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UNITED NATIONS REFORM:

CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 15, 2005

Serial No. 109–71

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

PETER T. KING, New York 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM LANTOS, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

RENEE AUSTELL, Professional Staff Member 

JEAN CARROLL, Full Committee Hearing Coordinator 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise 

Institute ................................................................................................................ 8

The Honorable Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC ................ 11

The Honorable Richard S. Williamson, Partner, Mayer, Brown, Rowe and 

Maw, LLP ............................................................................................................. 23

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Jeane J. Kirkpatrick: Prepared statement .................................. 11

The Honorable Richard C. Holbrooke: Prepared statement ................................. 17

The Honorable Richard S. Williamson: Prepared statement ............................... 25

(1)

UNITED NATIONS REFORM: 

CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS 

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:37 p.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Chairman HYDE. The Committee will come to order. 

Ambassadors, on behalf of my colleagues, I would like to extend 

a warm welcome to you at this hearing. Such a distinguished panel 

of witnesses is evidence of the importance we attach to the reform 

of the United Nations. We are fortunate to be able to hear the 

views of such experienced diplomats on an issue of great importance to our Nation. 

In the months ahead, the Committee and its Subcommittees are 

reviewing the performance of the United Nations and its many 

agencies, with an eye toward introducing legislation that would 

seek to reform the U.N. to ensure a more effective, a more efficient 

and a more transparent organization that is better able to fulfill its 

original mandate. 

Even the most steadfast of the U.N. supporters must concede 

that after more than half a century of operation, this many-faceted, 

sprawling entity is very much in need of focused scrutiny and extensive reform. 

This fact has been dramatically revealed in the still unfolding 

scandal regarding the enormous sums of money in the Oil-for-Food 

Program, which we have good reason to believe were stolen, wasted 

or politically manipulated in a cynical, but effective manner. 

In our ongoing investigation, each path we have taken has 

branched into many others and we have yet to see any end to the 

series of unwelcomed discoveries. 

If abuses of this magnitude can occur in such a high profile program and over a period of years, it is impossible to conclude that 

mismanagement and malfeasance is an isolated phenomenon within the U.N. 

Indeed, revelations of malfeasance and failures within the U.N. 

have hardly been restricted to just the Oil-for-Food Program. 

On the one hand, reports by the press and others have brought 

to life instances of mismanagement, theft and other forms of crime 

at various U.N. operations worldwide, including horrific stories of 

criminal assaults by U.N. peacekeeping forces against children. 

2

On the other hand, certain structures and organizations within 

the U.N. must be reformed, such as the Commission on Human 

Rights, that includes members identified as notorious and well-documented human rights abusers. 

These cascading revelations of U.N. failures have led to a crisis 

of confidence in the U.N. and call out for a meaningful and comprehensive reform. 

We can point fingers in many directions, but the United States 

Government shares some of the blame. We cannot avoid our responsibility to ensure that the money of the American people is 

used wisely and responsibly and that international organizations, 

such as the U.N., accomplish the missions and functions for which 

they were created. The transgressions that occurred within the Oilfor-Food Program demonstrate the scale of abuses that can occur, 

when no one is watching. 

It is our intention to ensure that no veil is ever again allowed 

to shield from view the activities of those who would use public resources for private gain or pervert the work of international institutions with impunity. 

For that reason, our goal is not a one-time exposure of abuses, 

but the establishment of a lasting culture of transparency and accountability at the U.N., for it is only when permanent scrutiny, by 

outside observers, is assured that we can be confident that what 

we are told is true and that malfeasance is not disguised as virtue. 

It is important and I stress that this endeavor is not conceived 

in hostility to the U.N., but instead stems from the important role 

we believe that it and its many agencies can play in the world, especially in the areas such as the care of refugees and promoting 

global health. 

To fulfill its original mandate, however, the U.N. cannot be governed by unaccountable international bureaucrats operating with 

little public oversight. 

Those who believe in the U.N.’s capacity for doing good works 

should welcome this effort. To oppose stringent open and permanent examination is not to defend the organization from attack, but 

is instead to ensure that abuses will continue to occur, protected 

by a neglect borne of indifference. 

We would do well to remember that here and elsewhere public 

transparency and accountability are neither burdens nor punishments, but an opportunity to demonstrate fidelity to the trust one 

has been given. 

As I noted at the outset of my remarks, U.N. reform is a priority 

of the Committee this year. We look forward to hearing your views 

on the U.N. and its reform and would be especially interested in 

any views you may have about legislation on the subject. 

I now turn to my good friend and colleague, Tom Lantos, for any 

remarks he may wish to offer. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing on the challenges and prospects we face in our effort 

to help the United Nations restore its credibility through much 

needed reforms. 

Mr. Chairman, at the outset, we must understand that the 

United Nations, as an institution, is a derivative reality. 

3

With 191 members, the U.N. reflects a singularly imperfect international system, containing all of the virtues and all of the shortcomings of its member states. 

So as we map out our Nation’s strategy for the next decade at 

the glass edifice on the East River, we must remember that while 

there are some U.N. deficiencies that can be addressed through 

management reforms, other problems will only be fixed when more 

United Nations members assume their international responsibilities and represent democratic values. 

Despite both managerial and systemic limitations, the U.N. has 

shown resourcefulness in confronting the new challenges posed by 

failed states, infectious diseases that transcend borders, global climate change, famine, weapons trade and terrorism. 

But the U.N. still looks very much like an organization created 

for a different time. It is increasingly handicapped by poor staffing, 

an antiquated organizational structure, an entrenched bureaucracy 

and inadequate control over employees and contractors. 

Mr. Chairman, we have seen firsthand in our investigation of the 

U.N.’s management of the Oil-for-Food Program just how seriously 

these flaws can affect U.N. operations and harm our own interests. 

The breakdown in that program included a failure to detect solicited bribes, collusion with contractors, and interference with auditors who were assigned to ferret out abuse. 

Mr. Chairman, it is not the only incident of scandal in the U.N. 

system. Reports of widespread sexual abuse of women and children 

by U.N. peacekeepers, contractors and employees and an embezzlement scandal at the World Meteorological Organization are also appalling and indicative of the need for a system-wide response. 

The U.N.’s current Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, is a leader determined to implement serious reforms. He recognizes that the 

United Nations is at a critical crossroads and that it must be modernized and rationalized if it is to survive. 

For over a year now, informed by the work of the High-level 

Panel he appointed, the Secretary-General has been working on a 

plan to overhaul the U.N. completely so that it is more professional 

and more capable of confronting global threats, challenges, and 

change. 

The Secretary-General’s much anticipated report, which is set to 

be released next Monday, will recommend a new U.N. architecture 

to fight global terrorism, a plan to update the nuclear proliferation 

treaty, a new vision for U.N. peace building, new controls on employee conduct and the management of U.N. contracts, and a plan 

to give the Secretariat the executive powers it so badly needs to rationalize and reorganize staffing, programs, and budgets. 

Then, Mr. Chairman, Congress and the Executive Branch will 

have a momentous opportunity to help Kofi Annan restructure the 

U.N. in a way that will support our national interests. 

As the leading power in the international system and the largest 

financial contributor to the U.N., we have enormous leverage in enacting meaningful reforms. 

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, to seize this 

opportunity by creating legislation that directs U.S. diplomats to 

push for specific reforms at the U.N. in the coming months. 

4

But I caution my colleagues to resist the temptation to withhold 

the payment of our U.N. dues. As you know, Mr. Chairman, the 

United States just recently completed a multi-year process of paying off a massive debt to the U.N. that had accumulated over many 

years. 

During that process, we successfully reduced the percentage of 

the U.N. budget that U.S. taxpayers are responsible for funding. 

At a time when our national debt is climbing at an alarming 

rate, do we really want to create another big debt to the U.N. that 

eventually will have to be paid? 

Refusing to pay our dues in order to force reform violates our 

international obligations and may also be counterproductive. 

In this era of new global challenges, we need the United Nations 

more than ever and for the most part, the U.N. does a good job at 

meeting these challenges. 

Just in the past year, the organization conducted the first ever 

national election in Afghanistan from scratch and trained 150,000 

Iraqis to staff elections in Iraq. 

As we speak, the U.N. is coordinating a massive tsunami relief 

and reconstruction effort involving many governments and hundreds of NGOs. It is helping to stabilize Haiti, Sierra Leone and 

Liberia and is in the process of mediating the complete withdrawal 

of Syrian troops from Lebanon to end 30 years of occupation. 

Mr. Chairman, today we are privileged to have three previous 

Permanent Representatives to the United Nations appearing before 

us. 

I want to express my personal thanks to them for their outstanding service to our Nation and I look forward to hearing their 

testimony. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Lantos. We are now going to 

embark upon an experiment, which will permit 1-minute statements by the Members who were here when I put the gavel down. 

Those who came in afterwards don’t partake in this liberty, but 

we want people who insist on having opening statements to encapsulate them to 1 minute and limit their number to those that were 

here before we commenced the meeting. 

I have 11 names and we will go down the list. You will do a 1-

minute, if you so desire. 

Mr. Smith of New Jersey. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome our three highly distinguished public servants who have been 

great leaders on behalf of the United States of America for so many 

years. 

Just last year I spent 3 days at the Human Rights Commission 

with Ambassador Williamson, Mr. Chairman. He did an outstanding job in trying to push a number of resolutions, from the 

China resolution, Cuba, to the resolution that dealt with Darfur, 

and found himself confronted by rogue states who were sitting as 

members of the Human Rights Commission, who did nothing but 

run interference. 

As a matter of fact, it was very discouraging to see language in 

those resolutions watered down and in the case of China, a no action resolution undertaken, whereby the Chinese Government got 

off scott free for their ongoing and egregious human rights abuses. 

5

So I again want to thank our three distinguished witnesses for 

being here and thank you, Ambassador Williamson, for your tremendous job in Geneva. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Berman of California. Mr. Berman graciously does not have a statement. 

Mr. Rohrabacher of California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The 

dream of the United Nations has turned into a nightmare of corruption and incompetence and it is time for the U.N. officials to 

wake up. 

The United Nations needs reform and it is an historic imperative 

for them to conduct this reform, if the United Nations is to regain 

our trust. 

In our hearings of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, we have heard some of the details that explained why 

the United Nations has lost much of its credibility. 

Corruption, evident in the Oil-for-Food Program, was just the tip 

of the iceberg and we have learned how officials of the United Nations worked to advance their own interests, skimming money from 

their own agencies and they also pursued deviant behavior and 

also the behavior of U.N. peacekeepers is certainly in question in 

different parts of the world and also we have seen contracts that 

the U.N. has awarded in the——

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time——

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. The parties totally in contradiction to procedure. We need some reform at the U.N. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Delahunt of Massachusetts. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank the Chair and I look forward to being 

educated, because when we talk about U.N. reform, I think it is a 

very confusing and murky subject. I dare say most of us in Congress could not describe to you what the U.N. actually is. 

Is it the Secretariat? Is it the Security Council? Is it the General 

Assembly? Where does the real power lie? I think the controversy 

surrounding the Oil-for-Food Program is an excellent example of 

that. 

According to Duelfer, while we are focused on the $1.7 billion 

that was manipulated from the program, simultaneously there was 

some $9 billion of illicit revenue that was, for all intents and purposes, given to Saddam Hussein to do with what he will, despite 

the fact that the Security Council took note of that reality. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Ms. Davis of Virginia. 

Ms. DAVIS. I don’t have an opening statement, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Ms. Davis. 

Mr. Blumenauer of Oregon. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 

courtesy in at least having a moment to reflect on our interests 

here. 

This is the 60th anniversary of the most complex set of international relationships in history, 191 nations, as you stated in your 

opening statement, spanning the globe. This is a landmark in 

human history to have an organization of this nature. 

6

I think clearly there are some problems and abuses and opportunity for reform and revitalization. I note with no small amount 

of irony, the United States has lost over $8 billion in Iraq, that are 

unaccountable according to Mr. Bremmer. 

Let us keep this in perspective. If we didn’t have the United Nations, we would be spending more in peacekeeping, in terms of 

money and personnel. 

I look forward to this discussion and continued work, Mr. Chairman, as you try and bring these issues into focus. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. McCotter of Michigan. 

Mr. MCCOTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I have expressed 

through previous hearings, if one supports the principles of municipal government, one must oppose the practices of Tammany Hall. 

Presently it still follows then, however, despite its lofty odes to 

noble goals, the U.N.’s misfeasance and malfeasance wounds the 

very people who most support it. 

In sum, today the U.N. tiptoes upon the principles above the 

abyss of irrelevancy at best. I thank the Chairman of this Committee for holding this hearing in order that we might glean whether or not President Franklin Roosevelt’s postwar triumphant has finally reached its tipping point. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Ms. Berkley of Nevada. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and I want 

to welcome our guests. I am very excited to hear your testimony. 

I share the concerns expressed by many of my colleagues regarding the effectiveness of the United Nations. Charges of corruption, 

bribes, kickbacks, as well as a lack of transparency are very serious 

problems, but I am also concerned about the ineffectiveness of the 

United Nations in fulfilling its Charter mission. 

The U.N., in my opinion, has been especially dysfunctional when 

it comes to Israel and the Middle East. From equating Zionism 

with racism, to the 2001 Durban conference on racism turning into 

an anti-Semitic love fest, to what appears to be an almost constant 

condemnation of Israel during the Intifada, the U.N. has done little 

to move the region toward peace. 

If the U.N. cannot be trusted to be an impartial forum to air and 

resolve grievances and has to be sidestepped by the United States, 

when our foreign policy needs dictate that we move forward without them, it worries me about the future effectiveness and——

Chairman HYDE. The gentlelady’s time——

Ms. BERKLEY [continuing]. Relevancy of the U.N. I look forward 

to hearing your comments. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, gentlelady. 

Mr. Mack of Florida. 

Mr. MACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you having 

this important hearing today. It is important and it is timely and 

I also want to thank the panel for being here and taking time out 

of your schedule to be with us. 

Mr. Chairman, in 1998, as the United States threatened to enforce several U.N. resolutions on Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi 

Annan negotiated another last chance deal for Saddam Hussein. 

7

He went so far as to state about Saddam: ‘‘I think I can do business with him.’’ In light of the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, maybe he 

was talking about doing actual business. 

In 2004, after the United States and our allies removed Saddam 

from power, Secretary Annan called the war illegal. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you and the other 

Members of this Committee as we look to reform of the United Nations. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Schiff of California. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassadors, I want to thank you for being here. I had the opportunity last week to spend the day at the United Nations and I 

was very impressed with the need, not only for management reform, but for structural reform of the United Nations. 

The key consensus behind the formation of the United Nations 

preventing state-on-state, massive state-on-state warfare, has broken down. That is no longer the greatest challenge facing us. 

Rather, some of the challenges we face are intrastate violence, 

terrorism, breeding grounds for terrorism, genocide, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on an emerging consensus behind 

the United Nations’ mission. 

Also, I would be very interested to know your thoughts on the 

power of a democracy caucus within the United Nations, a concept 

I think that has a lot of merit and is a real growth area, but I 

think the challenge for us is to strengthen the institution. 

It brings us much more value than costs us and we need to be 

encouraging a dramatic structural and managerial reform and I 

look forward to your testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Our last 1-minute is Ms. McCollum of Minnesota. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to today’s 

hearing and I hope it focuses on many of the recommendations that 

are in the report. 

As there have been very many comments made about the need 

for reform and the reform display that is needed in a very negative 

light, my interactions—although limited that they may be in my 

short time here in Congress—has been one of hope and opportunity 

delivering health care, helping refugees, working to improve the 

lives of women and children. 

I would like to read from the report, the conclusion, Mr. Chair. 

Just a little bit of what Secretary-General Kofi Annan said:

‘‘I hope the people all over the world will read this report, 

discuss it and urge their governments to take prompt decision 

on its recommendations. I believe the great majority of them 

will share my feelings that there is an urgent need for the nations of the world to come together and reach a new consensus, 

both on the future collective security and on the changes needed if the United Nations is to play a part.’’

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

8

All others who have a statement at this point may enter them 

in the record at this point. 

We have a distinguished panel of experts before us today. We 

have, first, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. She was the first 

woman appointed to serve as Permanent Representative of the 

United States to the United Nations and as a member of Ronald 

Reagan’s Cabinet and National Security Council, she served as a 

member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, 

from 1985 until 1990 and the Defense Policy Review Board from 

1985 to 1993. Ambassador Kirkpatrick also headed the U.S. delegation to the Human Rights Commission in 2003 and currently, she 

is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 

I also welcome Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. He served as 

United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations 

from 1999 to 2001. From 1994 to 1996, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and was the Chief Architect of the 1995 

Dayton Accords. Ambassador Holbrooke also served as Ambassador 

to Germany from 1993 to 1994 and currently, he serves as Vice 

President of Perseus, LLC. 

Finally, we have Ambassador Rich Williamson. Last year, Ambassador Williamson served as United States Representative to the 

U.N. Commission on Human Rights. From 2002 to 2003, he served 

as the United States Alternative Representative for Special Political Affairs to the U.N. Ambassador Williamson is a partner in the 

law firm of Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw in Chicago. 

Thank you all for coming today. 

Ambassador Kirkpatrick, will you proceed with your testimony? 

Try to confine it to 5 minutes, give or take. Your entire statement 

will be put in the record. 

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JEANE J. KIRKPATRICK, 

SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. I am pleased to be here. I appreciate 

your invitation and I would like to say that I have many views 

about this subject, as I am sure you can imagine, since I spent 41⁄2

years of my life very intensively involved with the United Nations. 

I will share just a few of those views and questions that I have. 

I want to begin with your questions, Mr. Chairman. 

You asked how the United States can restore confidence in the 

United Nations. I would like to say very clearly and directly at the 

beginning that, in my opinion, neither this House Committee nor 

the United States Government can restore confidence in the United 

Nations. 

Only the officers in the function areas of the programs of the 

United Nations can do that. They can do it by organizing themselves with transparency and functioning with integrity and obviously by making certain that all the members, all 191 members I 

think there still are, contribute a fair share to the services and 

costs of the organization. 

Obviously the United States should always try to be just in our 

judgments and generous in our support of worthy U.N. projects. We 

should always try to help the poorest people, the refugees, the victims of illness and genocide. 

9

Mr. Chairman, I have always had an especially strong interest 

in human rights and have had high expectations about how the 

United Nations could strengthen its records in the human rights 

field and encourage an improvement in the record of those countries who victimize their own populations, which is a very special 

problem that has always seemed to me that the United Nations 

should be able to make a special contribution for. 

As everyone now understands, however, the record of the United 

Nations in this field has been poor. No aspect of the U.N. has a 

poorer record than the Commission on Human Rights, which I attended, which I headed the U.S. delegation in 2003, just 2 years 

ago. 

I was interested in doing that and I was ready to accept the 

President’s appointment to do that, because I had had no relationship with the Commission on Human Rights in my 4-plus years at 

the U.N., as Permanent Representative. 

I had a lot of contact with the Third Committee and its work on 

human rights, but none whatsoever with the specialized agencies, 

specifically the Commission on Human Rights. 

I must say that I think that the record of the United Nations is 

worse perhaps of all in the Commission on Human Rights. I see my 

friend Tom Lantos shaking his head yes. 

I don’t say that with any pleasure, or I take no satisfaction in 

saying that the Commission on Human Rights is probably the 

worst record of anybody of the U.N. 

It ought to be the best, in my opinion, but it is the worst. One 

of the reasons it is the worst is that the most egregious human 

rights violators have, in recent years, made a special point of running for election to the Commission and when they get on the Commission, they seek to twist it to their goals, which are not at all 

the goals that any American or any democratic country would ever 

expect that a Commission on Human Rights would seek, in fact. It 

is a very big disappointment. 

Literally nothing was done by the Commission on Human Rights 

or anybody else or the Third Committee to assist the victims of 

genocide in Rwanda. I don’t know how many of you may have seen 

Hotel Rwanda, but I hope a good many of you have. I think it is 

a very powerful, moving picture which is quite accurate. 

I have read a good deal about the catastrophe in Rwanda and 

what I have learned, I think, is that literally nothing was done by 

the United Nations to assist the victims of genocide in Rwanda. 

Neither was anything done by the appropriate commissions and 

committees of the United Nations to assist the victims of mass 

murder and there is no other word for it, in Srebrenica and elsewhere in Bosnia, in their hour of greatest need. 

Not much more is being done today, if I understand it correctly, 

though I am not an expert on it, to help the people of Darfur. 

I believe that no help has actually been provided. Certainly no 

urgent help has been provided to the people of Darfur, as I understand it. 

I think that clearly the problem is an urgent problem. I see my 

friend, Ambassador Holbrooke says yes. Well he is going to tell us 

about it in his turn. UNHCR. I hope UNHCR has been working on 

it. 

10

In my time at the United Nations, UNHCR was easily one of the 

most useful and helpful organizations in the institution. The 

UNHCR was good and it kept alive several million people, who 

would otherwise be without shelter or food. I am pleased to hear 

that UNHCR is helping in Darfur, effectively I am happy to hear 

it. 

No help, I would like to say so far as I know, has ever been given 

by a U.N. agency to the many victims of human rights created in 

Cuba, by the Government of Cuba. 

It was a very unhappy circumstance to sit on the Human Rights 

Commission during the precise time that the Government of Cuba 

was arresting and brutally, harshly incarcerating 75 Cuban teachers and librarians and journalists, almost all of whom are still imprisoned. 

Three Cubans were even more harshly simply murdered. They 

were seeking to make their way to the United States and were 

intercepted and when they were intercepted and taken back to 

Cuba, they were precipitously tried in a 12-hour trial and executed, 

the three of them. 

The other 75 are mostly still in prison, under extremely harsh 

conditions. Many of them are older people and the sentences that 

were imposed on them will amount to life sentences. 

Many wives are not permitted to visit their husbands. Often husbands are not permitted to visit their wives. Children their parents. 

The food is inadequate. The medicine is almost nonexistent. Doctors are not permitted to see their patients and many of these people, because they are older and because they are living under very 

harsh circumstances, have urgent need for medical care and for 

medicines. 

I was most disgusted in my whole experience at the Human 

Rights Commission, which was a very unpleasant experience made 

even more unpleasant by the fact that there was not even a mention in the report or in the resolutions that the Commission passed 

that year of the arbitrary arrest or harsh treatment of those Cuban 

dissidents. 

These were all peaceable people. You know I repeat, teachers, librarians. Nice people, if you will. Constructive members of their 

communities. 

There is very large room for improvement in the Human Rights 

Commission. That is one thing I would like to underscore. I think 

all of the Human Rights work of the U.N. system, with the possible 

exception of UNHCR, and I am willing to take Dick Holbrooke’s 

word for the fact that they are doing very good work now and I repeat, I saw them do some good work while I was there——

Chairman HYDE. Ambassador Kirkpatrick, would you permit an 

interruption so that Mr. Holbrooke can give a statement? He has 

to rush for a plane. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. Yes, of course, I would be happy to do 

that. Instead of me saying what he said, let him say what he said. 

Chairman HYDE. He is on his way to China. We don’t want to 

hold him back. 

Ambassador HOLBROOKE. It is a long ways. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Kirkpatrick follows:]

11

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JEANE J. KIRKPATRICK, SENIOR FELLOW, 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Mr. Chairman: You ask how the United States can restore confidence in the 

United Nations. In my opinion, neither this House Committee nor the United States 

government can restore confidence in the United Nations. Only the officers and 

functionaries of the U.N. can do that. They can do it by organizing themselves with 

transparency and functioning with integrity. We should all contribute a fair share 

to services and costs. 

Obviously the United States should always try to be just in our judgments and 

generous in our support of worthy U.N. projects. We should help the poorest people, 

the refugees, the victims of illness and genocide. 

I have always had an especially strong interest in human rights and have had 

high expectations about how the United Nations could strengthen the record on 

human rights of those countries who victimize their own populations. 

And as almost every one now understands, the record of the U.N. in this field has 

been poor—and that of the Commission on Human Rights especially poor. 

Literally nothing was done to assist the victims of genocide in Rwanda or Bosnia 

in their hours of greatest need, nor most recently the people of Darfur. No help has 

been given by the United Nations to the 75 Cuban doctors, teachers, journalists, and 

librarians arrested and harshly imprisoned in the summer of 2003. The Commission 

on Human Rights did not even mention their arbitrary arrest or harsh treatment. 

There is large room for improvement. But improvement would require the more 

affluent countries to contribute more assistance, to care more and to work harder 

to ease the condition of the victims of tyranny. 

Free people in open fora should never fail to protest the brutal treatment of helpless citizens at the hands of ruthless governments. People who attend meetings of 

Human Rights Commissions should never forget what the meetings are for. People 

who testify before Congressional Committees should not forget the victims of the 

world’s tyrants—in Cuba, China, Burma, Sudan, Vietnam, and elsewhere. 

Those of us who enjoy the benefits of freedom should never forget the millions 

who do not.

Chairman HYDE. Go ahead, Mr. Holbrooke. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RICHARD C. HOLBROOKE, 

VICE CHAIRMAN, PERSEUS, LLC 

Ambassador HOLBROOKE. Mr. Chairman, you have done something I never thought I would see, allowed me to trump my esteemed friend and predecessor, Jeane Kirkpatrick. 

I apologize Jeane. 

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Lantos, Members of the House 

International Relations Committee, since this is the first Committee I ever testified before, back in 1977, it is always a special 

honor to be here. I actually testified here before confirmation and 

I am really grateful to be part of this important discussion. 

I would like to introduce my first statement into the record and 

briefly summarize or try to be brief. 

Because the United States is the U.N.’s founding nation, its host 

nation and its largest contributor, how we treat the organization is 

of profound importance and will have a profound impact. 

To put it simply, Mr. Chairman, the United Nations cannot succeed without strong American support and it cannot function effectively if it is in opposition to, or if it is perceived to be in opposition 

to the United States Government. 

At the same time, if we continue to underfund, under support 

and undermine the United Nations’ system, it will become progressively weaker and at the same time, it will become increasingly a 

center for hostility to the U.S., a combination, a trifecta if you will, 

that will hurt American national security interests in many ways. 

12

Allow me to start with a personal observation. In the 42 years 

since I did the foreign service of the United States Department of 

State and was sent directly to Vietnam, there is no issue, none, on 

which American public perceptions are more misinformed than regard to the United Nations. 

Both the U.N.’s strongest supporters and its most severe critics 

have often misunderstood and misrepresented the very nature of 

the institution. 

First, the U.N.’s most idealistic misguided supporters, who often 

defend it without regard to its deep flaws and its limitations and 

some of whom still actually hope that the U.N. can somehow represent ‘‘the conscience of the world,’’ even impose its will over member states. 

Ironically, this utopian dream, which Congressman Lantos has 

flawlessly eliminated with a very, very fine phrase—which with his 

permission I intend to plagiarize in the future—is that the U.N. reflects all the virtues and shortcomings of the world itself, and I 

wish I had thought of that phrase, but I can’t imagine it being 

phrased better. 

Ironically, this utopian dream of the United Nations, that it 

should play a super national role, is matched by the fear on the 

part of many U.N. independents on the right, that the U.N. in fact 

seek such a role. To be frank, both groups are equally misguided. 

A U.N. with super national authority is neither desirable nor 

policeable. 

The founders, led by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and 

Winston Churchill, understood this completely. Their goal was to 

create an organization that could prevent or stop wars between 

sovereign states and adjudicate international disputes, before they 

reached the state of war. 

The large number of wars since 1945 are a clear demonstration 

of the limits of the U.N., but this, Mr. Chairman, is a result of the 

actions of the member states themselves, not something called the 

U.N. 

What happens in the U.N. is simply a reflection of the positions 

of the 191 sovereign governments represented there. Their Ambassadors take instructions from their capitols. 

In fact, blaming the United Nations, the U.N., for what happens 

inside that tall, glass building on New York’s East River, is like 

blaming Madison Square Garden for the dreadful New York Knickerbockers. I wish to choose my hometown basketball team so as to 

offend no other Members of Congress. 

Comparing the United Nations with the original intentions of its 

founders, we can only conclude that rather than being too strong, 

it is too weak and too ineffective. 

As an American deeply concerned for over 40 years with our national security, I would suggest, knowing that some of my close 

friends and most respected associates on this Committee and in the 

Congress may take issue with me, that a stronger and more effective United Nations would be in America’s national security interests. 

Strengthening the United Nations does not threaten us, Mr. 

Chairman, for one key reason: The veto in the U.N. Security Council. 

13

This was the intent of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and 

the extraordinary bipartisan American negotiating team that spent 

the summer and spring of 1945 in San Francisco, at the founding 

conference. 

The veto was designed to protect us, enabling the United States 

Senate to ratify the U.N. Charter and avoid the fate of the League 

of Nations in 1919, which was rejected for this precise reason by 

the U.S. Senate. 

In fact, the values of the U.N., the values of the interests, the 

policies, the Charter are American policy values. They were, after 

all, written by us. 

This goes back to the language of the Charter, advancing freedom, human rights, refugees. 

A stronger U.N. is one in which the Human Rights Commission, 

which has been mentioned now by Jeane Kirkpatrick and Congressman Rohrabacher and Congressman Lantos and others, quite 

rightly and appropriately, a stronger U.N. is one where the Human 

Rights Commission, for example, is one that is more aggressively 

pushing for human rights that the U.S. seeks to advance as part 

of our own national security policy on a bipartisan basis. 

A weaker U.N. is one where the Human Rights Commission is 

dominated by such terrible violators as Cuba and Libya. 

In other words, what is wrong with the U.N., or in this case the 

Human Rights Commission, is not the core idea that it stands for, 

but the instances where due to lack of American engagement and 

leadership, the institution was hijacked by states whose practices 

are anathema to all the U.N. stands for, and I applaud SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan’s announced intention to seek a change in the 

manner by which members of the Human Rights Commission are 

chosen, as Congressman McCollum already referred. 

Mr. Chairman, even 60 years later—and we are now on the 60th 

anniversary of that great conference in San Francisco—I think we 

should pause to admire the genius of the visionaries who created 

the U.N. 

The bipartisan team in San Francisco, led by Secretary of State 

Edward Stettinius, included Adlai Stevenson, Nelson Rockefeller, 

John Foster Dulles, Harold Stassen, John J. McCloy, Avril Harriman, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Senator Tom Connolly, Chairman and Ranking, in reverse order, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Congressman Sol Bloom, who was then Chairman of this very Committee. 

In fact, Mr. Chairman, it was your great predecessor, Chairman 

Bloom, who argued successfully the preamble of the U.N. Charter, 

which in its original draft began with boilerplate bureaucratic language, drafted by Yon Smutz of South Africa, should instead soar 

with rhetoric that deliberately and consciously would echo the 

American Constitution. 

Working closely with Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College and the only woman on that great bipartisan team in San 

Francisco, Chairman Bloom proposed that the Charter begin with 

the now immortal words, ‘‘We the peoples of the United Nations, 

determine to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.’’ 

It was your great predecessor who proposed that immortal beginning. 

14

But not even the great team in San Francisco could see into the 

21st century. They designed a machine for 50 countries. Today 

there are 191 countries. 

They saw wars as something between nations, like one country 

crossing another, as in September 1, 1939. They couldn’t foresee 

that most modern wars would be internal conflicts, that 90 percent 

of today’s casualties would be civilians and result in a civil war, internal brutality by governments to some of its citizens and separatist independence movements. 

Nor could they foresee worldwide terror networks, like al-Qaeda, 

which operate without a national government as a sovereign base 

and yet still threaten the established order and all civilization 

itself. 

Thus the U.N. could not fulfill the vision of President George 

Herbert Walker Bush at the end of the Cold War to create a new 

world order, with a renewed U.N. at its core. 

In fact, as we learned immediately, the U.N. wasn’t up to the 

task. In the first few years after the Cold War, the U.N. failed, in 

the most costly and public manner possible, the first three tests it 

faced: Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda. 

The triple failure almost took the U.N. down and this was the 

underlying reason why the Clinton Administration, correctly in my 

view, vetoed a second term of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros 

Ghali and I know that both the Ranking Member and Chairman 

supported that decision. 

By the time we reached the climax of Bosnia in 1995, it was clear 

that the old U.N. peacekeeping system was dead. The Security 

Council mandates were too weak. The blue helmet peacekeepers 

took too long to assemble. They were uneven in their skills, unevenly equipped and trained and often, as has been mentioned by 

many of you, simply too corrupt. 

Some blue helmet forces did continue to effectively function—El 

Salvador, Cyprus and elsewhere—but the basic concept didn’t work 

and that is how we evolved to what we call in jargon an MNF, multinational force. 

We have a multinational force, quite simply, and this is the most 

critical distinction for all of us in this room, it is not a U.N.-commanded force, but national troops authorized by the U.N. 

The first test case was Kosovo and East Timor in 1999. East 

Timor worked perfectly. There was a slaughter going on. We met 

around the clock at the U.N., would not go out of session until the 

force was authorized. Ninety-six hours later, the Australians were 

in East Timor. 

The massacres, which had gone on for years, stopped immediately, never resumed. Today East Timor is a sovereign member 

state of the U.N. 

In Kosovo, the slaughter was stopped with a NATO force, but the 

political settlement has not yet been achieved, I regret to say. 

You may conclude from what I have said so far that I came here 

to attack the U.N. This is, however, not the case, Mr. Chairman. 

I remain firmly of the belief that the U.N., despite its flaws, is indispensable to U.S. national security interests. It helps them far 

more than it harms them. 

15

Our task here today should be to look for ways to strengthen it 

and reduce those of its actions with which we disagree. 

In this regard and with the author’s permission, I want to quote 

from a remarkable letter, dated February 17 of this year, sent by 

Senator Jesse Helms to his former colleague, Tim Wirth, because 

I believe it sums up precisely where the United States should be 

on this subject. This is Senator Helms, Mr. Chairman:

‘‘I know you would agree that if the U.N. did not exist, something much like it would have to be created, because the nations of the world would have to have a place to talk through 

differences and support each other’s noble causes. 

‘‘For that very reason, I believe that we cannot give up on 

the U.N., but we must do the hard work of making the U.N. 

live up to its original promise.’’

Mr. Chairman, no one could have said it better than Senator 

Helms in this important letter, which he told me I could make public here today at this important hearing. 

As we well know, since the Helms-Biden legislation was the occasion for the first meeting I ever had the honor of having with you, 

Mr. Chairman, Senator Helms is the guiding hand behind the 

Helms-Biden legislation that allowed us to repay most of our arrears in return for some very important U.N. reforms. 

Our efforts, supported strongly by you and Congressman Lantos, 

resulted in some much needed reforms, at the same time, a substantial reduction in American dues to the U.N. from 25 percent to 

the current 22 percent and similar reductions in other areas. 

The total savings to the American taxpayer—and I want to put 

on the record that you were an insistent supporter of this effort—

the total savings to the American taxpayer on an annual basis was 

estimated at about $170 million a year. 

I do, however, wish to agree and put in the record now that I 

also agree with Congressman Lantos that a similar reform effort 

today should not include a withholding of dues. I am all for reform. 

Everyone in this room is, but a repetition of that would kill the 

U.N. financially and have all the consequences that Congressman 

Lantos has mentioned. 

Finally, why is the U.N. valuable? And secondly, what can we 

make it to do perform better? On the first point, I have submitted 

an answer and all I can say is, Congressman Lantos and some of 

your colleagues and yourself have already made the case, but one 

need look no further than Iraq and the current American dependence. 

In Iraq, the election was due in very large part, this great election due in very large part to Brahimi convincing Ayatollah Systani 

to hold that election and in regard to Syria and Lebanon today, as 

you saw on the Sunday talk show, The National Security Advisor, 

President Bush said flatly we are waiting for the Secretary-General’s personal representative Larson to carry out our goals. 

On the two hottest issues in the world, plus the tsunami, plus 

all these other issues, the U.N. is critical. When it comes to an 

issue like Darfur, where Ambassador Kirkpatrick and I are in fundamental agreement, I just wanted to footnote that the U.N. agenVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:52 Oct 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\031505\20055.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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cy on UNICEF are in there, but it is still appallingly inadequate. 

That is not the U.N.’s fault. That is the member states’ fault. 

Finally, how do we make the U.N. more effective? The first need, 

quite simply, is for the United States Government, both branches, 

to decide its international interest to strengthen, not weaken the 

U.N. 

While many Administration officials have spoken darkly of the 

challenges to and weaknesses of the U.N., of the risk of it becoming 

as irrelevant as the League of Nations, it is rare to hear people in 

authority in this Administration call for a stronger U.N. in explicit 

terms. 

We all understand the domestic political reasons for this reticence from a proudly conservative Administration, but politics is 

over after the election and in the second term, nothing would be 

more useful than a clear statement of support for strengthening 

the U.N. through reform and sufficient funding. 

This incidentally would be fully consistent with true conservative 

principles on foreign policy, as I understand them. 

This would need to be followed by making such goal a policy 

party for the U.S. and working closely with the Congress to achieve 

it. 

This was the case during the period when I worked with you and 

your colleagues on the Senate side and I can truthfully say that 

during the year and a half I was privileged to serve at the U.N. 

as Permanent Representative, I spent far, far more time on the Hill 

than I ever did in the State Department, because you were the people who really mattered. 

In fact, I think Congressman Lantos was going to offer me a 

cubby hole in his office at one point. 

The specifics of what needs to be done could fill many volumes. 

Secretary Kofi Annan has made several major attempts at reform. 

Congresswoman McCollum mentioned some of them. The reform of 

peacekeeping in 2000, under the hanging of the sweeping financial 

reforms that I mentioned earlier, in which this Committee was centrally involved and the current High-level Panel, which we have already discussed. 

These are recommendations worthy of close consideration, but I 

have cautioned my friends in the U.N. system and I repeat here 

today that Security Council reform will be extremely difficult to 

carry out. 

It would require Senate ratification of a change in a treaty that 

has been formally approved by the Senate in 1945 and given the 

many conflicting ambitions of the states that seek change and the 

danger of deluding the Security Council to a point where it becomes even less effective, I think that we should be realistic about 

this. Reform is needed, but they are going to be tough to get to. 

Recently Kofi Annan has embarked on an important series of 

high-level personnel changes that he has said publicly he will continue. He has replaced his long-serving Chief of Staff, too long-serving in my view, with a dynamic, new reform-oriented one, Mark 

Malloch Brown. 

Some of you may have seen him in his first television interview 

Sunday with Chris Wallace on Fox News. A very important interVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:52 Oct 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\031505\20055.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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view and I hope you will invite him to meet with your Committee. 

I know he would be delighted to do so. 

Kofi Annan has belatedly, but finally removed the ineffectual 

head of the U.N. High Commission on Refugees. Really I can’t even 

begin to tell you how strongly I have waited for this moment. Jeane 

and I both liked the UNHCR, but this man was not appropriate to 

lead such an important organization. 

Kofi Annan has moved to revamp his outmoded press operation, 

which was more suited to the pre-cable age than the modern world. 

One might say more suited to the era of the Pony Express. And 

now he is looking for a senior Washington representative to improve his strained relationships with the Administration, which 

have to be repaired for his sake, for his institution’s sake, and he 

has some work to do on that side as well and he knows that. 

These are important actions for a man who has been under such 

intense personal pressure. The current Oil-for-Food investigations 

have made clear that that important program was mismanaged. 

The full extent of the problem must await the final report of Paul 

Volcker’s Commission, but I believe strongly that it will not 

produce anything that would justify the calls that some people 

have already made for the Secretary-General’s resignation, a call 

which would only throw the institution into chaos, if it was carried 

out. 

Only last week, by the way, in an important speech in Madrid, 

Secretary-General Annan forcefully spoke out against terrorist 

sponsors and called again on the Security Council to take stronger 

action against them. 

With 2 years left in his tenure, Mr. Chairman, Kofi Annan has 

made clear that he wishes to make institutional reform and revitalization one of those hallmark issues. He cannot succeed in this 

great endeavor unless he has the support of the leading members 

of the United Nations and the leading member is the United 

States. 

Without us, the U.N. will fail and if it fails, we, the United 

States, will be among the many losers. I believe the Secretary-General’s pledges for reform are encouraging and they should be 

strongly supported by all of us in the Congress, in the Administration, in the American public. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Holbrooke follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RICHARD C. HOLBROOKE, VICE

CHAIRMAN, PERSEUS, LLC 

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Lantos, members of the House International Relations Committee, 

Since this is the first committee before which I ever testified, back in 1977, it is 

always a special honor to be here. I especially thank you for the opportunity to testify on such an important and timely subject. 

Two parallel discussions are currently taking place on the United Nations, although they often get conflated in people’s minds. First, there is an intense domestic 

argument on the role of the United Nations in our national security policy. Second, 

a belated, but nonetheless welcome, debate is taking place within the U.N. and here 

in Washington on how to improve the United Nations itself. 

It is difficult to separate these issues, especially since they intersect. Because the 

United States is the U.N.’s founding nation, its host nation, and its largest contributor, how we treat the organization has a profound impact. To put it simply, Mr. 

Chairman, the United Nations cannot succeed without strong American support, 

18

and it cannot function effectively if it is in opposition, or perceived to be in opposition, to the United States. At the same time, if we continue to under fund, and undermine the U.N. system, it will become progressively weaker and at the same time, 

it will become increasingly a center for hostility to the United States—a combination 

that will hurt American foreign policy in many ways. 

Allow me to start with a personal observation. In the forty-two years since I 

joined the Foreign Service and was sent to Vietnam, there is no issue which American perceptions have been more misinformed than the U.N. Both the U.N.’s strongest supporters and its most severe critics have often misunderstood and misrepresented the organization. The result is that its critics blame it for events it is not 

responsible for, while its most fervent supporters often assign to it a role that is 

impossible. 

Let me start with some of the U.N.’s more idealistic and misguided supporters, 

those who defend it without regard to its flaws and limitations, and who still hope 

that the United Nations can somehow represent the ‘‘conscience of the world,’’ even 

impose its will over its member states. Ironically, this utopian dream that the U.N. 

should play a supranational role is matched by the fear on the part of many U.N. 

opponents on the right that the U.N. in fact seeks such a role. 

To be frank, both groups are equally misinformed. A United Nations with supranational authority is neither desirable nor possible. It would be unacceptable not 

only to the majority of Americans but to most of the other leading members of the 

U.N., including the other four permanent members of the Security Council. The 

founders—led by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Winston Churchill—understood this completely: their goal was to create an organization that could prevent 

or stop wars between sovereign states, and adjudicate international disputes before 

they reached critical mass. 

The large number of disputes and wars that the U.N. has been unable to prevent 

or solve since 1945 are a clear demonstration of the limits of the organization. But 

this is a result of the actions of the member states themselves, not something called 

‘‘the U.N.’’ What happens in the U.N. is simply a reflection of the positions of its 

191 members, whose ambassadors take positions under instructions from their capitals. In fact, as I have suggested elsewhere, blaming ‘‘the U.N.’’ for what happens 

inside that building on New York’s East River is like blaming Madison Square Garden for the New York Knicks. 

Comparing the U.N. today with the original intentions of its founders, we can only 

conclude that, rather than being too strong, it is too weak and ineffective. As an 

American deeply concerned with our national security, I would suggest—knowing 

that some of my closest and most respected friends in this body may take issue with 

me—that a stronger and more effective United Nations would be in America’s national security interests. 

Strengthening the U.N. does not threaten us, for one key reason: our veto power 

in the U.N. Security Council. That was the original intent of FDR and Truman and 

the American team that went to the founding conference in San Francisco in April 

1945. The veto was designed to protect us, enabling the Senate to ratify the U.N. 

Charter, and avoid the fate of the League of Nations, which was rejected because 

of this issue by the Senate. 

U.N. values, U.N. interests, U.N. policies, in their essence, are fundamentally U.S. 

interests—they were, after all, written by us. This goes back to the language of the 

charter, advancing freedom, defending human rights, protecting refugees etc. A 

stronger U.N. is one where the Human Rights Commission, for example, is one that 

more aggressively pushes for those human rights that the U.S. is seeking to advance 

as part of its national security policy—a weaker U.N. is one where the Human 

Rights Commission is dominated by Cuba, Libya etc. In other words, what’s wrong 

with the U.N. (or in this case the Human Rights Commission) are not the core ideas 

that it stands for, but the instances when due to lack of American engagement, the 

institution is high-jacked by states whose practices are anathema to all that the 

U.N. stands for. I applaud Secretary-General Annan’s announced intention to seek 

a change in the manner by which members of the Human Rights Commission are 

chosen. 

Even sixty years after San Francisco, we should pause to admire the genius of 

the visionaries who devised these concepts. The bipartisan team, led by Secretary 

of State Edward Stettinius, included Adlai Stevenson, Nelson Rockefeller, John Foster Dulles, Harold Stassen, John McCloy, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Senator Tom 

Connolly, and Congressman Sol Bloom, who was then Chairman of this very Committee. In fact, it was Chairman Bloom who argued, successfully, that the preamble 

of the U.N. Charter, which in its original draft began with turgid bureaucratic language, should soar with rhetoric that echoed the American Constitution. Working 

with Virginia Gildersleeve, the dean of Barnard College, he proposed that the CharVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:52 Oct 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\031505\20055.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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ter begin with the now-immortal words, ‘‘We, the Peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war . . .’’

But not even the great team in San Francisco could see into the Twenty-first Century. They designed a machine for fifty countries; today there are 191 member 

states. They described the Secretary-General merely as a ‘‘Chief Administrative Officer,’’ never foreseeing the need for a more powerful chief executive. They saw wars 

as something that happened between nations—one country crossing another’s borders, as in Poland in 1939. What they could not foresee was that most modern wars 

would be internal conflicts, that ninety percent of today’s war casualties (mostly civilians) are the result of civil wars (Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Sudan), internal brutality by the government toward some of its citizens (Bosnia, Sudan, East Timor, 

Iraq under Saddam), and separatist/independence movements (Croatia, Sri Lanka, 

Kosovo, Aceh, Darfur, Northern Ireland). Nor could they foresee that health crises, 

notably HIV/AIDS, might create security problems as massive and destabilizing as 

any war—and would even justify the involvement of the Security Council. Nor could 

they foresee that worldwide terror networks like Al Qaeda could operate without a 

national government or a sovereign base, and yet still threaten the established order 

and the values of all civilized society. 

Thus, the U.N. could not fulfill the 1991 vision of President George Herbert Walker Bush to create, at the end of the Cold War, a ‘‘new world order’’ with a renewed 

United Nations at its core. In fact, as we soon learned, the institution was not up 

to the challenges of the new era. In the first few years after the Cold War era—

1991–94—the U.N. failed, in the most costly and public manner possible, the first 

three tests it faced: Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. This triple failure almost took 

the United Nations down for the count, and was also the underlying reason that 

the Clinton Administration—correctly in my view—vetoed a second term as Secretary-General for Boutros Boutros Ghali in 1996. 

By the time we reached the climax of the Bosnia crisis, in the middle of 1995, 

it was clear that the old U.N. peacekeeping system was ineffective in many cases. 

The U.N. ‘‘blue helmet’’ peacekeepers took too long to assemble, they were too uneven in their skills, too unevenly trained and equipped, and often simply corrupt. 

Their Security-Council ‘‘mandates’’ were usually too weak. After President Bush 

sent 30,000 American soldiers into a U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia, we lived 

through the October 1993 tragedy of ‘‘Black Hawk Down’’ under President Clinton. 

As a result, the United States, led by Congress, made clear that there would be no 

more American soldiers under U.N. command. The irony of this reaction to the tragedy in Mogadishu is that the American troops in that incident were under direct 

American command. 

While some blue helmet forces continued to function effectively in less dangerous 

assignments (like Cyprus), the situation required a new concept for the more difficult cases. Thus evolved the MNF—the multi-national force. It has already proved 

its value in East Timor, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere: 

when a tough, rapidly-deployable force is required, let it be authorized by the Security Council, but not put under U.N. command. Thus the concept of the ‘‘Multi-national Force’’, or MNF: soldiers in own national uniforms under national or multinational (even NATO, in Kosovo and Afghanistan) command. Take the case of East 

Timor. It would have taken at least four months to assemble and deploy a U.N. 

peacekeeping force to that distant and war-torn island in September 1999. Even as 

we deliberated in New York, the East Timorese were being slaughtered. After an 

all-night session held at American insistence, and with intense diplomatic pressure 

brought to bear by Secretary-General Annan in convincing the Indonesian authorities to accept the force, the U.N. authorized an Australian-led multi-national force 

with Philippine, Thai, New Zealand, Malaysian, and American participation. Less 

than 96 hours later, the first Australians landed in East Timor, and the massacres 

ended immediately, never to resume. Three years later, East Timor had passed 

through a successful, U.N.-administered transition to democracy (under the leadership of the great Sergio Vieira de Mello), and is now a proud, independent nation. 

Despite the success in East Timor and improved operations elsewhere, the U.N. 

remained a convenient whipping boy for anyone with a beef against the international system. This was especially true because the U.N. General Assembly, dominated by a pro-PLO bloc, continued to pass meaningless and toothless—but nevertheless very repugnant—resolutions condemning Israel for a wide variety of alleged 

offenses. These resolutions, while consisting of empty rhetoric, served to undermine 

the credibility of the entire United Nations, and in no way contributed to the purposes of the world body. 

(Not that we were without success in advancing a pro-Israel agenda whenever 

possible. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations were ready to veto resolutions 

whenever necessary in the Security Council, and in 200 we succeeded in ending a 

20

forty-year trek through the U.N. wilderness for Israel, during which they were the 

only member nation excluded from any regional caucus of countries. There were 

other advances as well, but problems still remain, which I hope will diminish as 

progress is made in the Mideast itself.) 

You may conclude from some of what I have said thus far that I came here to 

attack the U.N. This is not, however, the case. I remain firmly of the belief that 

the U.N., despite its flaws, is an indispensable organization to the United States. 

It serves our national security interests far more than it harms them, and our task 

should be to strengthen it, and reduce those of its actions with which we disagree. 

In this regard, and with permission, I want to quote from a remarkable letter, dated 

February 17 of this year, that Senator Jesse Helms sent to his former colleague Tim 

Wirth—because I believe that it sums up precisely where the United States should 

be on the subject:

‘‘I know you would agree that if the United Nations did not exist, something 

much like it would have to be created because the nations of the world would 

have to have a place to talk through differences and support each other’s noble 

causes. For that very reason, I believe that we cannot give up on the U.N., but 

we must do the hard work of making the United Nations live up to its original 

promise.’’

Mr. Chairman, no one could have said it better than Senator Helms in this important letter, which he has allowed me to make public today. As we both know so 

well—since his legislation was the reason for my first meeting with Chairman 

Hyde—Senator Helms was the guiding hand behind the Helms-Biden legislation 

that allowed the United States to repay most of its arrears in return for some important U.N. reforms. As Ambassador to the U.N. at that time, I worked closely 

with both Senators Helms and Biden, as well as this committee. Our mutual efforts, 

supported by you and this committee, resulted in some much-needed reforms, and 

at the same time, a substantial reduction in the American dues to the U.N., from 

25% of the regular budget to 22%, and similar reductions in other areas. The total 

savings to the American taxpayer on an annual basis were estimated at about $170 

million. 

If the U.N. remains a vital part of our national security policy, there are two 

questions to pursue. First, why is it so valuable? Second, what can we do to make 

it perform better? 

On the first question, the evidence is everywhere. The Administration owes the 

U.N. a great deal of gratitude for its central role in getting the Shiite leadership 

to accept the Iraqi elections. Today, they are dealing with Syria through the U.N.’s 

Special Envoy. When the U.N. does its job well on such issues as refugees or tsunami relief, American assistance is highly leveraged—at about a four-to-one ratio. 

When peacekeeping works, the costs of relief and reconstruction, where the United 

States is almost always the world’s largest donor, are reduced. When mediation is 

successful, and conflict avoided, the benefits are even more obvious. When the U.N. 

is successful or even partially successful in an effort like the fight against AIDS or 

malaria, or when it becomes a strong voice for women’s rights or the advancement 

of democracy, we benefit. I could go on, but, in fact, the point is self-evident. 

Of course, sometimes we cannot get exactly what we want out of an international 

negotiation. That is in the very nature of relationships with other nations, as between people. In such cases, we always face a simple choice: accept less than what 

we seek, or walk away. In a certain sense, it is the same choice that we face as 

individuals on a daily basis—but with national and international consequences. But 

given our size and power, we enter almost any international negotiation from a position of strength. President Kennedy eloquently put it this way in his Inaugural Address, ‘‘We should never negotiate our of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate.’’ In short, the U.N. is a ‘force multiplier’ when it is effective, reducing American costs and becoming a focus for international support. 

Let me return, finally, to the key question before you—how do we make the U.N. 

more effective? 

The first need, quite simply, is for the United States Government to decide that 

it is in our national interest to strengthen, not weaken, the United Nations. While 

many Administration officials have spoken darkly of the challenges to and weaknesses of the U.N., of the risk that it will become as irrelevant as the League of 

Nations, it is very rare to hear anyone in a position of authority in this Administration call for a stronger U.N. We all understand the domestic political reasons for 

this reticence from a proudly conservative administration. But the time for politics 

is long gone, and in its second term, nothing would be more useful than a clear 

statement of support for strengthening the U.N. through reform and sufficient fundVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:52 Oct 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\031505\20055.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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ing. It would, incidentally, be consistent with true conservative principles in foreign 

policy, as I see them. 

This would need to be followed by making such a goal a policy priority for the 

United States, and working closely with Congress to achieve it. Such was the case, 

in fact, during the era of Helms-Biden, when we worked so closely with both Houses 

that I can truthfully say I spent more time in Congress than in the State Department and the White House during my tenure at the U.N. 

The specifics of what needs to be done could fill many volumes. Secretary-General 

Kofi Annan has made several major efforts at reform: most importantly, the 2000 

Brahimi Commission that reformed the Peace-keeping Department; the sweeping financial reforms of 2000 in which this committee was centrally involved; and the recent High-Level Panel that focused on the Security Council and, again, peace-keeping. Most of their recommendations are worthy of close consideration, although, as 

I have cautioned my friends in the U.N. system, Security Council reform will be extremely difficult to carry out, given the many conflicting ambitions of the states that 

seek change, and the danger of diluting the Council to the point where it becomes 

even less effective. 

In addition to his more formal reform efforts, Kofi Annan has recently embarked 

on an important series of high-level personnel changes that he has said will continue. He has replaced his long-serving chief of staff with a dynamic new, reformminded one, Mark Malloch-Brown. He has belatedly but finally removed the ineffectual head of the U.N. High Commission on Refugees and is engaged now in an intensive, and open, search for a more qualified successor. He has moved to revamp 

his outmoded press operation, which was more suited to the pre-cable age than the 

modern world. He is searching for a strong senior representative in Washington as 

his personal liaison with the Administration, having recognized that this strained 

relationship must be repaired. 

These are important actions for a leader who himself has been under the most 

intense pressure for many years. The current oil-for-food investigations have made 

clear that that important program was mis-managed; the full extent of the problem 

must await the final report of the Volker Commission, but I believe strongly that 

it will not produce anything that would justify the calls some have already made 

for the Secretary-General’s resignation. Only last week, in an important speech at 

an Anti-terrorism conference in Madrid, the Secretary-General forcefully spoke 

against state sponsors of terrorism and called on the Security Council to show no 

hesitation in authorizing force against them. 

With two years left in his tenure as Secretary-General, Kofi Annan has made 

clear that he wishes to make institutional reform and revitalization one of his hallmark issues. He cannot succeed in this goal unless he has the support of the leading 

members of the United Nations. And the leading member remains the United 

States. Without us the U.N. will fail. And if it fails, we will be among the many 

losers. I believe that Secretary-General Annan’s pledges for reform are very encouraging, and should be strongly supported by the Congress and the Administration.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Ambassador. 

Ms. Kirkpatrick, would you like to finish? 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. Would I like what? 

Chairman HYDE. Would you like to finish? We interrupted you 

to accommodate Ambassador Holbrooke. Do you have more to say? 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. Yes, I have more to add. 

Chairman HYDE. Please. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. There was two or three things that I 

was going to comment on that I did not comment on at all as a consequence of being preemptively silenced. 

One was, not by you Dick, but by our Chairman, who is a good 

friend of mine, along with the Ranking Democratic Member, who 

is another good friend of mine. This is a distinguished Committee 

from my point of view and a friendly one. 

One thing I wanted to say was that I believe that the U.N. very 

badly needs very significant reforms. I feel very uncertain about 

how these reforms are best approached actually, but I am certain 

they must be approached by persons who have worked with and in, 

in some sense, the U.N. system and who know it well. 

22

I am certain that effective reforms cannot be undertaken by persons who do not know the system, quite simply. That is true of almost any system and almost any reforms. 

I strongly feel that we have a good idea, sort of simmering, in 

the notion of a community of democracies. It is an idea that I have 

been engaged with, actually, through my membership in Freedom 

House and the Executive Committee of Freedom House, where I 

have been a member since before I went to the United Nations and 

when I came back. 

Freedom House has been actively engaged in the efforts to interest the world in a community of democracies. I might give some 

credit where credit is due. Madeleine Albright was very active on 

this issue, when she was Secretary of State. 

Paula Dobriansky, who is Under Secretary of State in this Administration, has been very active in following up on the effort to 

develop a community of democracies. 

It is only feasible really since the collapse of the Soviet empire, 

in my opinion. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its vast empire 

created a number of new democracies, who are enormously interested in acting to strengthen democracy in the world and I think, 

of course, of the Czech Republic. 

Goodbye, Dick. Have a good trip to California. 

Ambassador HOLBROOKE. China. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. China. First you have to pass through 

California though. I think he did a splendid job, let me say, on the 

peace mission that he was in and the peace negotiations at the end 

of the Bosnia war. It was one of the successful efforts, in fact, that 

was undertaken in a U.N. context. 

There are a number of successful efforts that have been undertaken in the U.N. context, as he has pointed out in his testimony. 

There have also been a number of failures in the U.N. context 

and I think what we, the Committee, and what anybody who is interested in the subject needs to do, is try to distinguish between 

the successes and the failures, first of all, so that we don’t look at 

the failures as an example of what we ought to continue to try to 

do to create successes. 

I believe that it is enormously important for the United States 

to distinguish between the successes and the failures and strengthen the policies that have worked and are working and abandon 

those that haven’t worked and are not working today. 

I do not think we should tolerate the kind of excuses that accept, 

for example, the Human Rights Commission’s record and behavior. 

That is shameful. It is not just a waste of money. It is a waste of 

life that is engaged in that. 

I would just say one more thing in fact, besides a strong pitch 

for the support for the community of democracy, not just support 

for what exists, but support for thinking about and working with 

other countries who are also interested in developing a community 

of democracies, which will be at least as strong as the community 

of dictatorships, which so effectively dominates so many U.N. activities. 

That is, I think, a top priority. It should be a top priority. That 

I want to emphasize. 

23

Finally, I would just say that I, too, really believe that the 

United States should commit ourselves to trying to build a stronger 

United Nations, but only insofar as it is honest and committed to 

creating freedom and fighting dictatorships and misery in the 

world. 

That is difficult. That is very difficult to do, because that puts 

us at odds with China, for example. It puts us at odds with Cuba, 

both of whom say so all the time in the Human Rights Commission, but we need to do that too. 

I think this Committee has to make all those distinctions and I 

wish you good luck at doing that. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much, Ambassador. 

I would like to announce there is a vote on, Sustaining the Ruling of the Chair. I intend to stay here and waive my opportunity 

to participate in that important decision. 

Any of you that wish to vote, please do, but hurry back. We are 

going to continue. 

Rich, you have shown great patience. On the other hand, I think 

you have learned a few things, as have we all. If we could hear 

from you, that would be fine. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RICHARD S. WILLIAMSON, 

PARTNER, MAYER, BROWN, ROWE AND MAW, LLP 

Ambassador WILLIAMSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

for the hearing. Since Dick Holbrooke has given us a history lesson, 

I will avoid that and try to keep my remarks within 5 minutes. 

I think any review of the U.N. has to begin by looking at the 

United States today in this era of American primacy. United States 

military might, economic strength and cultural reach are greater 

than others. 

The result is that we have a foreign policy toolbox with many implements. The U.N. is only one of them, but we should recognize 

that for many other countries with less might, less strength, less 

reach, fewer tools, the United Nations is more central to the exercise of their foreign policy. 

We should recognize and respect their perspective, even as we do 

not embrace it. The United Nations, like all large bureaucracies, 

has waste and fraud. It needs to improve its budgeting, its accountability. It needs to ferret out corruption. 

Whether it is sexual harassment by a senior U.N. official, sexual 

abuse by U.N. peacekeepers or kickbacks, sweetheart deals and 

subversion of mission as alleged in the Iraqi Oil-for-Food Program, 

there must be zero tolerance for wrongdoing. 

Accountability must follow the evidence, no matter how high that 

trail might lead. The mission is not to protect the U.N. and its 

image, but to relentlessly pursue the facts and expose the truth 

and hold wrongdoers to account. Only then will the U.N., its image, 

and most importantly its mission, be well-served. 

I agree with Ambassador Kirkpatrick that one key reform is to 

give support and energy to the democracy caucus. In that regard, 

I think the UNDP should launch a democracy fund, in which they 

give resources to fledgling democracies to establish the institutions 

necessary to sustain them. 

24

I think in the area of transitional justice, especially in light of 

the good work being done by the Sierra Leone special court, which 

is jointly founded by the U.N. and the Government of Sierra Leone, 

best practices should be developed for restorative justice. 

In the U.N. Commission for Human Rights, I disagree with the 

High Panel’s recommendation to expand its membership to 191. I 

think that would only erode its authority, further deny it legitimacy and undercut the effectiveness. It would have all the credibility of the U.N. General Assembly, which is to say, not much at 

all. 

I think we should try instead to make membership more rigid. 

Any country subjected to a country-specific resolution ought not to 

be allowed to stand for election to the Human Rights Commission. 

At the Human Rights Commission, we should eliminate agenda 

item eight on Israel. It is the only country subjected to a countryspecific agenda item. Those who use other U.N. fora for the same 

purpose use the Human Rights Commission to seek to 

delegitimatize the State of Israel, the oldest democracy in the Middle East. 

Also, at the Human Rights Commission, I think we must reign 

in the special rapporteurs. Too frequently they go beyond the assignment given by the Commission. They enter speculative areas. 

Unfortunately, the report they produce becomes a U.N. document, with precedent on other U.N. forum. It is used by others to 

try to advance their individual agendas. 

By the time it is given in oral summary at the Human Rights 

Commission itself, the damage is already done. The document has 

been published. 

I would suggest a reform would be to require quarterly reports 

to the UNCHR Secretarial composed of representative countries to 

make sure the rapporteurs are going in the right direction. 

Regarding U.N. Security Council reform, the problem with the 

Security Council is that it does not reflect the power distribution 

in the real world. It may have, arguably, in 1945. It clearly does 

not today. 

That disconnect weakens it and some of those whose power in 

the Security Council is far greater than it is in the real world seek 

to use the Council to restrain America. 

Finally, let me echo a comment made by others. Ultimately it is 

the political will of member states, whether it is in the Human 

Rights Commission or elsewhere in the U.N. system, that will determine whether or not the U.N. can be a success. 

Notable examples are the failures of the Human Rights Commission, year after year, to rebuke Zimbabwe, for one of the worst 

records of human rights abuse in the world. Similarly, at the Commission of Human Rights last year, regarding the ethnic cleansing 

which has turned into genocide in Darfur, Sudan, the members 

were unwilling to pass a robust resolution, even in light of this horrific genocide where over 200,000 Black Africans have been killed 

by a combination of the Arab Government in Khartoum and the 

Arab Janjaweed militia. 

Similarly, when I was sitting in the Security Council in Liberia, 

when Charles Taylor’s abuses were extreme, a number of members 

25

of the Security Council resisted sanctions, because of their own 

timber economic interests. 

Ultimately, the member states have to take responsibility. This 

is something they fail to do. Ultimately, the Secretariat has to provide meaningful management that is accountable with appropriate 

oversight. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Williamson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RICHARD S. WILLIAMSON, PARTNER, 

MAYER, BROWN, ROWE AND MAW, LLP 

I want to thank Chairman Henry Hyde and the other members of the House 

International Relations Committee for holding this hearing on United Nations Reform. The United Nations is an institution that has serious problems. I’m sure your 

consideration of the United Nations and the challenges the U.N. faces can contribute to constructive reforms. An improved, reformed United Nations will benefit 

the United States and the entire international community. 

We live in an era of American primacy. America has unrivaled military strength, 

economic might, and cultural reach. The United States has many ways and means 

to project its power and wield its influence. Our foreign policy toolbox has many implements. 

Because of America’s size, its economic reach, it’s values and various threats including from terrorist networks of global reach; America also has vital interests and 

concerns that span the globe. The United States has the power and reach to deal 

with many of these matters. But some issues are better addressed with others such 

as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the terrorist threat and global 

norm setting. America has a web of alliances and when necessary the United States 

can rally a ‘‘Coalition of the Willing’’ to deal with global challenges. But there are 

times when the United Nations, a permanent multilateral institution with universal 

membership and a charter that reflects the same values as the American Declaration of Independence and our United States Constitution, is the preferred instrument for America to advance its interests. The United Nations is a useful tool in 

America’s foreign policy toolbox. 

At the same time, we should recognize that other countries with less strength, 

might and reach have fewer foreign policy tools. For them the United Nations is a 

more central instrument of foreign policy. We should respect their perspective, even 

when we do not embrace it. 

Last October I led the International Relations Institute Election Observer Mission 

to Afghanistan’s Presidential Election. Before election day, our delegation met with 

all the leading Presidential candidates including President Hamid Karzai. We met 

with civic leaders and Afghan Election Commission and other officials. And on election day we visited many polling stations. We saw brave people standing up to 

threats and intimidation. We saw people filled with hope and empowered by their 

vote. We witnessed the birth of a new democracy. And we saw a crushing defeat 

for the Taliban and the forces of evil. 

This victory in the forward march of freedom was due to American leadership 

and, in particular, the brave men and women of the Coalition of the Willing. It was 

due to the help of the international community in rebuilding schools, hospitals and 

roads. It was due to the Germans helping rebuild the judicial system, the British 

working to eradicate illicit drugs, and the French working with America to train a 

new Afghan army. Most importantly, the successful election day was the result of 

millions of brave Afghan men and women. It was their victory. But also, the successful journey up to that day and for the execution of a ‘‘free and fair election’’ was 

due to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The contribution of 

Ambassador Laktar Brahimi and his United Nations colleagues were instrumental 

to the march of freedom in Afghanistan. 

UNAMA is just one of many examples of where the U.N. has helped advance 

United States interests and made the world a better place. In East Timor, the Ethiopia/Eritrea border dispute, Sierra Leone, Abkhazia, Georgia, and elsewhere United 

Nations Peacekeepers are helping to maintain the peace and providing breathing 

space for fragile societies to rebuild. 

The Sierra Leone Special Court, a joint venture of the United Nations and the 

Sierra Leone Government, is helping to provide transitional justice to a society long 

ravaged by a brutal, bloody civil war. 

26

In Darfur, Sudan, the scene of unspeakable horror and the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis today, the United Nations is helping to sustain nearly two million 

internally displaced persons and refugees, victims of the horrific genocide perpetrated by the government in Khartoum and the marauding jangaweed militias. 

Even the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, despite its structural and procedural flaws and the faint heart of too many of its member sates, does some good 

when it holds to account Fidel Castro’s repressive regime for failure to honor accepted international human rights standards. 

In the war on terror, the United Nations has adopted new international norms 

that have been useful and helped freeze terrorists assets making it more difficult 

for them to execute their evil acts. 

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency continues to be a useful vehicle 

to put international pressure on Iran and its renegade nuclear program. 

In these ways, and many others, the United Nations helps make the world a better place and advances United States interests. 

Therefore we should take the United Nations seriously. We should be cold eyed 

in examining its weaknesses, disappointments and failures. We should be realistic 

about its limitations. And we should be forward leaning in working to reform it. 

It is important to recognize that the United Nations is a flawed institution. Some 

of its problems are those that challenge any large institution with big entrenched 

bureaucracies. Some of its problems are unique. All of its problems require examination. And where reforms can help, they should be pursued. 

Like all large bureaucracies, the United Nations has waste and abuse. Ways and 

means to improve budgeting, accountability and ferret out corruption should be 

found. 

Whether it is sexual harassment by a senior U.N. official, sexual abuse by U.N. 

Peacekeepers, or kick-backs, sweetheart deals, and subversion of mission as alleged 

in the Iraq Oil-For-Food program, there must be zero tolerance for wrong-doing. Accountability must follow the evidence no matter how high the trail might lead. The 

mission of all investigations of alleged wrong-doing must not be to protect the 

United Nations and its image, but relentlessly to pursue the facts and expose the 

truth and hold any wrong doers accountable. For only then will the United Nations, 

its image, and—more importantly—its mission be well served. 

And such investigations must lead to more vigorous oversight, more exacting accounting procedures and robust inspector general protocols to stop such illicit behavior. Then, and only then, will the United nations image properly be restored. 

And, I for one, believe United States Congressional investigations of alleged abuse 

is not only appropriate stewardship of American taxpayer dollars, but an exercise 

the United Nations should welcome and with which it should fully cooperate. 

Archaic and harmful U.N. practices should be eliminated such as giving undue 

weight to geographic distribution in hiring compared to consideration given to experience and competence. Excessive compensation should be cut. Those who pay most 

of the bills should have more say in how the money is spent. These sort of reforms 

are unassailable in principle though difficult to achieve. 

Developing a strong functioning Democracy Caucus within the United Nations 

would be very helpful. Today the geographic caucuses yield far too much power and 

often are counterproductive. Their role in selecting candidates for the Security 

Council, ECOSOC and other U.N. bodies is often unhelpful. The U.N. Charter and 

the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights recognize the right to self-determination. Today a majority of U.N. members are democracies yet the current prominence of the geographic caucuses often means democratic countries, nations that respect the values of the U.N. Charter, are underrepresented. Furthermore, anomalous situations result that discredit the U.N. and impede its work such as Sudan 

and Zimbabwe sitting on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. 

One person observed that when we are children our friends are the other children 

in the neighborhood, but as we grow older we seek out friends who share our values 

and our world view. It is time for the U.N. to stop organizing based on where a 

country happens to be situated geographically and to restructure to provide greater 

prominence to shared values. 

Along the same lines, as discussed at last year’s session of the U.N. Commission 

on Human Rights, the U.N. should provide more technical help and institution 

building assistance to countries emerging from tyrannical pasts who are struggling 

to stand up new democratic governments. The proposed Democracy Fund has merit. 

Similarly, building on the lessons of the ICTY and ICTR, the promising performance 

of the Sierra Leone Special Court and various Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, the U.N. could and should develop ‘‘best practices’’ and greater capacity to 

help torn societies achieve restorative justice as they try to move from a dark past 

to a liberal future. 

27

The U.N.’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights is a noble document. I like 

to point out that the small committee of international diplomats that drafted the 

Declaration was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, a democrat, and on which sat John 

Foster Dulles, a Republican. That is appropriate for many reasons, among them 

being that human rights are not a partisan matter; human rights are an American 

matter. Human rights are a fundamental value of American Exceptionalism. 

The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights sets forth such principles as personal freedom; freedom of thought and religion; freedom of peaceful assembly and association; 

freedom of speech; freedom of movement; freedom of the press; self-determination; 

and the rule of law. It is in America’s interest to promote these values and to advance freedom and democracy. 

As President Bush said, ‘‘The advance of freedom is the calling of our time, it is 

the calling of our country . . . We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we 

believe that liberty is the direction of history . . . And we believe that freedom—

the freedom we prize—is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind.’’ And respect for human rights is a crucial building block for liberty and the 

advance of freedom. 

Unfortunately, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights often has proven to be a 

poor steward of these values. For example, last year human rights abuses such as 

Zimbabwe and China escaped rebuke. Even the brutal ethnic cleansing in Darfur 

has recognized by only the mildest resolution from the Commission. 

What can be done? The Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Strengthening 

the United Nations recommends enlarging the 54 member Commission to all 191 

U.N. member states. I disagree. That would give the UNCHR all the credibility and 

effectiveness of the U.N. General Assembly. And that would be very little. Rather 

than enlarge the Commission so it includes all the world’s repressive regimes, I 

would suggest making the requirements for membership more stringent. It is absurd that Cuba, Zimbabwe and other repressive regimes sit as members of the Commission on Human Rights. It is hypocritical and cynical. Together they form an ‘‘alliance of the repressors in the commission waging common cause to protect themselves from the rebukes they richly deserve and undermine the commission’s work. 

Such countries subvert the values, credibility and effectiveness of the commission. 

They erode the authority and deny legitimacy to the U.N. Commission on Human 

Rights. 

I’d suggest criteria be established for any nation to seek membership on the Commission. First and foremost no country that is the target of a UNCHR country specific resolution should be allowed to stand for election. While no nation has a perfect 

human rights record, at least the worst abusers ought not serve on the Commission 

entrusted to defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A country should 

clean up its own act before sitting in judgment of others. As I said about one delegation last year when we tabled a resolution against them and they turned the tables 

to attack the United States, ‘‘That’s like being called ugly by a frog.’’ The Human 

Rights Commission should not have frogs judging others’ beauty. 

Our goal should be to eliminate all repressive regimes from serving on the Commission. The reform I suggest would not accomplish that objective. For some country’s such as Zimbabwe have escaped the condemnation of a country specific resolution they richly deserve. But the reform I suggest would at least diminish their 

number. It would be a start. 

Second, I suggest the UNCHR eliminate ‘‘item 8’’ from its agenda. That agenda 

item only deals with alleged human rights abuses by the State of Israel. Israel is 

the only country for which a separate agenda item is designated. It is discriminatory. It merely provides yet another U.N. platform for the enemies of Israel to seek 

to delegitimize the oldest democracy in the Middle East. Just as happens in the 

U.N. General Assembly and elsewhere in the U.N. system, agenda item 8 unleashes 

harsh and vitriolic diatribes against Israel, most often untethered to facts on the 

ground. If a delegation wishes to raise concerns about a particular human rights situation in Israel, it should be considered under the general agenda item dealing with 

all country specific resolutions. 

I recommend that Special Rapporteurs set up by the Commission be limited to 

the task assigned. Currently UNCHR Special Rapporteurs are held on a very loose 

rein. And often the Rapporteurs run far afield, especially on thematic issues rather 

than those created to examine a specified country’s conduct. Sometimes such behavior is benign; but it can be mischievous and harmful. Rapporteurs’ reports become 

official U.N. documents before the Rapporteur’s formal presentation to Commission 

members at their annual meeting. It assumes a life and authority of its own. As 

U.N. documents the Rapporteur’s report, whether adhering to the assignment given 

or not, has a standing in the United Nations System. Some use the rapporteur’s report as precedent on other U.N. fora to push their own agenda. Sometimes 

28

Rapporteurs reports reflect the personal musings of the author inconsistent with 

prior Commission positions. Objections and concerns of member states currently 

only are germane at such time as the Rapporteur is assigned to give his or her supplemental oral report to the Commission. Then damage already may have been 

done. 

The Commission should create high guide rails to keep the rapporteurs on the 

road it has established. This would require the Commission to be more specific and 

even clearer in outlining the assignment. The Rapporteurs should be required to 

give periodic progress reports, perhaps quarterly, to the UNCHR secretariate composed of representative countries. Then an unauthorized excursion can be reined in 

prior to the written report. 

A last UNCHR reform I would suggest is eliminating the small member state 

committee empowered to determine before the Commission convenes whether a proposed resolution should be tabled. Again repressive regimes work hard to gain membership on this elite body in an effort to protect themselves. Since the five regional 

groups each select their own representative to the committee, the United States and 

other democracies have little or no say on which countries serve. Among the five 

members this year were Cuba and Zimbabwe. Enough said. 

Finally let me address the issue of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). Proposals 

to expand the Security Council unfortunately have crowded out most discussion of 

other U.N. reforms. The Security Council is the seat of the U.N.’s greatest power. 

It is natural, therefore, that the Security Council is the focus of the most active and 

most spirited discussions about U.N. reform. I say this development is ‘‘unfortunate 

because it is only one topic that warrants serious consideration. And if none of the 

various proposed Security Council reforms are adopted, as they may not be, hopefully other reforms that are necessary in the areas of budgeting, accounting, oversight, the Commission on Human Rights and others can be adopted. 

With ‘‘veto’’ power, the United States already can stop UNSC actions that are particularly harmful to its interests. The U.S. usually can get the UNSC to act to advance U.S. interests when a matter is sufficiently important to Washington. (Kosovo 

and the 18th Iraq resolution are notable exceptions.) Any UNSC reform might complicate the diplomatic dynamic. ‘‘Better the devil you know than the devil you do 

not know.’’ Also, as demonstrated during the 2002–3 UNSC deliberations on Iraq, 

there are UNSC members intent on using the Council to restrain U.S. actions, to 

tie down the superpower. 

The formulas for UNSC reform that are widely discussed sidestep the radical restructuring required to have the council mirror real world power. They leave the P–

5 in place with their ‘‘veto power,’’ and enlarge the Council’s membership with more 

permanent seats (or rotating permanent seats such as the IAEA Board of Governors). The formula most widely supported would expand the UNSC to 24 members 

of three tiers: the existing P–5 with ‘‘veto power’’; a second tier of 7 or 8 potentially 

semi-permanent members elected on a regional basis for a renewable term of 4 or 

5 years (Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc.); and a third tier of rotating regional members elected for non-renewable two-year terms. This option raises 

a number of concerns. First, while easing current discontent over the UNSC, it 

doesn’t deal with the Council’s fundamental problem of not reflecting power distribution in the real world. That disconnect while, perhaps, ameliorated slightly 

would not be fixed. It might buy some time, but the path would continue to a weaker less relevant UNSC. Second, the UNSC already is large and debate cumbersome 

with deliberations painfully stilted and slow. Enlargement would make that unwieldy situation worse. Indeed re possible consequence of Security Council expansion ironically might be to lessen the current role of Member States elected to the 

Council. In 1988, as the UNSC was deliberating how to deal with the Iran/Iraq war, 

then Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar suggested the P–5 begin to meet by themselves to seek agreement on how best to proceed. In that instance and on occasion 

since then this mechanism has proven very productive. Part of its success is that 

it does not meet often and has not replaced the normal informal and formal consultations of the entire UNSC membership. With an expanded Council with many 

more countries with seats at the table and the consequent ‘‘increase of debate and 

unwieldy deliberations, one result may be more frequent P–5 consultations in which 

not only the most serious issues are discussed but far more. The result will be less 

participation and less impact on issues for non-P–5 Security Council members and 

this in turn would hurt the UNSC. And third, any enlargement would require geographic/regional group consideration that would result in further distortions between the UNSC and real world power. 

While the Security Council’s membership and procedures warrant continued consideration, I remain skeptical that the proposals tabled so far would achieve their 

stated goals. The better scenario is for the UNSC to demonstrate its relevance and 

29

value on issues of fundamental importance to the major powers (and others) so that 

the bigger powers and the United States become committed to reform because they 

need a strong, relevant and effective Security Council. 

In conclusion, the United Nations is a valuable institution that the United States 

and other countries should actively support. But to regain greater relevance in the 

world and to make a more central contribution, it must reform. It must adjust its 

structure and procedures to more accurately reflect the power relationships in the 

real world, especially the U.N, Security Council. Budgetary, accounting, auditing 

and other necessary oversight procedures must be adopted. To fail to make such reforms may mean that the U.N. remains of great interest to those who benefit with 

prerogatives and power in the U.N. they do not have in the real world. However, 

those disadvantaged will find the U.N. a less inviting or relevant venue. And, inevitably, the U.N.’s authority and acceptability will diminish. 

Thank you.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much, Ambassador. 

It looks like I am the only one here to question you at this moment. You are very fortunate. Ambassador Kirkpatrick, what organizational or structural reforms do you think would have the most 

merit? Are there organizational reforms or structural reforms? If 

there are, I don’t know how we can effectuate them, except through 

persuasion. 

Ambassador Holbrooke has withdrawn our only weapon, which 

was the money. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, I would say only that 

I don’t think that we can reform the U.N. That is what I said in 

my opening sentence. We can’t restore confidence in the U.N. We 

can’t reform it. We can’t alone make it work better. 

We can only contribute to reforms that are important and with 

other countries we can try to work out arrangements that will lead 

to reforms that will improve the operation, but that is very hard 

to do, Mr. Chairman. It is incredibly hard to do, because a good 

many countries in the U.N. don’t want, really, to participate in reforms. 

I was very interested in our experience when we were kicked off 

the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 2001. We weren’t kicked 

off, but we didn’t get reelected. Let us put it that way. It amounted 

to being kicked off, since we couldn’t participate. 

I did quite a bit of analysis of that whole experience, because it 

could happen to us again. If we want to be on the Human Rights 

Commission—I actually was not sure after my first and only term 

on the Human Rights Commission that we even wanted to be on 

the Human Rights Commission—but if the U.N. does not have a 

Human Rights Commission that is sufficiently transparent and 

honest and honorable, then that says something worse about the 

organization than I have been willing to conclude so far, but I have 

come to the edge of doing just that. 

I have participated, by the way—Georgetown University had a 

session on the report of the eminent persons and a number of 

former Permanent Representatives to the United Nations participated. It was off-the-record and not open to the public. 

It was interesting though. There was a lot of agreement among 

the former Permanent Representatives who were present about, for 

example, the Security Council and the fact that we must not permit, really, the significant weakening of the Security Council. 

Certainly we don’t want a significant weakening of our role in 

the Security Council, since it is the only place in the U.N. system 

30

that we have any significant influence and can control its effects 

on us moreover. 

But I would say, Mr. Chairman, that beyond that, beyond preserving the Security Council, essentially in its current form, I 

would say, certainly preserving the U.S. veto, which is vitally important, I believe that we should insist that organizations, such as 

the Human Rights Commission, reform themselves and if they 

don’t, I am not sure what I think we should do, but maybe we 

should simply not. 

Maybe we should resign. I don’t know. I don’t think it makes 

much sense to participate in activities and sessions, which not only 

don’t achieve their goals, but achieve something close to the opposite of their goals. 

It gives a kind of serious patina to their activities and I don’t 

think we should do it. I think this Committee should consider such 

alternatives as maybe the U.S. withdrawing from the Human 

Rights Commission, but we certainly shouldn’t pay for anything 

that we don’t participate in. That I feel sure about too. 

Chairman HYDE. That is a very important statement. We 

shouldn’t pay for anything we don’t participate in. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. I believe that. 

Chairman HYDE. Extrapolating from that, how about us not paying for certain activities with which we don’t agree? 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. I have thought about that. I have 

thought a lot about it, as a matter of fact, and I think that we 

should consider it, because it is one of the few tools we have in 

which to even express the extent of our distaste for a policy 

I think that the Human Rights Commission actually has such a 

nauseating record, if you will, in which the bad guys get the power 

and so I think we must reform it or get out of it probably. 

I don’t mean the whole U.N. I am not advocating getting out of 

the whole U.N., but I am advocating getting out of some notoriously bad aspects of the U.N., like the Human Rights Commission. 

I don’t know what Rich thinks about that. 

Chairman HYDE. Ambassador Williamson, my own personal 

problems with the U.N. are not with the concept of a worldwide organization dedicated to avoiding war and spreading peace and 

amity, but the structural impossibility of accomplishing that, where 

you have France, you have Germany, you have Russia, you have 

China, all with strong national interests that are not necessarily 

compatible. In fact, are not compatible with the United States. 

To expect a statement from them, much less a resolution, that 

parallels our own national interests, is asking for the impossible. 

Iraq’s experience with 17 resolutions from the Security Council, 

if there ever was a demonstration of impotence, it was that and of 

course we were blamed for not sitting still for an 18th resolution. 

I guess what I am saying is, I think the U.N. has many uses and 

as Jeane Kirkpatrick says, we should stay at it, but we ought not 

to overemphasize its possibilities. 

I find in this building a lot of people have a love affair with the 

U.N. They view that as a super-government and something we 

should defer to. I just think structurally we expect too much from 

the U.N. and we ought not to do that. What is your comment? 

31

Ambassador WILLIAMSON. Mr. Chairman, I guess I make three 

observations. The first one is that I think some people lose sight 

of the decisionmaking process in the U.N. Those who look at its aspirations and the degree to which the Charter embraces some of 

the same values as our own Declaration of Independence and Constitution and see noble intent and hope for noble action. 

Winston Churchill, I think, said that you shouldn’t watch legislation being made. It is like watching sausage being made. Well, as 

Jeane Kirkpatrick and I know, the U.N. Security Council is a sausage factory. So the outcome is influenced in that way and it 

should be recognized. It may or may not, on many occasions, reflect 

those high aspirations, Mr. Chairman. 

I began by discussing the U.S. position in the world. We have to 

recognize that we are disadvantaged in the U.N. versus our position in the real world. There are those countries that want to utilize the U.N. to constrain the United States’ actions and that properly should concern us. 

So yes, Mr. Chairman, I would agree with my good friend, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, that there are failures in the U.N. That 

while we should stay actively engaged, especially in the many 

areas where it makes a contribution—whether it is the border commission between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the special court in Sierra 

Leone, the invaluable job it provided in Afghanistan for the election, et cetera—we should not be seduced by its aspirations to overlook its real shortcomings and weaknesses. 

Since Congressman Rohrabacher wasn’t here earlier, I will repeat, I think it is very important to have an investigation that 

holds to account an organization where you have sexual harassment by the head of a major agency and it takes two or three instances before action is taken, where you have the type of financial 

shenanigans that allegedly went on in the Oil-for-Food Program, 

where you have sexual assault by U.N. peacekeepers. 

These things deserve to be looked at. It is this Committee’s responsibility, not only as stewards of U.S. taxpayers, but as those 

who want to affirm those aspirations that have been tarnished by 

the failures of the U.N., to look into these matters. 

Chairman HYDE. We have some Members who have returned. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want 

to thank our distinguished witnesses for their testimony and for 

their very valuable contributions to our country and the world. It 

is enormous. 

Just a couple of questions on U.N. peacekeeping, which was discussed earlier, which I think does have a checkered past and 

present. Some of the achievements, like in East Timor, are real and 

durable. 

Unfortunately, who can forget the 1994 Rwandan massacre? 

When Kofi Annan was the head of peacekeeping 3 months before 

the April bloodletting began against the Tutsis, he got a famous fax 

from General Delaire, which clearly delineated from his informant 

that there was an impending omnicloud, suggesting that there was 

going to be an enormous slaughter. And that was ignored and regrettably 800,000 people were killed and the bloodletting. 

32

I remember holding hearings at that time and soon thereafter. 

We never got good answers. We posed, I think, the right questions, 

but never got good answers. 

The same thing happened a year later in Srebrenica, when the 

peacekeepers, again poor, I think, leadership at the top, 8,000 people in the safe haven—an oxymoron if ever there was one—of 

Srebrenica were loaded onto buses and summarily killed. 

We had, at that witness table—and I chaired that hearing or series of hearings—one of the men who served as the translator when 

Milotich was meeting with the peacekeepers’ leaders and they were 

negotiating terms for what turned out to be a slaughter. 

A few weeks ago I held a hearing on what was going on in the 

Congo, where there is supposedly a zero tolerance policy, but we 

have had zero compliance when it comes to the rape of 13- and 14- 

and 15-year-old girls and other kinds of cruel exploitations of 

women. 

We hear that there will be some changes. We did hear from a 

very credible U.N. diplomat, Jane Holl Lute, who I think is trying 

her best within the system to reform it, but it starts at the very 

top and then it needs to be throughout the entire. And I would appreciate any thoughts you might have on how we can get a zero 

tolerance. Certainly a registry of past offenders, vetting, proper vetting and training should be part of any solution. 

Let me also ask you about conferences. The U.N. is notorious for 

holding conferences, some of which no one pays attention to. Mentioned earlier by one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 

that disaster known as Durban, where the bashing of Israel was 

commonplace. It was anything but a tolerance conference. It was 

just the opposite. It was a hate mongering conference. 

We also have conferences that have the potential of doing a lot 

of good, like the Conference on Beijing+10 just completed in New 

York. 

Our country tried to get a reiteration of what is the truth on the 

ground and I was at the Beijing Women’s Conference. I was at the 

Cairo Population Conference at both of those in the mid 1990s and 

there was no right to abortion at all established. 

If anything, it was just the opposite. There was a repudiation of 

an attempt to try to impose that and yet NGOs ever since have 

been trying, through a norming process, as they call it, to hoodwink 

and deceive the world that there is somehow a right to abortion, 

when none exists, an international right to abortion. 

Our country at least got a number of countries and they wanted 

it, too, in their explanations of position to make it clear that no 

new rights were created in Beijing and there was no right to abortion. 

I hope the NGOs—because I am, as Chairman of this new Subcommittee, going to be following this up very closely. I don’t like 

hypocrisy and I absolutely hate dishonesty and the U.N. sometimes 

puts out language that then is taken by some of these NGOs and 

falsely used to say to countries—and they are badgered—that 

somehow they need to accept this right to abortion. 

Finally, which does not exist, the issue of the Commission on 

Human Rights. Again, Mr. Ambassador, I was there and I saw the 

33

great job you did. I know Ambassador Kirkpatrick did a great job 

as well when she was there. 

What can we do to keep the rogue nations off? Cuba has all of 

these political prisoners. We just had a hearing on Cuba in our 

Subcommittee and this ongoing mistreatment of 25, 26, 27 years. 

Dr. Oscar Bichet, a great human rights leader, one of the best and 

the brightest of Cuba, behind bars languishing, while the Cuban 

Foreign Minister is now claiming in the newspapers in a press account I saw today or yesterday that none of the Latin countries are 

going to join the United States in trying to sensor Cuba. 

That is outrageous. They are a gulag state, where political prisoners are being mistreated each and everyday. What can we do to 

keep rogue nations off of that Commission? 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. Congressman Smith, I don’t know, 

frankly. I have thought quite a lot about it and I have talked to 

other persons, interested parties who have some experience with 

the Human Rights Commission. 

No one that I have talked to has had what I would call creative 

ideas about how to keep them off and yet I think really—this is 

what I conclude—that maybe it is time to destroy an agency of the 

U.N. I think we either need to reform it or destroy it, frankly, because it is a terrible travesty to have a Human Rights Commission 

which is so clearly dominated by Cuba and by China and by 

Zimbabwe and by all of the other tyrannies, real heavy tyrannies, 

engaged just now in oppressing their own people. 

That is why I said, if we cannot reform it, then I would, myself, 

be in favor of not participating, I think. That is the conclusion I 

have come to at this stage. I don’t like coming to that conclusion, 

but I don’t see any other alternative, frankly. 

Chairman HYDE. With the permission of our witnesses, we will 

continue until 4:15 and then we will adjourn, if that is satisfactory, 

to avoid the rush hour. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. Yes. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Delahunt. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for 

your candor and frankness and it is refreshing to hear a witness 

say ‘‘I don’t know’’ to an answer. That is right. The Chairman just 

said you never hear a Member say that. We are great with opinions. 

You said something, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, that I thought was 

particularly telling. We need people who really understand the system to come and educate us. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. We do. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. They know the problems with the system. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. You do. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I said earlier that until the Subcommittee on 

which I serve started to focus on the U.N. and specifically the Oilfor-Food Program, to be perfectly candid, I did not know the mechanics and the structure of the U.N. 

I think sometimes we tend to personalize the United Nations as 

the Secretary-General, whether it be Kofi Annan or whomever it 

may be and yet in my own education, I am discovering, as Ambassador Kirkpatrick said, that it is truly up to the member states and 

34

that the Secretariat, to a large degree, is nothing more than hired 

help. 

They are the staff. And I guess the issue is: Are we prepared to 

strengthen the authority of the Secretariat? That is a real philosophical debate. 

In terms of peacekeepers and I didn’t hear Ambassador 

Williamson’s comments—but I think it was my friend from New 

Jersey who mentioned that while Kofi Annan was the head of 

peacekeeping operations, during his tenure—and let me be clear, I 

have never met the Secretary and I don’t know if I ever will—but 

I didn’t realize that in terms of control, the Secretary-General has 

very limited remedies in terms of the conduct of peacekeeping. 

It is my understanding that the only discipline, unless additional 

discipline is conferred by member states, is to repatriate, to send 

back the individual or the command who indulges in inappropriate 

behavior. 

Then recently the issues of the International Meteorological Organization was brought up. There was an embezzlement of some $3 

million and again, we referenced the Secretary-General Kofi Annan 

as having responsibility and yet, I find, to my surprise, that he has 

very little to do with the IMO. They have an independent board of 

governors. An independent secretary, with absolutely no authority, 

conferred on the Secretary-General of the United Nations under 

the Oil-for-Food Program, we talk about the Secretariat and there 

were clearly problems with the program itself. And yet when the 

original sanctions were imposed, back in 1991—and I wish Ambassador Holbrooke was here to again educate me—there were these 

so-called trade protocols, government-to-government trade relationships between Syria, between Turkey, between Jordan, where illicit 

and a violation of the sanctions regime occurred to the tune of 

some $9 billion. 

Yet, when it was brought to the attention of the Security Council, 

the Security Council’s response was, ‘‘We will take note of it.’’

That was $9 billion that went into the coffers of the Saddam 

Hussein regime for whatever purpose he deemed fit and it certainly 

was not to benefit the Iraqi people. We know that. 

I guess what I am looking for in terms of a comment is: Don’t 

we really have to examine the structure and the components and 

the relationship between the U.N. or among the member states? 

Maybe we can’t do anything. Maybe you are right, Ambassador. 

If we are unhappy and the Commission on Human Rights is a 

farce, then let us just either withdraw it, destroy it or whatever, 

if we can’t change it, but I think we have got to speak about the 

reality of what the U.N. is about. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much and good to see both 

of you. You are both old friends and I remember when we were trying to save the world from Communism, during the Reagan years, 

and I think we can be very proud that we were part of that team 

that I think ended the Cold War without the great cataclysmic battle that people thought would happen between Russia and the 

United States. 

35

We have challenges of course here in our own time now and that 

is: What role will the United Nations play in that? 

I am not so sure the United Nations played such a great role in 

ending the Cold War. I mean, I remember when we faced that challenge. I can’t think of the great contributions it made during the 

Cold War to help bring that to an end. I think it was more Ronald 

Reagan than it was any gathering of the United Nations’ officials. 

The United Nations may be a dream and it is a dream to many 

and was a dream when it was created. Like I say, it was a flawed 

dream however and the flaw was is that—and you will have to 

please remind me, isn’t about a third of the membership of the 

United Nations, aren’t these countries less than free countries? 

Plus we have a veto in the hands of the world’s largest human 

rights abuser, Communist China. A veto over this. I think that 

what we need to do is to make sure the U.N. is functioning to the 

point that it can, but we cannot be overly optimistic, irrationally 

optimistic about even if we do reform the U.N. what its capabilities 

will be, considering that we are including all of these nations. 

I am sorry that Mr. Holbrooke left. There were some questions 

I had specifically for him. Maybe you can shine light on some of 

the issues brought up by Mr. Delahunt and that is, we did permit, 

when examining the Oil-for-Food scandal, our country did permit—

and I have to believe Mr. Holbrooke was part of this decision or 

at least knew about it, because it happened, or most of the time 

that this happened was during the Clinton Administration—we 

permitted Turkey and Jordan to go around the sanctions and the 

oil embargo and that was a conscious decision during the Clinton 

Administration and from in the beginning of this Administration as 

well, to let that happen. 

I don’t find that to be comparable to the Oil-for-Food scandal, because that was a policy decision made honestly to achieve other 

policy goals as compared to the Oil-for-Food scandal, which is a 

total rip-off and people’s self-enrichment by people in authority. 

But it still deserves an answer and I was wondering if either one 

of you or both of you could shed light on why that decision was 

made, and if you know anything about the decision to permit Turkey and Jordan to go around those restrictions, and was that the 

right decision? 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. Congressman, if I may say just briefly, I understand that it was a decision that was made. It was made 

in the U.S. Government. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. As well as in the U.N., some part of 

the U.N. system. It is true it was in other Administrations and I 

wasn’t part of it and I don’t know why they made that decision, 

frankly. 

Do you, Rich? 

Ambassador WILLIAMSON. No. Mr. Chairman, can I? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. Go right ahead. 

Ambassador WILLIAMSON. A couple quick observations, because I 

think a very important point has been brought up about the balance of responsibility between the member states and the Secretariat. 

36

I do think that a lot of those who are critical of the U.N. fail to 

give enough responsibility to member states who fail to behave in 

a way consistent with the Charter they have agreed to uphold. 

Let me go through a couple of those that have been raised. It is 

true in Rwanda, as the U.N.’s own internal investigation showed, 

that some of the peacekeeping mission messages from General 

Delaire to New York were not given as required to the Security 

Council. So they weren’t told the full situation on the ground. 

I also would fault some member states personally for not wanting 

to confront that genocide. But it is also a fact that a U.N. investigation of itself came out with findings that the Director of Peacekeeping did not pass certain messages General Delaire sent to New 

York on to the Security Council, and that Director of Peacekeeping 

is, today, the Secretary-General of the U.N. 

Two, I think when I was Assistant Secretary of State for international organizations I dealt with the whole U.N. family. It is a 

fact that there are specialized agencies with a high degree of autonomy, some more than others. But as we saw with the head of 

the refugees organization being fired for repeated sexual harassment, they are not immune from some management in New York. 

Again, the member states should be more vigorous, but it was 

the Secretary-General who asked the gentleman to resign in this 

case. 

On the Oil-for-Food Program, there are difficulties, unquestionably, in the conflicting policies——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Before you go on to this next point——

Ambassador WILLIAMSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You do have to differentiate between when 

the United Nations acts to eliminate this person who had that sexual abuse and the fact that they knew about it beforehand and 

didn’t act until other people made it public. 

Ambassador WILLIAMSON. Right. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Even now, one of the things that we are talking about is the fact that there were audits that were done of Oilfor-Food that the United Nations’ leadership was trying to keep 

within the body and not even let the members know about it. 

Ambassador WILLIAMSON. Right. Congressman Rohrabacher, as I 

went through that, it was going to be my second point, which I 

think is important. 

There is no question a number of states made various policy decisions, which seem more-or-less wise in retrospect, but it was the 

Secretary-General who picked Mr. Sevan to run the program. 

It was Mr. Sevan, one of the Secretary-General’s closest associates, who established the bureaucracy that allowed what appears 

to be a pattern of sweetheart deals, kickbacks and other things 

that eroded the program. 

I am sympathetic and supportive of the view that member states 

fail their responsibility, but it is not solely the member states. Furthermore, I think when we talk about member states, and I think 

this is something the Committee should reflect on, the United 

States is equal in all ways to the three member states who have 

a population smaller than can fit in the MCI Center. That is a 

structural issue. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

37

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today’s Financial Times

contains an article, ‘‘White House Quiet As Darfur Killing Goes 

On,’’ and I recently returned from Darfur, Sudan. I saw the evidence, the genocide, talked to the victims and saw cities like Tinay, 

Sudan, which have been obliterated by the bombing. 

What perplexes me is that as the United States, as this Administration makes a finding of genocide, as we did in Congress and 

tried to push the Security Council to action and as this is pointed 

out, still the story in the Financial Times is ‘‘White House Quiet,’’ 

not ‘‘U.N. Takes a Pass at the Question of Genocide,’’ which the 

U.N. was asked to do an assessment and, of course, with its Commission on Inquiry it neatly ducked the question. 

The headline does not read, ‘‘China Blocks Action at the Security 

Council in Order to Avoid Crimping Their Weapons Sales or Their 

Receipt of Oil,’’ nor does it mention Russia’s efforts to do so. 

So to me it seems very easy to blame the United States, when 

the United States is the only actor that I see on the world’s stage 

right now pushing for a resolution in Sudan. 

I was going to ask Ambassador Kirkpatrick about this, this phenomenon, which I have had a hard time understanding. As we 

tried to rally some support to get the United Nations to speak out 

about Darfur, Sudan and to get at least the Commission on Inquiry 

to come out with a decision that indicates genocide so that the U.N. 

will act, and I have that question. 

Is this body so dysfunctional that even in the face of another 

genocide, 10 years after Rwanda, it cannot bring itself to call a 

genocide a genocide, because it might force some of the member 

states to face the truth? 

Ambassador KIRKPATRICK. I think the answer may be yes, frankly. Let me just say, I hope that is wrong. Two years ago when I 

was chairing the Human Rights Commission delegation, United 

States delegation, I arrived in Geneva on the night that a report 

was being presented by the special rapporteur of the Human 

Rights Commission on Sudan. He had just about half finished his 

report when I arrived. It was very clear, very quickly to me, that 

France was opposing. 

The issue was whether the special rapporteur should be appointed for another term. France was clearly opposing it. Germany 

seemed to be supporting it. The rapporteur was saying that he 

thought it was a matter of life and death, not that he be returned 

at all, but that another rapporteur even be appointed or be doubled 

moreover, because the situation was worse and having a 

rapporteur on the spot did seem to slow down the destruction and 

murder that was underway. 

I found this nauseating, if I may say so, just revolting that not 

only the French were opposing the reappointment of the 

rapporteur, but that several other countries, who were associated 

with them and not taking as active a role as France was in opposing it, but still in all joining France in opposing it. 

Now, we did, in fact, end by getting another rapporteur appointed that year, but it was difficult, very, very, very difficult. 

I have to say that any time I say I don’t believe we should ever 

leave the U.N. and I don’t believe we should diminish an instituVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:52 Oct 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\031505\20055.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
38

tion in the U.N., that I don’t really believe that. I led the U.S. decision, frankly, to withdraw from UNESCO, because I became so revolted by the level of corruption in UNESCO. This was when—I 

have forgotten his name now suddenly—the Governor General of 

UNESCO was a well-known major crook in Paris. He was a major 

crook in Paris. He had two top floors of the UNESCO building as 

his personal headquarters, his personal living quarters and he had 

six Mercedes. Embo. This was Mr. Embo. 

He was incredible and he was running an operation that 15 

months after the French police—the French police are quite good 

I might say, they are effective people—and the French police had 

identified and raided a group, a band, if you will, of spies, Soviet 

spies, who were engaged in technology espionage, industrial espionage. They had arrested 15–25 of these spies and they had said to 

Embo that they should all be deported. They should all be deported 

out of France and the French Government had actually given such 

an order, but 15 months later, they were still there. 

That was just one of many, many kinds of examples of corruption, that and worse, that led me finally, personally, to the decision 

that I thought we ought to withdraw from UNESCO and I recommended it to President Reagan and President Reagan decided. 

As a matter of fact, there were people who wanted to withdraw 

as soon as President Reagan was inaugurated. They wanted to 

withdraw from UNESCO, which already had a very bad reputation. 

But I did conclude, I said let us see if we can improve it. You 

know, let us see if we can have an impact. Give me a year. And 

I concluded that I couldn’t have an impact. Nobody I was associated with could have an impact. And I concluded that I recommend 

to President Reagan that we should withdraw from UNESCO and 

President Reagan, there were a lot of people besides me who were 

involved in that, but the whole Reagan Cabinet virtually was involved in it and I certainly was involved in it. 

But I think that was the right decision. Mrs. Thatcher decided 

to join us and the Danes also joined us in withdrawing from 

UNESCO. 

I think that was a warranted decision and I also supported the 

U.S. decision to reenter UNESCO 2 years ago or 1 year ago and 

I think that there is today a very serious, competent Japanese Governor General, who is doing his very best to do a very good job in 

UNESCO, moving it back under, sort of, and pursuing some of the 

goals that UNESCO initially had. 

I really think we have to stay flexible in some of these issues, 

but I don’t know if we stay in forever just pouring good money after 

bad, but I think that we ought to be flexible. When we can achieve 

a goal, we ought to try to achieve it. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. McCotter. 

Mr. MCCOTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to our witnesses for their service to our country. 

We heard earlier about the New York Knickerbockers and how 

if they performed badly you can’t blame the stadium. It kind of reminded me of the Peter Sellers movie, The Pink Panther, where a 

man is checking into a hotel and he looks at the innkeeper and he 

says, ‘‘Does your dog bite?’’ The man says, ‘‘No.’’ So the guest 

reaches down to pet the dog and the dog bites his hand. He looks 

39

back at the innkeeper and said, ‘‘I thought you told me your dog 

didn’t bite?’’ He said, ‘‘He doesn’t, but that is not my dog.’’

In the end, it doesn’t matter who is biting your hand, be it the 

sovereign states or the U.N. bureaucracy itself. Most American taxpayers believe that their hands are being bitten by the very people 

that our hands feed, and to hear talk about strengthening this organization strikes me as particularly odd. 

It strikes me as odd because I don’t know who tries to give more 

power to a broken lamp. At the U.N., they have to deal internally 

with their reform. 

We do not control the world. We do not control the U.N., but we 

do control the purse strings of the American taxpayers, which I 

would think would be a great inducement for the people at the 

U.N. to reform themselves and then after a trial period, they can 

come back to us and tell us what they did. 

I am very afraid to hear about people saying that we should 

strengthen a dysfunctional organization, because as a parent, my 

view is that when you reward bad behavior, you get more bad behavior. If you reward corruption by strengthening it, you will therefore reinforce corruption. There will be no impetus to reform. At 

present, many people believe that the attempts of the U.N. are simply cosmetic endeavors to try to get them past this, to ride out the 

storm of the Oil-for-Food scandal. I would hate to see us buy into 

that. 

I think we need to take concrete action to force them to reform 

internally. We should not even talk of strengthening an organization that appears not to be able to control itself or manage itself, 

let alone police itself. 

I think we should wait and see what they do. It is akin to a 

drunken sailor. You can’t make the drunken sailor better, but you 

don’t give him any money. You let him hit rock bottom and see if 

he cleans himself up. 

Well right now I have seen no evidence that they are prepared 

to do that, and as I said in this Committee before, I came from 

Wayne County, Michigan and I know machine politics when I see 

it. 

Everything the U.N. is doing now, as I said in my earlier remarks, reminds me of a global Tammany Hall. You get your brutal, 

your honest graft and if you get caught, you defend, defend, defend, 

defend, obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate and then hope that the 

press loses interest and the public loses interest and you go right 

back to your honest graft. 

I think the U.N. needs to show us more. I do agree with what 

our Ambassadors have said, that the U.N. has the highest lofty 

purposes in the world, but until they put their morality where their 

mouth is, it is very difficult to have the American taxpayers put 

any more money where their mouth is, especially when their mouth 

is generally aimed at the United States. 

Further, I do agree with what I think one of our colleagues referenced, is that I worry about the encroaching upon the United 

States sovereignty by this international organization. 

I reference particularly Mr. Annan’s behavior during the United 

States’ elections, in which he injected himself—and I don’t know if 

he is an international lawyer or not—to declaim that the United 

40

States’ invasion of Iraq was illegal, yet I don’t see him citing any 

precedence. 

I viewed that as an act, as a sovereign citizen of the United 

States, I viewed that as an encroachment upon my sovereignty and 

those of my fellow citizens. 

I would like to see reforms aimed at curbing that sort of behavior, which is why, finally, I would just like to point out that I am 

very concerned, too, with the attitude that we should strengthen 

the United Nations to the point where we will only be protected by 

a sole Security Council vote, because if we do that, as was suggested, you will have one sole Security Council vote standing between the United States sovereignty and U.N. supremacy. 

I do not support that proposition. The U.N. must start living up 

to the goals it professes for us and for itself before we continue to 

pour more money in it. 

I was just wondering in the time left if you could tell me what 

specific reforms can happen internally and whether or not the 

United States purse strings can help spur those reforms? 

Chairman HYDE. The Chair would like to intervene and suggest 

we are long past the time we were pledged to adjourn. I would ask 

our two remaining witnesses, who have done a marvelous job and 

made a great contribution to this important issue—and this is the 

beginning of the beginning on this—if we might write you questions that we didn’t get a chance to ask and you might consider answering them for us. 

Would that be possible? The Chair notes an affirmative nod of 

the head by both witnesses. 

I apologize to the Members who did not get a chance to ask questions, but——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman HYDE [continuing]. There is going to be a vote imminently. 

Yes, ma’am? 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. But you don’t know how scintillating, how intellectually stimulating our questions would have been. 

Chairman HYDE. I have an idea and you can only stand so much 

emotion. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I just want to especially thank, Mr. Chairman, Ambassador Kirkpatrick for the wonderful work that she did 

during her stint as our U.S. Ambassador, as well as Ambassador 

Williamson, but for her remarkable work on Cuba policy and furthering the cause of democracy and freedom to that enslaved nation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. Of course Rich Williamson similarly 

deserves accolades. 

Thank you both very much. 

The Committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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