I
107TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 938
To enhance the capability of the United Nations to rapidly respond to
emerging crises.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 8, 2001
Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself, Mr. HOUGHTON, Mr. LEWIS of Georgia, Ms.
PELOSI, Mr. FRANK, and Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on International Rela-
tions
A BILL
To enhance the capability of the United Nations to rapidly
respond to emerging crises.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘United Nations Rapid
Deployment Act of 2001’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) The December 1999 United Nations ‘‘Re-
port on the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of
the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in
Rwanda’’ indicates that in April 1994, the United
Nations Security Council failed to deploy 5,500
United Nations peacekeepers to Rwanda within two
weeks of the initial violence, thereby allowing the
conflict to escalate. The six-month estimated cost of
the deployment would have been $115,000,000. In-
stead, the genocide consumed 800,000 lives along
with $2,000,000,000 in humanitarian aid.
(2) The April 2000 report of the United Na-
tions Secretary General, ‘‘We the Peoples, The Role
of the United Nations in the 21st Century’’, states
that only member nations of the United Nations can
fix the structural weakness of United Nations peace
operations. The report compares the current system
for launching peacekeeping operations to a volunteer
fire department that has to find fire engines and the
funds to run them before starting to douse any
flames. The present United Nations system relies al-
most entirely on last minute, ad hoc arrangements
that guarantee delay, with respect to the provision
of civilian personnel even more so than military per-
sonnel. Availability and readiness of forces is very
unpredictable and constraints on resources preclude
rapid deployment.
(3) In August 2000, the specially-appointed
panel on United Nations Peace Operations issued its
findings. Known as the ‘‘Brahimi Report’’ (A/55/
305; S/2000/809), the report concludes that ‘‘few of
the basic building blocks are in place for the United
Nations to rapidly acquire and deploy the human
and material resources required to mount any com-
plex peace operation in the future’’. These building
blocks include a standing police corps, a reserve
corps of mission leadership, a sufficient stockpile of
equipment, and arrangements for recruitment of ci-
vilian personnel. Furthermore, the report encourages
member nations to enter partnerships with one an-
other in the context of the United Nations Stand-by
Arrangements System (UNSAS). These partnerships
would form the basis for Rapid Deployment Bri-
gades (RDBs), which would develop the operational
capabilities to fully deploy ‘‘traditional’’ peace-
keeping operations within 30 days of the adoption of
an authorizing Security Council resolution and to
fully deploy ‘‘complex’’ peacekeeping operations
within 90 days of the adoption of an authorizing Se-
curity Council resolution.
(4) Former United States Ambassador Richard
C. Holbrooke, speaking before the United Nations
Security Council on November 15, 2000, stated that
‘‘[u]nless we move decisively on meaningful peace-
keeping reform, those that threaten peacekeepers
across the globe may draw the conclusion that the
UN lacks the will, the cohesion and even the capa-
bility to perform its essential peacekeeping func-
tion’’.
(5) Both the nations of Europe and the United
States have recognized the value and need for rap-
idly deployable combat units in response to a full
spectrum of contingencies, including peacekeeping
and humanitarian operations, low-intensity conflicts,
and full-scale warfare. The European Union has pro-
posed forming a standing police force and rapid de-
ployment brigades as part of the European Defense
Force, and in the United States, the Department of
Defense is establishing interim brigade combat
teams as part of the overall Army transformation
strategy.
(6) The United States’ veto power in the
United Nations Security Council gives it the capac-
ity to halt the deployment of United Nations forces
if the deployment is not in the national interests of
the United States.