darfur. We would encourage NATO to do 

the same. They have been doing that for the old African mission, 

and that should be extended to UNAMID itself. And also too we 

would look very dimly at the Government of Sudan’s efforts to disrupt the peace in Southern Sudan. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Next alphabetically is Mr. Schaefer. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. In my opinion the crux of the matter is the peace 

process and whether that is progressing or not. That is what I 

would focus on in advising the President. The need to bring pressure on both the Government in Khartoum on the rebel groups to 

try and resolve that situation. They are doing that to some extent, 

but the United States is not the primary driver. It is an interested 

party, but it cannot be the driver. If you are going to have a lasting 

peace agreement, there is going to have to be based on the interest 

of all the parties to resolve that situation on their own terms. 

There is not a whole lot the United States can do directly. 

To the extent of the mission, the United States can provide 

logistical support. The United States can provide some equipment, 

38 

and the United States can do its best to try and train African 

troops to go into Darfur under the current circumstances. It should 

also seek to try and remove the restrictions that are impeding the 

current operations such as the restrictions on participation by nonAfrican troops. 

Ambassador SODERBERG. I would say four short-term issues and 

one multifaceted, long-term issue. 

The first is it is time to stand up to Khartoum through the U.N. 

Security Council. Every time that they obstruct something, there 

should be a public hearing and the Security Council make the perm 

rep go down and defend why he will not let the Egyptian battalions 

deploy because the Thais and the Nepalese have not gotten there 

first, whatever ridiculous issue they come up with. We need to 

tighten the sanctions not just on travel and visas but start looking 

at their oil revenues. The oil is the only thing that is going to get 

their attention. The ICC may but that, as we have seen with 

Karadzic, it takes 13 years. 

Second, get the peacekeepers on the ground. There are not sufficient peacekeepers on the ground. They have offered us 26,000. 

There is nowhere near that number to get them there, whether it 

is Africans or somebody else. Do not fall into this African-only trap 

that the Africans themselves have fallen right into. The South Africans, by the way, have not been progressive on this issue. 

Third, get the infrastructure on the ground. You can get all the 

troops you want, but if they cannot move, fly, sustain themselves, 

logistics, transport, and helicopters on the ground, you do not have 

a peacekeeping mission. It has to be robust. There is no peace to 

keep there. That is usually rule No. 1, to not put a peacekeeping 

mission on the ground. We have decided to do so. Then do so and 

do so robustly and quickly. 

Fourth, I will echo my colleague’s comments on the peace process. He says it more gracefully than I can. It is the most important 

issue. 

But long-term, you have to look at peacekeeping in general. 

Darfur is a failure of the world’s peacekeeping system. In Africa, 

it is broken. It works in Latin America. It works in Asia. It works 

in Europe. It does not work in Africa because the troops are not 

there. So long term we need to, first of all, pay on time in full. We 

still pay a year behind, by the way. You go to the Pentagon. Every 

Secretary of Defense hears about it from other troops. Why are my 

troops not getting paid? So in full, on time, which means you have 

got to double pay this bill. Try and sell that to this body, but you 

got to do it. 

And set up a core group to get the Africans up to date in peacekeeping missions, and that is a partnership effort, a worldwide 

partnership effort, led by the United States to train, equip, and 

sustain African troops. We are doing more than our fair share in 

that part, and the United States has gotten very little credit for it. 

But let us lead an effort in trying to get others to do exactly that. 

[The prepared statements of Ambassador Soderberg, Mr. Schaefer, and Dr. Durch follow:] 

39 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR NANCY SODERBERG, DISTINGUISHED VISITING

SCHOLAR, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA, JACKSONVILLE, FL 

First, let me thank Chairman Nelson for holding this important hearing and for 

the honor of appearing before you today. The role of peacekeeping is key to keeping 

America secure. We cannot do it alone. The U.N. needs us—and we need the U.N. 

A lot has changed in peacekeeping over the last 60 years. During the cold war, 

the U.N. managed 13 peacekeeping operations—back when that was the most boring job in the world for the U.N. soldiers—sitting on a border where nothing ever 

happened. 

Well, a lot has changed since the end of the cold war—over 50 missions, most extremely complex and today the U.N. manages nearly 90,000 troops—the second largest military deployment in the world. With civilian personnel, the number is close 

to 110,000. And it does it lean—although not mean. About $7 billion a year. 

But today, peacekeeping is at risk and it is up to the international community 

to help. Far too often, UNDPKO does its job—but the UNSC and the international 

community do not do theirs. If the international community is going to keep putting 

missions on the U.N.’s back—it has a responsibility to give it the support it needs 

to do the job right. 

I commend the subcommittee for convening this important hearing. I hope you 

will take away a plan of action to provide the U.N. the support it needs. Simply 

put, the U.N. needs a much stronger international support system—where capable 

countries partner with U.N. troops that need training, doctrine, equipping, and sustaining. This committee can play an important role in bringing such a network to 

fruition. 

The test going ahead is not to look for the U.N. to deploy in areas as a bandaid solution—that risks disaster. When the UNSC has authorized deployment of 

troops where there is no peace to keep—Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia in the 1990s 

through to Darfur today—the U.N. fails. But when there is a peace to keep and the 

U.N. mission is well trained, equipped, and sustained—U.N. peacekeeping works. 

Look at Liberia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, and of course the Cadillac of PKO—the 

reinforced mission in Lebanon. 

The world has already made great strides in conflict prevention and the U.N. deserves high praise for its role in that task. Today, however, the international community has not done its fair share in building up African capabilities to keep and 

maintain the peace. Of 17 peace operations in the world, 11 are in Africa, with more 

on the horizon such as Somalia. But far too many of us are opting out. Of the 90,000 

peacekeepers out there, the P5 contributes only about 6,000. China and France are 

close to 2,000. Russia, the U.S., and U.K.—between 300 and 350 each. Japan provides only 36. Those numbers may not change—but the level of engagement of the 

P5 and other capable countries must. 

INTERVENTION GAP

The West is often accused of a double standard in where it will intervene—meaning never in Africa. The truth is there is an intervention gap in Africa, but one that 

is largely driven by a capability gap. Africa does not have a mechanism for enforcement—nor does it have adequate peacekeeping capabilities. 

Enforcement operations as well are unevenly undertaken. With a few notable exceptions, such as the recent interventions by former colonial powers, Britain and 

France, in Africa and NATO’s deployment to Afghanistan, American and European 

leaders share a core principle of sending troops into harm’s way only in one’s own 

back yard. 

For instance, the United States intervened in Haiti in 1994 and 2004 and the Balkans in 1995 and 1999; Australia led the intervention into East Timor in 1999; and 

Nigeria intervened in 1998 in Sierra Leone. Only South Africa answered the Secretary General’s 1999 call for troops in Burundi. The West will on occasion intervene in areas of direct impact on their national security, such as the recent deployment of Europeans to Lebanon and NATO’s deployment in Afghanistan. And of 

course, there is the unique situation in Iraq (or at least hope will be unique). 

Yet, for the most part, Africa lacks capable troops to deploy quickly to stem violence in its own sphere of influence. To be sure, they are making great progress. 

ECOWAS has deployed in many conflicts and the AU has deployed in Darfur, 

although it lacked sufficient capabilities for the mission. But the Darfur deployment—even after the U.N. stepped in last summer—underscores the difficulties in 

Africa’s ability to deploy peacekeeping missions—the forces lacks key capabilities of 

lift, equipment, communications, doctrine, and training. And those are the very capabilities the other regions of the world have—especially the U.S., NATO, and the 

EU—but also Latin Americans and increasingly Asia. 

40 

To address that gap, nations with capable forces should build up such a capability 

in Africa that might prevent future genocides. But the programs to date are wholly 

inadequate. Both the U.S. and the G–8 have endorsed the goal of training and 

equipping 75,000 peacekeeping troops by 2010, mostly in Africa. But the initiative 

is not sufficiently funded or supported. Troops often go through training, but there 

is insufficient equipping or ongoing training. What good is a battalion that has been 

trained, but then disbands or lacks ongoing training? There is some good news. On 

our side, the U.S. DOD has recently made peacekeeping a priority—in fact a core 

mission of its purpose. 

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) states that ‘‘The Department stands 

ready to increase its assistance to the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in 

areas of the Department’s expertise such as doctrine, training, strategic planning 

and management.’’ Over the last decade, and particularly following the attacks of 

September 11, the Pentagon has increasingly viewed failed states, also referred to 

as ‘‘under- or ungoverned spaces,’’ as a threat to U.S. national security. With that 

has come recognition of the importance of peacekeeping for U.S. interests. 

Yet, with our forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, significant new support will not be forthcoming in the short term. NATO is uniquely situated to help 

train and equip Africa—but it too is bogged down in Afghanistan. In discussing the 

issue with our own Pentagon—they do not believe NATO has the capacity to do another mission at the time. So, who is left? 

The EU, China, the Latins, and Asia must all do more—but we also can’t let the 

U.S. and NATO off the hook. We all need to do more. 

The G–8 has put the African Action Plan on its agenda—that is a good sign. The 

U.S. has made the decision to establish a new combatant command in Africa—and 

to make it operational by October 2008. While the location has yet to be decided, 

it will provide new opportunities to work closely with the AU and its regional hubs 

to develop its own capabilities. 

The AU needs are vast. The AU plan involves contingents on standby in five regions of Africa (Eastern, Central, Southern, Western, and Northern) which would 

be available for deployment for missions ranging from observation to intervention 

against genocide. Current planning is for the force to be ready by 2010. Each brigade would have approximately 3,000 to 4,000 troops giving the AU a standby capacity of approximately 15,000–20,000 peacekeepers. 

That is an ambitious goal. The five regions vary greatly in capabilities. The Central and Northern Brigades exist only on paper. The Eastern Brigade, to be handled 

by IGAD, is not yet ready to be deployed, nor is the Southern one, to be handled 

by SADC. The most advanced is the Western Brigade, run by the most capable regional organization, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 

made up of 15 nations formed in 1975. ECOWAS, based in Abuja, Nigeria, has deployed to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Coˆte d’Ivoire, and Liberia. 

The establishment of the new USCOCOM in Africa, AFRICOM, will help focus the 

U.S. on the peacekeeping needs in Africa. Hope it can serve to galvanize the U.S. 

and others to meet the needs of African peacekeepers. Would be an area that Japan 

can explore—ways to promote new partnerships. 

The African Union still has many unresolved issues, including where to find the 

resources and the political will to establish the standby force and how the body will 

relate to the many regional organizations on the continent, as well as the EU, 

NATO, and the U.N. The African Union recognizes it needs help and is refreshingly 

willing to seek it. 

To address some of these needs, the U.N. should establish a worldwide support 

group of peacekeepers—a Friends Group or Core Group—to coordinate peacekeepers’ 

needs and to make sure they are met. It is up to the international community to 

help the AU succeed. Japan is certainly well placed to play a leadership role. 

It is also important to recognize that in the wake of the crises in the 1990s in 

the Balkans and Rwanda, the world also recognized that responsibility to respect 

those at risk when the government cannot or will not do so. In 2005, the UNGA 

endorsed the R2P concept—but it has failed to follow through with action. 

That fact is sadly evident in Darfur where the world has failed to protect the population at risk. The Sudanese have refused to permit a more forceful peacekeeping 

presence than the one provided by the AU—precisely because it is not yet ready to 

stop the killing. The UNSC caved into Sudan’s insistence on a ‘‘predominantly’’ African force—which the Sudanese have turned into an exclusively African force. Only 

one third of the authorized troops are on the ground. Good offers for assistance have 

been rejected by Sudan, and today Sudan is holding up the deployment of Thai 

troops and Nepalese support for the nonsensical reason that some African troops 

must deploy first. 

41 

1Charter of the United Nations, Article 24, at www.un.org/aboutun/charte. 

2 In matters of international peace and security, the U.N. Security Council was originally envisioned, unrealistically in retrospect, as the principal vehicle for the use of force, except for the 

inherent right of every state to defend itself if attacked, facing an imminent attack, or facing 

an immediate threat, which the Charter explicitly acknowledges. Charter of the United Nations, 

Article 51. 

None of this is the fault of UNDPKO. It is time the UNSC stand up to those hindering peacekeeping. There are some useful lessons in Darfur that provide lessons 

on how to meet the new challenges of peacekeeping. 

There are four key steps: 

First, the U.N. Security Council must no longer let countries dictate the terms of 

the peacekeeping missions when civilians are at risk. It is time to move beyond the 

absolute right of sovereignty. In Darfur, it is time to stand up to Sudan. Khartoum 

should not be able to object to capable troops and engineers nor to insist on a particular deployment sequencing. Khartoum’s preconditions on which troops can participate in the mission rule out some of the most capable forces. 

Second, Africa’s forces must be trained, equipped, deployed, and sustained. The 

United States and others have partnered with some troops and those relationships 

must be expanded and sustained throughout the course of the mission. Here the 

U.S. should play a critical role in setting up a worldwide Core Group of partners 

who will support African battalions and sustain them over a multiyear effort. The 

goal would be self-sufficiency within 10 years. 

Third, the members must put a higher priority on deploying the mission’s critical 

infrastructure so the force can function once on the ground. For instance, in Sudan, 

even if the troops are deployed, there is no infrastructure to support it. The world 

must provide the 24 helicopters, two transport units and one logistical unit it urgently needs. Without such support, the U.N. mission cannot function. UNDPKO 

has repeatedly asked for better stockpiling of equipment. A worldwide effort is needed to provide this critical infrastructure. Again, Japan can play a critical role. 

Fourth, we must all be conscious of the risk of deploying peacekeepers into areas 

where there is no peace to keep. Today, UNDPKO officials are very blunt about the 

risks of Sudan and Somalia—no one wants another Black Hawk Down crisis. But 

that is exactly what we are risking today in Darfur—and certainly in Somalia 

if that mission goes through. The UNSC has a responsibility to press for peace 

harder—before and during any peacekeeping mission. 

Certainly in Darfur—there is no peace to keep and the U.N. and AU have already 

lost close to a dozen soldiers. Their weapons have been stolen. 

There must be a renewed effort to reach peace in Sudan’s three crises—in the 

south, east, and western area of Darfur. Any successful peace process will require 

the engagement of the full spectrum of actors, including all rebel movements and, 

of course, the Government of Sudan. 

I hope the subcommittee will take up these tasks. The United States will be safer 

and more secure if we do. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRETT D. SCHAEFER, JAY KINGHAM FELLOW IN INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, MARGARET THATCHER CENTER FOR FREEDOM, 

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Thank you for inviting me to speak about ‘‘United Nations Peacekeeping: Challenges and Opportunities.’’ My name is Brett Schaefer. I am the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own and should not be construed as representing 

any official position of The Heritage Foundation. 

U.N. PEACEKEEPING

One of the United Nations’ primary responsibilities—and the one that Americans 

most agree with—is to help maintain international peace and security, but the U.N. 

has come under increasing criticism, both within the United States and around the 

world, for its inability to keep the peace where it is asked to do so. The U.N. Charter places principal responsibility for maintaining international peace and security 

within the U.N. system on the Security Council.1 The Charter gives the Security 

Council extensive powers to investigate disputes to determine whether they endanger international peace and security; to call on participants in a dispute to settle 

the conflict through peaceful negotiation; to impose mandatory economic, travel, and 

diplomatic sanctions; and ultimately to authorize the use of military force.2 This roVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:23 Feb 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\47434.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
42 

3Since 1945, there have been approximately 300 wars resulting in over 22 million deaths. The 

U.N. has authorized military action to counter aggression just twice: In response to the North 

Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. 4For example, the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) was established in 1948 to 

observe the cease-fire agreements among Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel and still operates today. The UNTSO and UNEF I missions are examples of ‘‘traditional’’ U.N. peace operations. Interestingly, the first venture into peacekeeping was taken by the General Assembly 

in 1956 after the Security Council was unable to reach a consensus on the Suez Crisis. The General Assembly established the U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF I) to separate Egyptian and Israeli 

forces and to facilitate the transition of the Suez Canal when British and French forces left. 

Because the UNEF resolutions were not passed under Chapter VII, Egypt had to approve the 

deployment. 5This restraint was reinforced by the U.N. venture into peace enforcement in the Congo 

(1960–1964), in which U.N.-led forces confronted a mutiny by Congolese armed forces against 

the government, sought to maintain the Congo’s territorial integrity, and tried to prevent civil 

war after the province of Katanga seceded. According to a RAND Corporation study, ‘‘U.N. 

achievements in the Congo came at considerable cost in men lost, money spent, and controversy 

raised. . . . As a result of these costs and controversies, neither the United Nations’ leadership 

nor its Member Nations were eager to repeat the experience. For the next 25 years the United 

Nations restricted its military interventions to interpositional peacekeeping, policing cease-fires, 

and patrolling disengagement zones in circumstances where all parties invited its presence and 

armed force was to be used by U.N. troops only in self-defense.’’ James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, 

Keith Crane, Andrew Rathmell, Brett Steele, Richard Teltschik, and Anga Timilsina, ‘‘The 

U.N.’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq,’’ RAND Corporation, 2005, p. xvi, at 

www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RANDlMG304.pdf. 6 According to one estimate, 80 percent of all wars from 1900 to 1941 were conflicts between 

states involving formal state armies, while 85 percent of all wars from 1945 to 1976 were within 

the territory of a single state and involved internal armies, militias, rebels, or other parties to 

the conflict. See Charter of the United Nations, Article 2, and Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas 

Sambanis, ‘‘Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations’’ (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 11, at www.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8196.pdf. 7The broadening of U.N. peacekeeping into these nontraditional missions and the mixed U.N. 

record in pursuit of these missions raise legitimate questions as to whether the U.N. should be 

engaged in these activities. Such a question is beyond the scope of this paper and is primarily 

bust vision of the U.N. as a key vehicle for maintaining international peace and security quickly ran athwart the interests of the Member States, particularly during 

the cold war when opposing alliances prevented the U.N. from taking decisive action 

except when the interests of the major powers were minimal. 

As a result, between 1945 and 1990, the Security Council established only 18 

peace operations, despite a multitude of conflicts during that period that threatened 

international peace and security to greater or lesser degree.3 Traditionally, Security 

Council authorizations of military force have involved deployments into relatively 

low-risk situations such as truce monitoring. The bulk of these peace operations 

were fact-finding missions, observer missions, and other roles in assisting peace 

processes in which the parties had agreed to cease hostilities.4 U.N. peace operations were rarely authorized with the expectation of the use of force.5

Since the end of the cold war, the U.N. Security Council has been far more active 

in establishing peace operations. In the early 1990s, crises in the Balkans, Somalia, 

and Cambodia led to a dramatic increase in missions. However, the debacle in 

Somalia and the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to intervene and prevent the 1994 

genocide in Rwanda and or to stop the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia, led to 

a necessary skepticism about U.N. peacekeeping. 

With a number of troubling situations, many in Africa, receiving increasing attention in the media in recent years, however, the Security Council has found itself 

under pressure to respond and ‘‘do something.’’ The response, for better or worse, 

has often been to establish a new peacekeeping operation. 

The Security Council has approved over 40 new peace operations since 1990. Half 

of all current peacekeeping operations have been authorized by the Security Council 

since 2000. These post-1990 operations involved a dramatic expansion in scope, purpose, and responsibilities beyond traditional peace operations. Moreover, these missions reflected a change in the nature of conflict from interstate conflict between nations to intrastate conflict within states by authorizing missions focused on quelling 

civil wars.6

This expansion of risk and responsibilities was justified by pointing out the international consequences of the conflict, such as refugees or preventing widespread 

conflict and instability. While such actions may be justified in some cases, they represent a dramatic shift from earlier doctrine. As a result, from a rather modest history of monitoring cease-fires, demilitarized zones, and post-conflict security, U.N. 

peace operations have expanded to include multiple responsibilities including more 

complex military interventions, civilian police duties, human rights interventions, 

reconstruction, overseeing elections, and post-conflict reconstruction.7

43 

a political question that can be resolved by the members of the Security Council, particularly 

by the permanent members. For more information, see John R. Bolton, ‘‘United States Policy 

on United Nations Peacekeeping: Case Studies in the Congo, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia-Eritrea, 

Kosovo and East Timor,’’ testimony before the Committee on International Relations, U.S. 

House of Representatives, January 21, 2000, at www.aei.org/publications/pubID.17044,filter.all/ 

publdetail.asp. 8 U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan or UNAMA, U.N. Integrated Office in Sierra Leone 

or UNIOSIL, U.N. Integrated Office in Burundi or BINUB. 9 United Nations Peacekeeping, ‘‘Current Operations,’’ at http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/ 

currentops.shtml#africa; United Nations Peacekeeping, ‘‘Monthly Summary of Contributions of 

Military and Civilian Police Personnel,’’ at http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/; and 

‘‘United Nations Political and Peacebuilding Missions,’’ Background Note, May 31, 2008, at 

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/ppbm.pdf. 10 Harvey Morris, ‘‘U.N. Peacekeeping in Line of Fire,’’ The Financial Times, May 20, 2008, 

at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67ae1fe4-23ac-11dd-b214-000077b07658.html. 11 U.N. General Assembly, ‘‘Scale Implementation of General Assembly Resolutions 55/235 and 

55/236,’’ A/61/139/Add.1, 61st Sess., December 27, 2006. 

At the end of May 2008, there were 17 active U.N. peacekeeping operations and 

another three political or peacebuilding operations 8 directed and supported by the 

U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO). Ten of these operations, 

including political missions, were in Africa (Burundi, Central African Republic, and 

Chad, Coˆte d’Ivoire, Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Eritrea, 

Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Western Sahara); one was in the Caribbean (Haiti); 

three were in Europe (Cyprus, Georgia, and Kosovo); and the remaining six missions 

were in the Middle East (the Middle East, Lebanon, the Syrian Golan Heights) and 

in Asia (Afghanistan, East Timor, and India and Pakistan). 

The size and expense of U.N. peace operations have risen to unprecedented levels. 

The 17 peacekeeping missions cited above involved some 88,000 uniformed personnel from 117 countries, including over 74,000 troops, 2,500 military observers, 

and 11,000 police personnel. There were also over 19,500 U.N. volunteers and other 

international and local civilian personnel employed in these 17 operations. Additionally, over 2,000 military observers, police, international and local civilians, and U.N. 

volunteers were involved in the three political or peacebuilding missions directed 

and supported by UNDPKO.9

All told, including international and local civilian personnel and U.N. volunteers, 

the personnel involved in U.N. peacekeeping, political, or peace-building operations 

overseen by UNDPKO totaled more than 109,500 at the end of May 2008. These 

operations involved the deployment of more uniformed personnel than were deployed by any single nation in the world other than the United States. (See attached 

Table) 

This activity has also led to a dramatically increased budget. The approved budget 

for UNDPKO—just one department in the U.N. Secretariat—from July 1, 2007, to 

June 30, 2008, was approximately $6.8 billion. The projected budget for U.N. peacekeeping operations is $7.4 billion for the July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009, fiscal year. 

This is a 10-percent increase over the previous budget and nearly a threefold increase in budget and personnel since 2003.10

By comparison, the annual peacekeeping budget is now triple the size of the 

annualized U.N. regular biennial 2008/2009 budget for the rest of the Secretariat. 

In general, the U.S. has supported the expansion of U.N. peacekeeping. Multiple 

administrations have concluded that it is in America’s interest to support U.N. operations as a useful, cost-effective way to influence situations that affect the U.S. 

national interest but do not rise to the level of requiring direct U.S. intervention. 

Although the U.N. peacekeeping record includes significant failures, U.N. peace operations overall have proven to be a convenient multilateral means for addressing 

humanitarian concerns in situations where conflict or instability make civilians vulnerable to atrocities, for promoting peace efforts, and for supporting the transition 

to democracy and post-conflict rebuilding. 

The U.S. contributes the greatest share of funding for peacekeeping operations. 

The U.S. is assessed 22 percent of the U.N. regular budget, but is assessed over 26 

percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. All permanent members of the Security 

Council—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—are 

charged a premium above their regular assessment rate. However, none pay nearly 

what the U.S. is assessed. In 2008–2009, the U.N. assessment for the U.S. is just 

under 26 percent. China is assessed 3.15 percent, France is assessed 7.4 percent, 

Russia is assessed 1.4 percent, and the U.K. is assessed 7.8 percent.11 Thus, the 

U.S. is assessed more than all of the other permanent members combined. Japan 

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44 

12This is, of course, a best guess on the part of the U.N. If a new mission is approved during 

the year, if a mission is closed unexpectedly, or if a mission does not deploy on schedule, the 

estimates would be adjusted. The U.S. is perpetually out of sync because it prepares its budget 

requests a year in advance. Shortfalls and other unforeseen changes are usually addressed in 

a subsequent or supplemental appropriation. 13Troop contributor data are as of May 31, 2008. See U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, ‘‘Monthly Summary of Contributions (Military Observers, Police and Troops),’’ at http:// 

www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/2008/may08l1.pdf. 14 According to the United Nations Foundation, ‘‘The U.N. pays the governments of troop con- tributing countries $1,110 per soldier each month of deployment.’’ This amount is far greater 

than the nations pay the troops participating in the missions. United Nations Foundation, ‘‘Season of the Blue Helmets,’’ UNF Insights: New Ideas for International Cooperation, at 

www.unfoundation.org/features/unflinsights/seasonlbluelhelmets.asp. 15 U.N. Security Council, ‘‘Peacekeeping Procurement Audit Found Mismanagement, Risk of 

Financial Loss, Security Council Told in Briefing by Chief of Staff,’’ SC/8645, U.N. Department 

of Public Information, February 22, 2006, at www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8645.doc.htm. 

cil, rank second and third in assessments at 16.6 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively. 

Based on the U.N.’s July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2008, budget projection for peacekeeping, the U.S. will be asked to pay over $1.9 billion for U.N. peacekeeping activities over that time.12 As a means of comparison, the 30-plus countries assessed the 

lowest rate of 0.0001 percent of the peacekeeping budget for 2008–2009 will be assessed $7,352 based on that projection. 

Although the U.S. and other developed countries regularly provide lift and logistics support, many developed countries that possess trained personnel and other 

essential resources are generally reluctant to participate directly in U.N. peace operations. The five permanent members contribute a total of less than 6 percent of U.N. 

uniformed personnel. The U.S. contribution totaled 14 troops, 16 military observers, 

and 259 police. This is roughly comparable to Russia and the U.K., which contributed 358 and 299 uniformed personnel, respectively. China and France contributed 

more at 1,977 and 2,090 personnel. 

The top 10 contributors of uniformed personnel to U.N. operations are nearly all 

developing countries: Pakistan (10,623); Bangladesh (9,037); India (8,862); Nigeria 

(5,218); Nepal (3,711); Ghana (3,239); Jordan (3,017); Rwanda (3,001); Italy (2,864); 

and Uruguay, (2,617).13 A number of reasons account for this situation, including 

the fact that major contributors use U.N. participation as a form of training and 

income.14

While the U.S. clearly should support U.N. peacekeeping operations when they 

support America’s national interests, broadening U.N. peace operations into nontraditional missions like peace enforcement and the inability to garner broad international support in terms of troop contributions, logistics support, and funding raise 

legitimate questions as to whether or not the U.N. should be engaged in the current 

number of missions and whether these situations are best addressed through the 

U.N. or through regional, multilateral, or ad hoc efforts with Security Council support. Concerns are growing that the system for assessing the U.N. peacekeeping 

budget is inappropriate, given the far larger financial demands of this expanded role 

for U.N. peacekeeping. Such questions are primarily political questions that can be 

resolved only by the Member States. 

Outside of the political realm, however, is the fundamental question of whether 

the system as currently structured is capable of meeting its responsibilities. Indisputably, the unprecedented frequency and size of recent U.N. deployments and the 

resulting financial demands have challenged and overwhelmed the capabilities of 

the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, leading to serious problems of 

mismanagement, misconduct, poor planning, corruption, sexual abuse, unclear mandates, and other weaknesses. Let me highlight two notable problems. 

Mismanagement, Fraud, and Corruption. The U.N., as illustrated by the Oil-forFood scandals and the more recent instances of mismanagement by UNDP in North 

Korea, has proven to be susceptible to mismanagement, fraud, and corruption. This 

also applies to U.N. peacekeeping. The Secretariat procured over $1.6 billion in 

goods and services in 2005, mostly to support peacekeeping, which has more than 

quadrupled in size since 1999. An Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) audit 

of $1 billion in DPKO procurement contracts over a 6-year period found that at least 

$265 million was subject to waste, fraud, or abuse.15 The U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded: 

While the U.N. Department of Management is responsible for U.N. procurement, field procurement staff are instead supervised by the U.N. 

45 

16David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, ‘‘United Nations: Internal 

Oversight and Procurement Controls and Processes Need Strengthening,’’ GAO–06–701T, testimony before the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, April 27, 

2006, at www.gao.gov/new.items/d06701t.pdf. 17 U.N. Security Council, ‘‘Peacekeeping Procurement Audit Found Mismanagement, Risk of 

Financial Loss, Security Council Told in Briefing by Chief of Staff.’’ 18Louis Charbonneau, ‘‘U.N. Probe Into Abuse, Corruption,’’ The Courier-Mail (Queensland), 

January 12, 2008. 19George Russell, ‘‘Report Details Progress in Battle Against Corruption at U.N. Office,’’ Fox 

News, October 11, 2007, at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301255,00.html. 20 Colum Lynch, ‘‘Audit of U.N.’s Sudan Mission Finds Tens of Millions in Waste,’’ The Washington Post, February 10, 2008, p. A16. 21Matthias Basanisi, ‘‘Who Will Watch the Peacekeepers?’’ The New York Times, May 23, 

2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/opinion/23basanisi.html. 22 BBC, ‘‘U.N. Troops ‘Armed DR Congo Rebels’,’’ April 28, 2008, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ 

africa/7365283.stm, and Joe Bavier, ‘‘U.N. ignored peacekeeper abuses in Congo, group says,’’ 

May 2, 2008, at http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN02278304. 23See Kate Holt and Sarah Hughes, ‘‘U.N. Staff Accused of Raping Children in Sudan,’’ The 

Daily Telegraph, January 4, 2007, at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/ 

03/wsudan03.xml; Kate Holt and Sarah Hughes, ‘‘Sex and the U.N.: When Peacemakers Become 

Predators,’’ The Independent, January 11, 2005, at www.news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/ 

article14411.ece; and Colum Lynch, ‘‘U.N. Faces More Accusations of Sexual Misconduct,’’ The 

Washington Post, March 13, 2005, p. A22, at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30286- 

2005Mar12.html. 24For more information on U.N. peacekeeping abuses, see Nile Gardiner, Ph.D., ‘‘The U.N. 

Peacekeeping Scandal in the Congo: How Congress Should Respond,’’ Heritage Foundation Lecture No. 868, March 1, 2005, at www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/upload/ 

76028l1.pdf. 

Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which currently lacks the expertise and capacities needed to manage field procurement activities.16

In reaction to the OIOS audit, the Department of Management and the DPKO accepted a majority of the 32 OIOS audit recommendations for addressing the findings.17 However, a more recent report from earlier this year indicates that these 

new procedures may not be sufficient to prevent a recurrence of fraud and corruption. Specifically, the OIOS revealed earlier this year that it is investigating about 

250 corruption cases ranging from sexual abuse by peacekeepers to financial irregularities. According to Inga-Britt Ahlenius, head of the OIOS, ‘‘We can say that we 

found mismanagement and fraud and corruption to an extent we didn’t really expect.’’ 18 According to the report, $1.4 billion worth of peacekeeping contracts turned 

up ‘‘significant’’ corruption schemes involving more than $619 million, or 44 percent 

of the total value of the contracts.19 At the time of the report, the task force had 

looked at only 7 of the 18 U.N. peacekeeping missions that were operational over 

the period of the investigation. A 2008 report on the audit of the U.N. mission in 

Sudan revealed tens of millions lost to mismanagement and waste and substantial 

indications of fraud and corruption.20

Worse, even the OIOS seems to be susceptible to improper influence. Allegations 

were made in 2006 that U.N. peacekeepers had illegal dealings with Congolese militias, including gold smuggling and arms trafficking. According to the lead OIOS investigator in charge of investigating the charges against the U.N. peacekeepers in 

the Congo, he had found the allegations of abuses by Pakistani peacekeepers to be 

‘‘credible,’’ but ‘‘the investigation was taken away from my team after we resisted 

what we saw as attempts to influence the outcome. My fellow team members and 

I were appalled to see that the oversight office’s final report was a little short of 

a whitewash.’’ 21 BBC and Human Rights Watch have provided evidence that the 

U.N. covered up evidence of wrongdoing by its peacekeepers in Congo.22

Sexual Misconduct. In recent years, there have been several harrowing reports of 

crimes committed by U.N. personnel, from rape to the forced prostitution of women 

and young girls, the most notorious of which have involved the U.N. mission in the 

Democratic Republic of Congo. Indeed, allegations and confirmed incidents of sexual 

exploitation and abuse by U.N. personnel have become depressingly routine in Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Guinea, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and 

Sudan.23

The alleged perpetrators of these abuses include U.N. military and civilian personnel from a number of U.N. Member States involved in peace operations and from 

U.N. funds and programs. The victims are refugees—many of them children—who 

have been terrorized by years of war and look to the U.N. for safety and protection.24 In addition to the horrible mistreatment of those who are under the protection of the U.N., sexual exploitation and abuse undermine the credibility of U.N. 

46 

25 U.S. Institute of Peace, Task Force on the United Nations, American Interests and U.N. 

Reform, June 2005, pp. 94–96, at www.usip.org/un/report/usiplunlreport.pdf. 26See Kim R. Holmes, ‘‘United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of 

Congo: A Case for Peacekeeping Reform,’’ testimony before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Human Rights, and International Operations, Committee on International Relations, U.S. House 

of Representatives, 109th Cong., 1st Sess., March 1, 2005, at http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa99590.000/hfa99590l0.HTM. 27 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, United States Participation in the United Nations 2005, October 2005, pp. 43–44, at www.state.gov/documents/ 

organization/74052.pdf. 28 Corinna Csa ́ky, ‘‘No One to Turn To: The Under-Reporting of Child Sexual Exploitation and 

Abuse by Aid Workers and Peacekeepers,’’ Save the Children, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/ 

bsp/hi/pdfs/27l05l08lsavethechildren.pdf. See also BBC, ‘‘Peacekeepers ‘Abusing Children’,’’ 

May 27, 2008, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/inldepth/7420798.stm. 29 According to Fox News, ‘‘U.N. military officials have the power to direct the troops placed 

under their command, but are relatively powerless when it comes to punishing them if they are 

accused of crimes against humanity. There are 13 misconduct investigations ongoing at the 

Sudan mission, [and] some include sexual abuse. From January 2004 to the end of November 

2006, investigations were conducted for 319 sexual exploitation and abuse cases in U.N. missions throughout the world. These probes resulted in the dismissal of 18 civilians and the repatriation on disciplinary grounds of 17 police and 144 military personnel. . . . What’s frustrating 

to military commanders on the ground is that there is little they can do to offending peacekeepers, other than putting them on desk duty, restricting them to quarters, and requesting a 

full investigation and repatriation.’’ Liza Porteus, ‘‘U.N. Peacekeepers Accused in Sudan SexAbuse Case Get Reprimand,’’ Fox News, January 05, 2007, at www.foxnews.com/story/ 

0,2933,241960,00.html. 30Morris, ‘‘U.N. Peacekeeping in Line of Fire.’’ 

peace operations and must be addressed through an effective plan and commitment 

to end abuses and ensure accountability.25

After intense lobbying by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. mission to the 

United Nations since early 2004, as well as pressure from several key Members of 

Congress, the U.N. Secretariat agreed to adopt stricter requirements for peacekeeping troops and their contributing countries.26 The U.S. also helped the DPKO 

to publish a resource manual on trafficking for U.N. peacekeepers. In 2005, Prince 

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein of Jordan, the Secretary General’s adviser on sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeeping personnel, submitted his report to the Secretary General with recommendations on how to address the sexual abuse problem, 

including imposing a uniform standard of conduct, conducting professional investigations, and holding troop-contributing countries accountable for the actions of 

their soldiers and for proper disciplinary action. In June 2005, the General Assembly adopted the recommendations in principle, and some recommendations have 

been implemented. For instance, contact and discipline teams are now present in 

most missions, and troops are now required to undergo briefing and training on behavior and conduct.27 Tragically, this does not seem to have addressed the problem 

adequately. 

Only this past May, Save the Children accused aid workers and peacekeepers of 

sexually abusing young children in war zones and disaster zones in Ivory Coast, 

Southern Sudan, and Haiti and going largely unpunished. U.N. peacekeepers were 

most likely to be responsible for abuse. According to a report by Save the Children, 

‘‘Children as young as 6 are trading sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in exchange for food, money, soap and, in very few cases, luxury items such as mobile 

phones.’’ 28

However, despite this action and then-Secretary General Kofi Annan’s announcement of a ‘‘zero tolerance’’ policy, the perpetrators of these crimes are very rarely 

punished, as was revealed in a January 2007 news report on U.N. abuses in Southern Sudan.29 The standard memorandum of understanding between the U.N. and 

troop contributors clearly grants troop-contributing countries jurisdiction over military members participating in U.N. peace operations, but little is done if these countries fail to investigate, try, and punish those guilty of such crimes. 

The problems of mismanagement, corruption, and misconduct cry out for fundamental reform of the U.N. peacekeeping structure to improve accountability and 

transparency. However, corruption, mismanagement, and sexual misconduct by U.N. 

peacekeepers are not the only problems with U.N. peacekeeping. The other problem 

is a political problem. The vast expansion of U.N. peacekeeping—with the possibility 

of even more operations on the horizon like the proposal for a new Somalia mission 

with up to 27,000 peacekeepers—has led some to point out that the U.N. Security 

Council has gone ‘‘mandate crazy’’ in its attempts to be seen as effective and ‘‘doing 

something.’’ 30 The willingness of the Security Council to approve missions where 

47 

31Doyle and Sambanis, ‘‘Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations,’’ 

p. 20; Dobbins, Jones, Crane, Rathmell, Steele, Teltschik, and Timilsina, ‘‘The U.N.’s Role in 

Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq,’’ p. xvi; and Victoria K. Holt, testimony before the 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations, Committee on 

International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, May 18, 2005, at www.international 

relations.house.gov/archives/109/hol051805.pdf. 32 U.N. General Assembly and U.N. Security Council, ‘‘Report of the Panel on United Nations 

Peace Operations,’’ A/55/305–S/2000/809, August 21, 2000, p. 10, at www.un.org/peace/reports/ 

peaceloperations/docs/al55l305.pdf. 

‘‘there is no peace to keep’’—such as Darfur, Somalia, or Chad—violates a dearly 

learned lesson that U.N. peacekeepers are not war fighters. 

In general, the U.N. and its Member States had accepted the fact—in the wake 

of the Somalia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone missions in which there was 

no peace to keep—that U.N. peace operations should not include a mandate to enforce peace outside of limited circumstances and should focus instead on assisting 

countries to shift from conflict to a negotiated peace and from peace agreements to 

legitimate governance and development.31 As noted in the ‘‘Report of the Panel on 

United Nations Peace Operations’’ (the Brahimi Report): 

[T]he United Nations does not wage war. Where enforcement action is required, it has consistently been entrusted to coalitions of willing States, 

with the authorization of the Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of 

the Charter.32

Yet even situations short of war that may require a U.N. peace operation are still 

rife with danger, as illustrated by the nearly 2,500 peacekeepers that have been 

killed in operations since 1948. They also involve great demands in resources, management, and personnel. Indeed, it has increasingly strained the ability of countries 

willing to provide peacekeepers, especially in Darfur. Worse, this investment may 

not be helping the situation. 

Dr. Greg Mills, Director of the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, and 

Dr. Terence McNamee, Director of Publications at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), have conducted several cases studies 

of U.N. peacekeeping operations in a chapter in a forthcoming book. They have concluded that, in the cases of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lebanon, it is 

an open question whether the U.N. peacekeeping mission has contributed to resolving the situation or exacerbating it. 

• Mills and McNamee note that a 30-year United Nations presence has failed to 

resolve the deep-seated problems in Lebanon. The U.N. operation has failed to 

prevent a succession of Israeli incursions. Nor was the mission able to stop 

Hezbollah and other groups from using the Lebanese border to launch raids and 

rockets into Israel. The 12,000-plus U.N. troops currently in place following the 

2006 Israeli intervention have not been instructed specifically to disarm the 

group. Ironically, Hezbollah is now in a stronger position, and the U.N. mission 

acts as a buffer to prevent any Israeli assault. Mills and McNamee note, ‘‘The 

problem in Lebanon is more profound than any deal-making or U.N. force can 

solve however. It goes to the heart of reconfiguring the state and its role in 

Lebanon.’’ 

• The Democratic Republic of Congo is a state in name only. Decades of instability and insecurity have entrenched the view in Kinshasa that anything benefiting the periphery of the country is a threat. Instability is viewed as a political 

advantage in Kinshasa because it keeps potential rivals focused on each other 

rather than on the central government. As such, Kinshasa does little to aid the 

U.N. effort. Despite more than 19,000 U.N. military and civilian peacekeepers 

in Congo at an annual cost of over $1 billion, MONUC has not brought peace 

or stability. Eastern Congo, bordering Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda, remains 

violent. According to Mills and McNamee, ‘‘Disarmament, pacification, demobilization and repatriation/reintegration programs could help to dilute the extent 

of the security threat to the civilian population. But this will require holding 

[DRC President] Kabila to task . . . removing the fig-leaf of respectability to 

his indecision and weakness in filling the vacuum with U.N. troops. But it will 

require fundamental, root-and-branch reform, with decentralization at its core.’’ 

In other cases, such as the U.N. missions in Cyprus and the Western Sahara established in 1964 and 1991, respectively, the U.N. presence is simply an historical 

palliative. The peacekeepers perform little in the way of keeping the peace. Nor does 

their presence seem to have contributed to the process for resolving the decades-long 

political standoff. Instead, the missions continue out of inertia and requests by parties to the conflict that they remain in place. It is an open question whether the 

48 

33 U.N. News Centre, ‘‘Darfur: U.N. Envoy Doubtful Parties Are Willing To Enter Serious 

Negotiations,’’ June 24, 2008, at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27149&Cr= 

darfur&Crl=. 34 An example of this thought process that should be pursued by the U.S. and other countries 

was summarized by former Assistant Secretary of State Kim R. Holmes: ‘‘While the Security 

Council is hammering out the details of a peacekeeping resolution, Member States work with 

the U.N. to figure out what that mission will require. We consider causes, regional equities, resources, the need for military forces and civilian police, the involvement of rule of law and 

human rights experts, reconstruction needs, and more. From the outset, we work to ensure each 

mission is right-sized, has a clear mandate, can deploy promptly, and has a clear exit strategy. 

This was particularly the case in getting peacekeepers into Haiti and expanding the mission in 

the Congo to target the main area of instability, the African Great Lakes region. Nevertheless, 

as this committee well knows, new CIPA requirements arise quickly. It is not possible to predict 

when conflicts will intensify to the point where they require U.N. action. We are cautious because, historically, U.N. missions are not as effective at peace enforcement, when offensive military action is needed to end the conflict, as they are at maintaining cease-fires and supporting 

peace agreements. But our focused analysis has helped the U.N. close down most of the peaceU.N. presence has actually contributed to the intractability of the situation by providing the excuse not to develop a resolution to what is largely a political problem. 

The next administration should fundamentally reevaluate all U.N. operations that 

date back to the early 1990s or earlier—some, like UNTSO in the Middle East and 

UNMOGIP in Kashmir, date back to the 1940s—to determine whether the U.N. is 

contributing to resolving the situation or retarding that process. These missions are 

generally small and among the least costly, but such a reevaluation would send a 

welcome message of accountability and assessment that too often has been lacking 

in the rubber-stamp process of reauthorizing peacekeeping operations. 

This is not to say that U.N. missions are never useful and should be rejected out 

of hand. U.N. missions have been successful in situations like Cambodia where it 

helped to restore stability following dictatorship and civil war. Indeed, no one wants 

another Rwanda, and the consequences of doing nothing may be unpalatable. But 

a long list of operations that have been less than successful indicates that the Security Council should be far more judicious when adopting decisions to intervene. 

The situation in Darfur is particularly relevant. The U.S. has called the situation 

in Darfur ‘‘genocide.’’ The U.N. did not come to that conclusion, but it did recognize 

the widespread human rights violations and suffering. After the African Union mission failed to curtail the violence and suffering, the U.N. adopted a resolution 

authorizing a joint AU/U.N. peacekeeping force despite ongoing conflict and considerable evidence that neither the rebels nor the government-backed forces were prepared to abide by a peace agreement. Protected by China’s veto, Sudan also 

demanded that the peacekeepers be African. This has led to a severe constraint of 

available troops: There simply are not enough trained and capable African troops 

to meet the demand. As a result, Jan Eliasson, the Secretary General’s Special 

Envoy for Darfur, told the Security Council that the situation in Darfur had deteriorated despite the efforts of U.N. and African Union troops.33 The recent decision of 

the International Criminal Court to seek an indictment against Sudanese President 

Omar al-Bashir may, if approved by the ICC pretrial chamber, lead to further complications. 

In Darfur, the U.N. Security Council yielded to the pressure to act. Massive suffering was occurring and would likely have grown worse without U.N. backing and 

support for the AU peacekeeping effort. However, the Council accepted demands 

from Sudan that vastly complicate their efforts, such as restricting peacekeepers to 

African nations. It also entered a conflict situation against the lessons of its own 

experience. It compounded the error by failing to adopt clear objectives, metrics for 

success, and an exit strategy. Because of these failings, not to mention the potential 

for deterioration toward broader conflict or a stiffening of resolve by President 

Bashir if the ICC proceeds with its indictment, Darfur could very easily become the 

U.N.’s next spectacular failure. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

There are a number of steps the U.N. and the Security Council should adopt to 

address the weaknesses identified above. 

• Be more judicious in decisions to authorize U.N. peacekeeping operations. The 

pressure to ‘‘do something’’ must not trump sensible consideration of whether 

a U.N. presence will improve or destabilize the situation, clearly establishing 

the objectives of the operations and ensuring that they are achievable, carefully 

planning the requirements for achieving those objectives and securing pledges 

for providing them prior to authorizing the operation, and demanding that an 

exit strategy be included to prevent the ‘‘perpetual mission’’ trap.34

49 

keeping missions begun during the early 1990s, once their jobs were done. It is helping Member 

States look for possible reductions in some longstanding missions, and press the U.N. to rightsize or close other missions as they complete their mandates. The United States, in voting on 

peacekeeping mandates, always pushes for prudent mandates, force size, and missions that not 

only would succeed, but also just plain end.’’ Unfortunately, this type of analysis in the context 

of Security Council authorization of U.N. peacekeeping operations appears to be the exception 

rather than the rule. See Kim R. Holmes, Assistant Secretary for International Organization 

Affairs, ‘‘Statement Urging Congress to Fund Fully President’s 2006 Budget Request for the 

U.N.,’’ Statement Before the House Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, 

and Related Agencies, April 21, 2005, at http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/45037.htm. 35 According to the Secretary General, ‘‘gratis personnel were not regulated until the adoption 

by the General Assembly of resolutions 51/243 and 52/234, in which the Assembly placed strict 

conditions on the acceptance of type II gratis personnel. Among the conditions set out in administrative instruction ST/AI/1999/6, is the requirement that type II gratis personnel be accepted 

on an exceptional basis only and for the following purposes: (a) To provide expertise not available within the Organization for very specialized functions or (b) to provide temporary and urgent assistance in the case of new and/or expanded mandates of the Organization.’’ See U.N. 

General Assembly, ‘‘Gratis Personnel Provided by Governments and Other Entities,’’ A/61/257/ 

Add.1, August 9, 2006, at www.centerforunreform.org/system/files/A.61.257.Add.1.pdf. The restrictions on gratis personnel were adopted at the behest of the Group of 77 developing nations, 

which thought that their nationals were not being given equal opportunity to fill positions at 

the U.N. because their governments could not afford to provide staff gratis. A possible solution 

could be to allow the countries to receive credit toward their assessed dues equivalent to the 

estimated salaries of gratis personnel. See ‘‘U.N. Gratis Personnel System Is Undemocratic, 

Says G–77 Chairman,’’ Journal of the Group of 77, January/February 1997, at www.g77.org/ 

Journal/janfeb97/6.htm. 

This process should also apply in reauthorization of existing missions where 

there is often a rubber-stamp approach. If a mission has not achieved its objective or made evident progress toward that end after a lengthy period, the Council should assess whether it is serving a positive function. In its deliberations, 

however, the Council should recognize that short, easy missions are extremely 

rare. When authorizing a mission, the Council should recognize that it may be 

there for a lengthy period. If the Council seems unlikely to persevere, it should 

consider not approving the mission. 

Critically, this recommendation should not be construed as implying that all 

U.N. peacekeeping operations should or can be identical. On the contrary, differing circumstances often require differing approaches. Indeed, if peacekeeping 

missions are to be successful, the Council must be flexible in the makeup and 

composition of U.N. peacekeeping operations or in choosing to stand back in 

favor of a regional intervention or an ad hoc coalition if those approaches better 

fit the immediate situation. However, in the process of deciding to authorize a 

mission, the Council should not let an ‘‘emergency’’ override the prudent evaluation and assessment process necessary to make sure the prospective mission 

has the largest chance of success. 

• Transform the DPKO organizational structure to enable it to handle increased 

peace operations demands and plan for future operations more effectively. This 

requires more direct involvement of the Security Council; more resources for 

staff, supplies, and training; and greatly improved oversight by a capable inspector general dedicated to peace operations. 

A key element of this should include transforming the DPKO to incorporate 

greater flexibility so that it can rapidly expand and contract to meet varying 

levels of peace operations activity. Current U.N. rules do not permit the necessary authority and discretion in hiring and shifting resources to meet priorities. A core professional military staff must be maintained and utilized, but the 

DPKO should also be able to rely on gratis military and other seconded professionals to meet exceptional demands on U.N. peace operations.35 This would 

readily provide the expertise and experience needed to assess the requirements 

of mandates under consideration, including troop numbers, equipment, timeline, 

and rules of engagement, both efficiently and realistically. 

• Build up peacekeeping capabilities around the world, particularly in Africa, and 

further develop a U.N. database of qualified, trained, prescreened uniformed 

and civilian personnel available for U.N. operations. The U.N. has no standing 

armed forces and is entirely dependent on Member States to donate troops and 

other personnel to fulfill peace operation mandates. This is appropriate. Nations 

should maintain control of their armed forces and refuse to support the establishment of armed forces outside of direct national oversight and responsibility. 

However, the current arrangement results in an ad hoc system plagued by 

delays; inadequately trained personnel; insufficient numbers of military troops, 

50 

36Operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Coˆte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Lebanon, 

and Darfur all recently experienced difficulties in raising the numbers of troops authorized by 

the Security Council. 37 U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, ‘‘United Nations Standby Arrangements System (UNSAS),’’ April 30, 2005, at www.un.org/Depts/dpko/milad/fgs2/unsaslfiles/sba.htm. 38The State Department budget request includes a request for $106 million for GPOI in FY 2009, up from $81 million in FY 2007. Most of the funds for GPOI, including the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program (ACOTA), go to Africa-related programs. According to the budget, ‘‘Funding in FY 2009 is intended to train over 15,000 peacekeeping troops 

to reach the initiative goal of 75,000 peacekeeping troops trained worldwide.’’ See U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification Foreign Operations Fiscal Year 2009, p. 113, 

at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/101368.pdf. 39 Catherine Bertini, former U.N. Under Secretary General for Management, statement in 

hearing, ‘‘Reforming the United Nations: Budget and Management Perspectives,’’ Committee on 

International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, 109th Cong., 1st Sess., May 19, 2005, 

at www.commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa21309.000/hfa21309l0.htm. 40 U.S. Government Accountability Office, ‘‘United Nations: Procurement Internal Controls Are 

Weak,’’ GAO–06–577, April 2006, at www.gao.gov/new.items/d06577.pdf. 

military observers, civilian police, and civilian staff; inadequate planning; inadequate or nonfunctional equipment; and logistical gaps.36

The U.N. has established a Stand-by Arrangements System (UNSAS), wherein Member States make conditional commitments to prepare and maintain specified resources (military formations, specialized personnel, services, material, 

and equipment) on ‘‘stand-by’’ in their home countries to fulfill specified tasks 

or functions for U.N. peace operations.37 This is their prerogative, but the resources committed under the UNSAS fall short of needs. To speed up deployment on missions, the U.N. would be well served to further develop a database 

of information on individuals’ and units’ past experience in U.N. operations; disciplinary issues; performance evaluations; expertise (e.g., language, engineering, 

and combat skills); and availability for deployment. In addition, U.S. efforts 

under the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) contribute significantly to 

bolstering the capacity and capabilities of regional troops, particularly in Africa, 

to serve as peacekeepers through the U.N. or regional organizations like the African Union.38

• Implement a modern logistics system and streamline procurement procedures 

so that missions receive what they need when they need it. To be effective, procurement and contracting must ‘‘have a formal governance structure responsible 

for its oversight and direction,’’ as former Under Secretary General for Management Catherine Bertini advised Congress in 2005.39 Critically, the new logistics 

system and the procurement system must be subject to appropriate transparency, rigorous accountability, and independent oversight accompanied by robust investigatory capabilities and a reliable system of internal justice.40

The new restructuring of UNDPKO into a Department of Peacekeeping Operations and a Department of Field Support, as proposed by Secretary General 

Ban Ki-moon and approved by the General Assembly, does not appear to have 

substantially improved peacekeeping procurement. This may be due to the fact 

that the new department did not receive requested positions or budget, but it 

also appears to be a case of a ‘‘paper reform’’ rather than an actual reform. Most 

of the same people remain in place, and it is uncertain that tasking or procedures have changed. 

• Implement mandatory, uniform standards of conduct for civilian and military 

personnel participating in U.N. peace operations. If the U.N. is to take serious 

steps to end sexual exploitation, abuse, and other misconduct by peacekeepers, 

it must do more than adopt a U.N. code of conduct, issue manuals, and send 

abusers home. It should not necessarily involve yielding jurisdiction over personnel to the U.N. or non-national judicial authority, but it should entail commitments by Member States to investigate, try, and punish their personnel in 

cases of misconduct. 

Investigators should be granted full cooperation and access to witnesses, 

records, and sites where alleged crimes occurred so that trials can proceed. 

Equally important, the U.N. must be more willing to hold member countries to 

these standards. States that fail to fulfill their commitments to discipline their 

troops should be barred from providing troops for peace operations. 

CONCLUSION

Today’s hearing is very pertinent. U.N. peacekeeping is being conducted at unprecedented pace, scope, and ambition. Unsurprisingly, this activity has revealed 

numerous flaws, limitations, and weaknesses inherent in U.N. peacekeeping. 

51 

Problems with U.N. peacekeeping are serious and need to be addressed, and the 

administration and Congress need to consider carefully any requests by the United 

Nations for additional funding for a system in which procurement problems have 

wasted millions of dollars and sexual abuse by peacekeepers is still occurring. Without fundamental reform, these problems will likely continue and expand, undermining the U.N.’s credibility and ability to accomplish one of its primary missions— 

maintaining international peace and security. 

U.N. peacekeeping operations can be useful and successful if entered into with an 

awareness of the limitations and weaknesses of U.N. peacekeeping. This awareness 

is crucial, because there seems little indication that the demand for U.N. peacekeeping will fall in the foreseeable future. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM J. DURCH, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, THE

HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC 

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am honored to be invited to testify 

before this subcommittee. I am a senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center, 

where I codirect the Future of Peace Operations program, which focuses on modern 

challenges for peacekeeping internationally. Stimson is an independent research 


sod.eps
52 

center that develops practical policy solutions to pressing international security 

problems, including the problems faced by United Nations peacekeeping operations. 

United States support for these operations has never been more important and the 

challenges that they face have never been more daunting. 

Peace seems like it ought to be self-enforcing, but the most peaceful states are 

those with effective police—and fair laws, competent courts, and consent of the governed. States emerging from civil war usually have none of these. Sustaining whatever fragile peace they initially achieve may require outside help, and that help may 

be needed for several years. In 1995, for example, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) poured 60,000 troops into Bosnia to cement the Dayton Accords; 

today, 2,300 troops and police remain, under European Union (EU) command. So 

the effort is less but the presence remains. Other places where peacekeepers go are 

much bigger and more dangerous than Bosnia was when NATO deployed there. Bosnia itself was a very dangerous place before U.S. pressure and NATO air strikes 

brought its own civil war to a halt, a war where U.N. peacekeepers had earlier been 

deployed with neither the power nor the mandate to create and sustain peace. Yet 

that earlier operation was authorized by unanimous votes of the U.N. Security 

Council, votes in which the United States participated; votes that helped to discredit 

U.N. peacekeeping in the West for the remainder of the 1990s, because they sent 

U.N. forces into dangerous combat environments with which the United Nations 

cannot cope. 

In this decade, the U.N. found its feet once again as major reforms in how peacekeeping is managed and mandated began to take hold. But in recent years, and 

especially the past 12 months, the Security Council has again begun to overuse its 

tools, with the result that U.N. peacekeepers find themselves in situations better 

suited to combat forces. One of the lessons of the 1990s is that peacekeepers must 

be able to defend themselves and their mandates when subject to violent tactical 

challenge, but such challenges must be balanced by high-level, political acceptance 

of the U.N.’s presence. The Democratic Republic of Congo (or DRC) is one such dangerous place where the U.N. nonetheless has the support of the elected government 

and works closely with it against various violent opponents of the peace, especially 

in this large country’s lawless east. Darfur, Sudan, on the other hand, is a dangerous place where the government gives little more than lip service to the U.N. 

presence and does everything it can to delay and obstruct its deployment, up to the 

possible use of proxy forces to attack U.N. personnel. 

Most peace operations in difficult places struggle to attract the manpower and 

funds they need to create real change over time. The United Nations promotes stability in the DRC, for example, with one-third as many troops as NATO started with 

in Bosnia, spread over an area six times as large that is teeming with well-armed 

and vicious militias. At the end of May, the U.N. deployed 88,000 troops and police 

globally. Few of those deployed in its toughest operations (which are mostly in 

Africa) come from developed states, which are the U.N.’s major funders. Not only 

are in-kind contributions to U.N. operations from these states rather rare but late 

payments keep U.N. operations perennially underfunded. At the end of May, 11 

months into its peacekeeping fiscal year, the U.N. was still short $1.6 billion on a 

$6.8 billion peacekeeping budget. In one of life’s greater ironies, the U.N. may not 

borrow funds to cover that shortfall, a rule enforced by the most indebted government on the planet: Our own. 

As imperfect as the United Nations may be, people around the globe understand, 

accept, and applaud most U.N. actions. Compared to regional organizations and ad 

hoc coalitions, the U.N. has both broader political legitimacy, greater political reach, 

and a deeper logistics network supporting both humanitarian relief and peace operations—a network that leans heavily on private sector service providers. But the 

United Nations also needs consistent U.S. political, financial, and material support 

to makes its operations work. Each of these is well worth strengthening. 

Early in the next administration, the President should begin that strengthening 

process by: 

• Affirming that the United States and the United Nations share common goals 

in expanding the writ of human rights and realizing human dignity, which in 

turn requires international peace and individual human security. 

• Offering strong support—in cash and in kind—to every U.N. peace operation for 

which it casts its vote in the Security Council, setting an example for others 

by promptly contributing the U.S. share of U.N. peacekeeping costs. 

• Supporting the continued restructuring and strengthening of U.N. headquarters 

offices that plan and support peace operations. 

• Pledging strong and sustained U.S. diplomatic and political support to U.N. 

peacekeeping operations, especially in volatile states and regions. 

53 

1Some peacekeeping missions still deploy along international borders: Between Israel, Egypt, 

Lebanon, and Syria, for example, or between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Some keep the peace within 

split but relatively stable states like Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its largely separate Serb and 

non-Serb populations, and Cyprus, where the ‘‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’’ is recognized only by Turkey but backed by 36,000 Turkish troops. Most peace operations, however, deploy within states that are rather less stable, with recently ended wars that no local party was 

strong enough to win. Note that the counterinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not 

included in this tally, as they far exceed reasonable definitional limits of peace/stability operations. For discussion, see William J. Durch and Tobias C. Berkman, ‘‘Who Should Keep the 

Peace?’’ (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, September 2006), pp. 1–5. 

• Promising temporary U.S. military support, in collaboration with its NATO 

Allies, for U.N. operations that experience trouble from local spoilers or terrorist 

action. 

• Continuing to train foreign peacekeepers, contingent on their governments’ willingness to discipline troops who violate international humanitarian law. 

• Announcing that the United States will expand its own capacity to contribute 

to the nonmilitary elements of peace and stability operations. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PEACE AND STABILITY OPERATIONS

Contemporary peace operations got their start after World War II, when some 200 

unarmed military observers wearing U.N. armbands patrolled cease-fire lines between India and Pakistan and armistice lines around the new state of Israel.1 Six 

decades later, 110,000 troops, police, and civilian personnel in 20 U.N. missions on 

four continents use presence, persuasion, and modern weapons to support the rebuilding of peace under tough conditions. The African Union-United Nations ‘‘hybrid’’ mission in Darfur (UNAMID) will, when fully deployed, drive that total near 

130,000. NATO manages a further 50,000 peacekeepers in Kosovo and Afghanistan, 

the EU manages 2,300 in Bosnia, and the African Union (AU) managed about 7,000 

in Darfur through the end of 2007, when that force merged into UNAMID. Washington has authorized, endorsed, or supported all of these operations through its 

votes in the U.N. Security Council or on NATO’s North Atlantic Council. 

In the past 2 years, in fact, the United States has supported a substantial 

increase in the size, use, and deployment of U.N. peacekeeping around the globe, 

including: 

• A new peacekeeping mission in Somalia; 

• A sevenfold expansion of the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon; 

• The fourfold expansion of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur; 

• Reauthorization of the U.N.’s large peacekeeping missions in Haiti and Liberia; 

• A renewed peacekeeping mission for East Timor; and 

• New missions in Chad, the Central African Republic, and Nepal. 

Peacekeeping today costs $10 to $12 billion annually, not including counterinsurgency in Iraq or Afghanistan. The U.N.’s peacekeeping budget accounts for just over 

half of that total and Washington pays for roughly one-quarter of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. 

The costs of U.N. peacekeeping operations are prorated among Member States 

according to a ‘‘peacekeeping scale of assessment,’’ which is based on states’ shares 

of the regular U.N. budget. The five permanent members of the Security Council 

each pay a 20-percent larger share of peacekeeping costs than they do of the U.N. 

regular budget, given their special responsibility under the U.N. Charter for international peace and security, and because they can veto any operation they dislike. 

U.N. operations, as currently conducted, are a relative bargain for their major 

funders, costing less than one-fifth of what they would cost if conducted exclusively 

by the funders’ own military forces. 

The costs of other peacekeeping missions are borne primarily by the troop contributors. NATO and the EU collectively fund mostly minor ‘‘common costs’’ for their 

missions. Occasional subsidies from wealthy states allow less-wealthy states to send 

troops to non-U.N. operations. Substantial outside cash and in-kind support (airlift 

and civilian contractors) have enabled the AU, for example, to deploy and support 

its observer force in Darfur. 

THE CASE FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

In deciding how best to defend themselves and their interests, all states face 

tough policy choices. Small, poor states have few options and often find their choices 

dictated by others. Big, rich states have more choices—but each choice comes with 

consequences. America can act on its own in many matters of peace and security, 

but there are times when acting in concert—through coalitions, alliances, regional 

54 

2 Better World Campaign (BWC), ‘‘FY 2009 Budget Request: Growing Debt to the United Nations and Peacekeeping,’’ fact sheet, February 2008. BWC estimate. 

groupings, or global institutions—is not only useful but necessary, because even a 

superpower has finite resources, as the U.S. experience in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to demonstrate. And where resources needed to shore up the peace can be 

found among many implementing partners and organizations, smart engagement 

argues for leveraging those resources to accomplish common goals and to better 

manage hard problems multilaterally. 

The United States has found it increasingly cost-effective and politically helpful 

to lean on other states and organizations to help it advance shared strategic interests in international peace, security, justice, and prosperity. The available forms of 

collaboration have complementary strengths: Coalitions of the willing are better at 

suppressing violence but typically lack staying power and means of joint finance. 

Regional organizations have greater legitimacy and cohesion when working within 

their regions but risk losing both when they venture farther afield. The U.N. cannot 

handle full-scale combat since it lacks both full control over the forces it receives 

and the cohesion of the best alliances and coalitions, but what it lacks in combat 

power, the U.N. makes up for in its legitimacy and staying power. 

Compared to regional organizations and ad hoc alliances of states, the U.N. has 

greater political reach and a deeper network supporting humanitarian relief as well 

as peace operations. Those who think of the U.N. system as desk-bound should witness its fieldwork firsthand, since more U.N. staff members work in field postings 

than in headquarters. Peacekeeping operations are supported by a global system of 

financial assessments that enable the U.N. to tap the strengths of the private sector, 

with more than 100 ‘‘systems contracts’’ in place for essential mission support. 

Given the growth in this area, it is a sure bet that the next administration will 

face serious questions of resource allocation regarding the U.N. and global peace 

and stability operations. 

COPING WITH GROWTH IN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

In the face of explosive growth in U.N. peacekeeping over the past decade, the 

first question is whether the world, and the United States in particular, are providing sufficient resources to support this growth—which they have promoted. The 

answer to this question would have to be ‘‘no.’’ The surge in U.N. peacekeeping has 

not been met with steady funding, by commensurate increases in the number of 

staff in the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), or in the number 

of troops or police volunteered to the U.N. by its richest members for the U.N.’s 

toughest missions. The result has been forces of highly variable professionalism. In 

the past 3 years, the U.N. has asked states to take back hundreds of troops and 

police as investigations have implicated them in sexual abuse and exploitation of 

local populations. 

The United States chronically underbudgets its share of U.N. peacekeeping costs, 

even as it votes for more and expanded peacekeeping missions on the Security 

Council. As of February 2008, the U.S. had built up $1.2 billion in essentially permanent prior-year debt for U.N. peacekeeping and was likely to fall at least another 

$500 million short in its peacekeeping dues for 2007–08.2

Beyond this challenge, ever since operations in Somalia (1992–93), the United 

States has declined to provide troops for the riskier U.N. peacekeeping forces. The 

Force Commander and majority of U.N. forces in Haiti (1995–96) were American but 

the last U.S. military unit to serve in a U.N.-led mission came home in 1999. Subsequent U.S. nonparticipation means that our government has no military commanders in any current U.N. field missions and dwindling institutional memory of 

how U.N. operations work. U.S. contributions of police officers to U.N. operations 

also has dwindled in this decade, from 849 in December 2000 to 230 this June. 

The second big question is whether the world and the United States are lining 

up the right kinds of capabilities to meet the world’s needs in the peace and stability arena. In peace operations, the military’s real exit strategy is successful peacebuilding, or ‘‘transition and reconstruction.’’ This involves many tasks—from arranging and supervising elections, training novice lawmakers, and jump-starting economic activity to rebuilding police forces and promoting independent judiciaries— 

all tasks for which armed forces are poorly suited or totally inappropriate. Successful peacebuilding, and therefore a successful exit strategy, require complementary 

civilian capacity working alongside the military. 

55 

WHAT WASHINGTON SHOULD DO: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

As U.N. peacekeeping’s largest and most influential donor, the U.S. Government, 

under a new administration, should make it clear, very early on, that it supports 

an effective U.N. that, in turn, supports international peace and security in irreplaceable ways—not as a tool of U.S. policy but as a venue for leveraging scarce 

funds and people toward a just public order that improves people’s lives and contributes to our national security. 

Early in the new term, while the U.N. Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations is in session, the President should set out the following principles and policy 

goals: 

• Affirm that the United States and the United Nations share common goals in 

expanding the writ of human rights and realizing human dignity, which in turn 

requires international peace and individual human security. The majority of 

U.N. Member States are poor, less than free, and often difficult to deal with. 

As a global institution, the U.N. includes the world’s worst human rights offenders but also its strongest human rights proponents. Moreover, the U.N. Charter 

and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reflect Western values on a 

global stage. The General Assembly regularly votes budgets for peace operations 

that Washington sees fit to support in the Security Council, and those budgets 

are cleared first by a committee of 16 states on which the United States has 

nearly always had a strong voice. The U.N. system also provides a wide range 

of services through its operational agencies that work beyond the realm of high 

politics and security, in food aid, refugee support, human rights support, global 

public health, vaccinations against childhood diseases, and nuclear nonproliferation. • Offer strong support—in cash and in kind—to every U.N. peace operation for 

which it casts its vote in the Security Council and set an example for others by 

promptly contributing the U.S. share of U.N. peacekeeping costs. The U.N. is 

precluded from borrowing to finance its operations, so when the Security Council votes to support a mission, the U.N. must rely on Member States’ payments 

toward the mission’s ‘‘assessed’’ budget to get things underway. The administration frequently underbudgets for U.N. peacekeeping operations, and the Office 

of Management and Budget in recent years has cut State Department requests, 

making it up later with ‘‘supplemental’’ requests. This sleight-of-hand approach 

means that money shortages have driven U.S. dealings with the U.N. on matters of peace and security that should have been driven by U.S. interests. Even 

U.N. missions launched with urgent U.S. backing may not receive U.S. funds 

for months unless they can hitch a ride on a timely supplemental in the Congress. U.S. delays encourage other member nations to hold back funds. The bottom line? Mission deployments slow down to match the flow of funds, jeopardizing the people, places, and peace they are intended to protect. 

• Support the continued restructuring and strengthening of the U.N. headquarters 

offices that plan and support peace operations. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon 

proposed, and the General Assembly approved, splitting the Department of 

Peacekeeping Operations into two parts, one (which keeps the old name) that 

is focused on policy, strategy, and planning, and another (the Department of 

Field Support) that is focused on finance, personnel, logistics, and communications. The General Assembly also agreed to add 287 staff to U.N. Headquarters 

support of peacekeeping, bringing the total New York staff to about 1,200, to 

manage up to 130,000 personnel in the field. Its cost, together with that of the 

U.N.’s main peacekeeping logistics base at Brindisi, Italy, is 5 percent of the 

U.N.’s peacekeeping budget. It is difficult to find any other agency (or company) 

in defense and security that runs on 5 percent overhead. 

• Pledge strong and sustained U.S. diplomatic and political support to U.N. peacekeeping operations, especially in volatile states and regions. Every successful 

peace operation has had the strong support of at least one great power. Such 

support does not guarantee success, but its absence is a near guarantee of 

failure. 

• Promise temporary U.S. military support, in collaboration with its NATO Allies, 

for U.N. operations that experience trouble from local spoilers or terrorist activities. In spring 2000, in Sierra Leone, Britain turned a noncombatant evacuation 

operation into a mini-counterinsurgency campaign against the armed gangs who 

had threatened both the country’s fragile peace and a wobbly U.N. peacekeeping 

operation. Most of the British troops withdrew within 4 months, leaving behind 

a training mission to rebuild Sierra Leone’s army. The U.N. operation restructured itself and ended up doing a creditable job, withdrawing in 2005. In 2004, 

in Haiti, U.S. armed forces led a coalition of the willing that preceded a U.N. 

56 

operation, instead of serving in parallel. There is no good reason why such U.S. 

deployments could not be made in parallel, however, as Britain and the EU 

have done, should a U.N. operation run into trouble. 

• Continue training foreign peacekeepers, contingent on their governments’ willingness to discipline troops who violate international humanitarian law. The U.S. 

supports the G–8s Global Peace Operations Initiative, which aims to train 

75,000 peacekeepers, primarily in Africa, by 2010. This is a valuable program 

worth sustaining and extending, but it could also be used to give the U.N. better leverage over troop-contributing states whose troops commit crimes while on 

U.N. duty. The U.S. Government should tie continued assistance under this and 

similar initiatives to recipients’ demonstrated willingness to discipline troops 

who violate their own military codes of justice or U.N. standards of conduct 

while serving in U.N. operations. 

• Announce that the United States will expand its own capacity to contribute to 

the nonmilitary elements of peace and stability operations. This includes police 

personnel, political advisors, and civilian substantive experts who specialize, for 

example, in infrastructure repair, human rights, or de-mining. In the past 2 

years, the U.S. Government has taken important steps toward the goal of building its nonmilitary capabilities for stabilization and reconstruction. The next 

administration should reinforce this nascent interagency process for recruiting, 

training, and deploying civilian personnel, acting on the knowledge that effective ‘‘transition and reconstruction’’ programs are the best exit strategy for 

peacekeepers—our own and everyone else’s. 

LIVES AND LEADERSHIP: BOTH ON THE LINE

For nearly half a century, Washington was the recognized leader of the free world, 

earning that distinction by investing in and protecting the freedom of others. In the 

new century, as in the last, alternatives to Western-style liberty and self rule are 

being offered to—or forced upon—peoples in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the 

borderlands of Europe, especially in countries recently torn apart by war. Preserving 

liberty and fostering democracy among such countries is critical to America’s interests. It is too big a job for any one country to shoulder alone, but by working with 

allies and institutions like the U.N., we can share that burden and earn back the 

respect of the world. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Thank you very much. 

Well, since that was a test, you all get an A. And the meeting 

is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:51 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD TO ACTING ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF STATE BRIAN HOOK BY SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR

Question. I understand that the U.N. is considering increasing the delegation of 

procurement authority to peacekeeping missions from the current $250,000 (U.S.) 

to $1,000,000 and on occasion $2,000,000. This would permit heads of missions to 

forego headquarters approval and require only the approval of the Local Committee 

on Contracts (LCC), on which the heads of missions typically also sit. Please explain 

why this policy is being contemplated when reports of procurement violations persist, particularly in missions in the Congo and Sudan. 

Answer. The delegation of procurement authority is currently $200,000 for noncore requirements and $1,000,000 for core requirements. Core requirements are 

items such as construction materials. Non-core requirements are items needed for 

specific projects (with the exception of pharmaceutical and information technology 

products). 

The U.N. Secretariat has proposed an increase to the financial threshold of the 

delegation of procurement authority from $200,000 to $500,000 for non-core requirements, and from $1 million to $2 million for core requirements, to bring the threshold into line with the operational requirements of peacekeeping missions. 

There are certain core needs common to all peacekeeping operations and for which 

detailed contract specifications are already available, but going through Headquarters can be a slow process. When there is an urgent need to procure goods or 

57 

services, the current limit of $200,000 for delegation of procurement authority may 

not be sufficient. 

Without question, the proposed increase in the delegation of authority must have 

adequate controls to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. To provide appropriate oversight, the Secretariat has proposed that the Headquarters Committee on Contracts 

(HCC) increase its monitoring of local procurements. Furthermore, to enhance accountability in the procurement service, approximately 700 procurement staff, requisitioning officers, and Local Committees on Contracts (LCCs) underwent extensive 

training on procurement procedures, best practices, and ethics from Spring 2007 to 

Summer 2008. The Procurement Division has also issued a strategic paper on procurement training providing for the continuing training of procurement staff in the 

organization, including training leading to internationally recognized procurement 

certification. 

Question. What measures are being put in place to ensure bid collusion and rigging do not occur between vendors and Department of Peacekeeping officials? 

Please provide information relating to instances of U.N. procurement officials that 

were found to have steered contracts to specific vendors. Who were the employees, 

what were their nationalities, who where the companies, what nationalities, what 

were the contracts for, were they signed, what punishments or penalties were meted 

out to the contracting officials and vendors? 

Answer. Regarding allegations of collusion or corruption in the awarding of contracts, we do not comment on individual cases which are part of ongoing investigations or judicial proceedings. However, the Procurement Task Force (PTF) of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) issues detailed reports on its findings. 

The PTF reports include much of the information that you have requested including 

the names of procurement officers, companies, their nationalities, and the recommended dispositions. Please find attached a summary report submitted by OIOS 

that covers the activities of the PTF over the past 18 months. 

The reports include, among others, two highly-publicized cases involving contract 

fraud by U.N. officials. In the Yakovlev case, a supervisory procurement officer accepted $3.5 million in bribes over a period of 20 years for steering accounts to vendors in 11 different countries. In the Bahel case, an official with responsibility for 

overseeing procurement actions steered at least eight contracts with an aggregate 

value of $100 million to various vendors over the course of five years. 

The General Assembly has asked the Secretary-General to report on all issues related to the levels of delegation of procurement authority, including mechanisms 

used to strengthen effective monitoring, oversight, and accountability. The Procurement Division makes field visits to peacekeeping operations to identify and report 

on performance, weaknesses, and areas of risk. 

A wide-ranging procurement reform program proposed by the Secretary-General 

in May 2006 (A/60/846/Addendum 5) has, to date, achieved 80 percent of its stated 

objectives. The Procurement Division is coordinating with other U.N. offices, including the Office of Legal Affairs and the Office of Human Resource Management, to 

implement the remaining reform elements. 

In order to foster integrity and ethical conduct, in 2006 the U.N. Secretariat established an Ethics Office with a mandate that includes the development of ethics 

training and policy for staff throughout the organization. Given the fiduciary nature 

of their responsibilities, the organization has placed special emphasis on accountability of procurement officials. The Procurement Division is developing an ethics 

training program, in collaboration with the Ethics Office and the Office of Human 

Resource Management. This program is mandatory for all Procurement Division 

staff. The module on ethics and integrity was integrated into the fundamental procurement training which was provided to approximately 700 staff members working 

at Headquarters and in the field. 

The U.N. Secretariat has introduced a number of measures designed to prevent 

such abuses as bid collusion and rigging. These include (1) a financial disclosure 

program which is mandatory for procurement staff in order to identify potential conflicts of interest and to monitor the financial interests of staff, their dependents and 

spouses; (2) an enhanced policy on post employment restrictions; (3) strict segregation of duties throughout the procurement process; and (4) strengthening of measures to preserve the confidentiality of information. 

In addition, the United States has been working with other Member States and 

the U.N. Secretariat to improve the vendor registration process so that violators of 

the U.N. supplier code of conduct are disqualified from bidding. Finally, the independent bid protest system, once fully operational, will promote greater fairness and 

transparency in the awarding of contracts. 

58 

Question. Does the U.N. specifically list the steering of contracts to specific vendors as a violation of procurement regulations? If not, how is the U.S. Mission working to correct this? 

Answer. The U.N.’s Financial Regulations and Rules establish ′′effective international competition′′ as one of the key principles of U.N. procurement; this principle is cited in the Procurement Manual. Any exemption from effective competition 

requires a special waiver by the Assistant SecretaryGeneral/Controller, that is only 

granted with strong justification. Adherence to the principle of effective international competition is also fostered through training in the fundamentals of procurement, ethics, and integrity. 

Question. Please describe measures in place to prevent a vendor who was barred 

from one U.N. agency or peacekeeping mission from being able to bid on contracts 

in another agency or mission. 

Answer. Information about vendors who have been suspended or removed by any 

U.N. agency is incorporated into the U.N. Global Marketplace (UNGM), the central 

sourcing portal for procurement in the U.N. system. In addition, within the context 

of the High Level Committee on Management-Procurement Network (HLCM-PN), 

an initiative is being developed to ensure that decisions on suspension or removal 

of defaulting vendors are observed by the Secretariat as well as by all U.N. agencies, funds, and programs. The next HLCM-PN meeting addressing this issue will 

be held in Rome in early September, seeking final consensus on this principle. 

Question. I understand that the OIOS Procurement Task Force is scheduled to be 

disbanded in December. How does the administration plan to prevent that from happening? 

Answer. We strongly support the work of the Procurement Task Force (PTF). During negotiations last fall on funding the PTF, members of the Group of 77 and 

China, in particular Singapore, called for limiting the PTF’s mandate to six months. 

This would have meant a premature end to the PTF’s work. At the time, the PTF 

had 289 open cases, including more than 40 complex investigations. Furthermore, 

the PTF would have found it difficult to retain its investigators if funding was limited to six months. Considering that the PTF had already exposed 10 different 

schemes to defraud U.N. procurements that had tainted over $610 million in contracts and resulted in the misappropriation of more than $25 million, it was imperative that the General Assembly approve the full funding, and we worked with other 

Member States to extend the mandate through 2008. After much deliberation, the 

General Assembly adopted resolution 62/234, which extended the PTF mandate 

through December 31, 2008. 

The United States will continue to engage other Member States on ensuring that 

the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) has adequate capacity to investigate allegations of fraud and corruption in the procurement service. The great 

number of procurement investigations demonstrates the clear need for the capacity 

to look into this particularly vulnerable sector of the U.N. Secretariat now and in 

the future. In December 2007, OIOS outlined a plan to integrate the PTF, its positions, and its caseload into the regular work of the OIOS Investigations Division. 

That proposal will be considered by the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee in the 

fall, and we will press for approval of permanently integrating the PTF into the 

OIOS Investigations Division. 

Question. On June 29, the Washington Post reported on a meeting between Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. According to the article, during the meeting Assistant Secretary Frazer urged the Secretary-General to renew the contract of Rwandan General Emmanuel Karenzi 

Karake, the deputy force commander of the United Nations-African Union Mission 

in Darfur (UNAMID). The article reports that General Karake has been charged by 

a Spanish magistrate with responsibility in the killings of thousands of ethnic 

Hutus during the mid-1990s. 

a) Does the Washington Post report accurately characterize Assistant Secretary Frazer’s meeting with Secretary-General Ban? If not, please indicate 

what Assistant Secretary Frazer said to Secretary- General Ban about whether 

General Karake should continue to serve with UNAMID. 

b) What is the administration’s position as to whether General Karake should 

continue to serve with UNAMID? Please indicate the reasons for this position. 

c) What assessment has the administration made of the credibility of the 

charges against General, Karake referred to in the Washington Post article? 

What steps has the administration taken to determine whether these charges 

are credible? 

59 

d) How does the administration assess General Karake’s performance to date 

as deputy force commander of UNAMID? 

Answer. 

a) Contrary to the June. 29 Washington Post article, Assistant Secretary 

Frazer did not meet with nor discuss General Karake with UNSYG Ban Ki 

Moon, although she did meet with the U.N.’s Department ofPeacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) to discuss, inter alia, the situation in Sudan and the urgent 

need for increased peacekeepers given the conditions on the ground in Darfur. 

In that context, she shared the substance of Rwanda’s communications about 

Karake, in which they expressed their strong advocacy for renewal of his contract. 

b) The Department of State is firmly committed to a strong UNAMID and has 

worked extensively with African partners and the United Nations to generate 

the provision of experienced commanders and the deployment of additional 

troops. In that context, we have expressed concern about any action that might 

create additional obstacles to efforts to enhance UNAMID or jecipardize steps 

already taken. We believe that removing a qualified commander at a key juncture-in UNAMID’s deployment would undermine UNAMID’s efficacy and mission. 

c) The Department is aware of a number of allegations with respect to 

Karake’s involvement in or connection to crimes committed in Rwanda and DRC 

between 1994 and 2000. The Government of Rwanda vigorously disputes those 

allegations. We are also aware of the indictments issued by the independent 

Spanish magistrate and theincluded allegations of General Karake and others. 

We understand the Government of Rwanda and the Government of Spain are 

in communication on this matter. The U.S. did not have information at the time 

of General Karake’s appointment that corroborated the allegations, and therefore did not call for a rejection of Karake’s candidacy. Should new information 

corroborating the allegations come to light, the U.S. will again examine the 

issue. 

d) Karake has shown that he is an active, experienced, and capable officer 

within UNAMID. 

Æ