[Senate Hearing 110-734]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-734
U.N. PEACEKEEPING: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND
ORGANIZATIONS, DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 23, 2008
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BILL NELSON, Florida GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
Antony J. Blinken, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND
ORGANIZATIONS, DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
BILL NELSON, Florida, Chairman
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
(ii)
?
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator From Wyoming, prepared
statement...................................................... 11
Durch, Dr. Bill, senior associate, Henry L. Stimson Center,
Washington, DC................................................. 28
Prepared statement......................................... 51
Hook, Brian H., Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of
International Organizations, Department of State, Washington,
DC............................................................. 3
Prepared statement......................................... 3
Nelson, Hon. Bill, U.S. Senator From Florida, opening statement.. 1
Schaefer, Brett D., Jay Kingham Fellow in International
Regulatory Affairs, Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC........ 27
Prepared statement......................................... 41
Soderberg, Hon. Nancy, distinguished visiting scholar, University
of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL............................. 24
Prepared statement......................................... 38
Vitter, Hon. David, U.S. Senator from Louisiana, prepared
statement...................................................... 9
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Additional questions submitted for the record to Acting Assistant
Secretary of State Brian Hook by Senator Richard G. Lugar...... 56
(iii)
U.N. PEACEKEEPING: OPPORTUNITIES
AND CHALLENGES
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on International Operations
and
Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:05 p.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Nelson,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Bill Nelson, Vitter, and Barrasso.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Bill Nelson. The hearing of the Senate Foreign
Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and
Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights will now come to
order.
Today we are going to examine the United Nations
peacekeeping challenges and opportunities, and we are going to
have a focus on the role of the U.S. support for U.N.
peacekeeping.
We have two panels. On the first panel, Acting Assistant
Secretary Brian Hook, who heads the Department of State's
Bureau of International Organizational Affairs, will offer his
expertise and the administration's perspective on the current
U.S. role in U.N. peacekeeping.
And then in the second panel, we are going to be joined by
a group of experts. Mr. Brett Schaefer is the Jay Kingham
Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage
Foundation. Dr. Bill Durch is a senior associate at the Henry
Stimson Center and authored an analysis of the implementation
of the U.N.'s Brahimi Report on Peacekeeping Reforms. We will
also be joined by Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, who is currently
a distinguished visiting scholar at the University of North
Florida in Jacksonville. She served as Alternate Ambassador to
the U.N. during the Clinton administration and recently
published a book, ``The Prosperity Agenda: What the World Wants
From America and What We Need in Return.''
Today's hearing is particularly timely since this is the
60th anniversary of the founding of U.N. peacekeeping
operations. U.N. peacekeeping has developed over time, helping
to create conditions for peace, conditions for stability in
countries that are torn by conflict. And there have been a
total of 63 U.N. peacekeeping operations since 1948. Today
there are 17 ongoing. And over the past 10 years, the number of
U.N. peacekeepers deployed around the world has increased
almost fivefold, to over 110,000, military and civilian,
serving in the field today.
Now, the U.N. Security Council has mandated several new
missions now in Chad, Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Haiti,
Timor-L'este, and Darfur, and all of those in the past 5 years
alone.
But the budget requests have not kept pace with the growth
in missions. For example, the President had requested $1.5
billion in the fiscal year 2009 budget to pay for our U.N.
peacekeeping bill, but we know that the cost of our
contribution to the U.N. peacekeeping in 2008 will be at least
$1.7 billion. So assuming a larger bill even in 2009, with the
demands on the mission in Darfur and other missions, these low
requests put us on a perpetual state of arrears in the United
Nations, making the operations difficult for the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations since we in the United States pay
almost 27 percent of its budget.
The significant increase in the U.N. peacekeeping missions
in recent years signals a growing confidence in the capacity of
the United Nations and a willingness by Member States,
especially the United States, to help solve conflicts by
international cooperation and global burden-sharing. However,
this rapid expansion has created significant political and
operational challenges for the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping
Operations in standing up U.N. operations.
In the aftermath of the U.N. experiences in Somalia and
Rwanda in the 1990s, the U.N.'s Brahimi Report, which offered
recommendations on improving the efficacy of U.N. peacekeeping
activities, concluded that U.N. peacekeepers can only be
deployed where there is a peace to keep. Yet, this month in
Darfur, eight peacekeepers were ambushed and killed by
Khartoum's government-backed militias, and the African Union-
United Nations peacekeeping force is now mired in problems,
including a drastic shortage of troops and necessary equipment.
And this is just on the eve of its 1-year renewal.
It is critical that the United Nations address the serious
problems of corruption and sexual misconduct by U.N.
peacekeepers. In 2007, there were approximately 127 reported
cases of sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers out of over
100,000 in the field. Now, that is an unacceptable number. We
must hold the United Nations to the highest standards of
accountability in investigating these abuses and making
systematic changes to prevent these crimes from occurring
again.
Yet, with all the challenges and difficulties, the
importance of U.N. peacekeeping to the U.S. national security
agenda is significant.
Did you have a statement for Senator Vitter?
Senator Barrasso. I do not, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Bill Nelson. All right. What we are going to do is
we are going to put our witness' written statement, Mr.
Secretary, in the record.
Senator Bill Nelson. What we will do is we will just get
right on into the questions. I am certainly accommodating to my
colleague if he would like to go first.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Go
ahead.
Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Secretary, the first two
peacekeeping missions deployed by the United Nations in the
Middle East in 1948 and then again in India and Pakistan in
1949 still operate today. Why is the United Nations keeping
these operations ongoing in these missions?
STATEMENT OF BRIAN H. HOOK, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU
OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Hook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, first of all, for
holding the hearing.
When I joined the Department and went into International
Organizations, I too--you know, when you start surveying the
peacekeeping operations and you see ones that have been on the
books since 1948 in the case of UNTSO in Palestine and UNMOGIP,
it is fairly unsettling when you see it. It is just hard to
imagine that we have had a presence there for that long.
In Palestine, we only have 153 military observers there,
and we hear from folks on the ground that it does provide a
stabilizing presence. We do look to the views of the people on
the ground there. I cannot imagine President Bashir would say
UNAMID is a stabilizing presence in Darfur, but in the case of
UNMOGIP and also in UNTSO, we hear that it is making a
difference.
In the case of India and Pakistan, it is there to observe
and report if there are any cease-fire violations. Its mandate
is going to come close to expiring when we can resolve the
problem of Kashmir. But it does help to keep the parties
honest. And some of these peacekeeping operations are tied to
political disagreements that go back for decades. But when the
parties on the ground say that it is making a difference, it is
helping--and they are not a lot of people--we think this may be
a small price to pay in light of the benefits that we hear that
it is helping dialogue, it is keeping the parties honest, so it
can be useful.
But I know that the optics of it are difficult because they
have been around. I mean, 1948, 1949--it is just amazing these
folks can argue over an issue for that long, but that is where
we are.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hook follows:]
Prepared Statement of Brian Hook, Acting Assistant Secretary for
International Organization Affairs, Department of State, Washington, DC
Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to address this
subcommittee today on the topic of our support for United Nations
peacekeeping operations and our efforts to help them become more
effective instruments to promote peace, stability, and reconciliation
in some of the world's most difficult conflicts. The administration
seeks to work in close partnership with Congress in addressing the many
challenges the United Nations peacekeeping operations face today. In
today's testimony, I will discuss trends in peacekeeping, the
challenges of peacekeeping, and the lessons we have learned from them,
and how our efforts to improve U.N. peacekeeping have led to
significant, hard-won successes in countries such as Haiti, Liberia,
and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I will also discuss the many
ongoing challenges that still hinder U.N. peacekeeping operations and
impede them from becoming fully effective, most prominently the UNAMID
operation in Darfur. But even when facing significant challenges, it is
clear that U.N. peacekeeping operations not only contribute to the
prevention or mitigation of conflict and the resulting protection of
civilians, but also provide good value for the U.S. in sharing the
burden to respond to peacekeeping needs and requirements around the
globe.
United Nations peacekeeping serves the United States national
interest. While we have a stake in the outcome of events in virtually
every region of the world, there are many conflicts in which our direct
military intervention would not be appropriate or effective. United
Nations peacekeeping provides an important alternative. U.N.
peacekeeping missions engage and commit the international community to
seek solutions to these conflicts. By partnering with the U.N., we
share the burden and the costs of peacekeeping missions, even as we
continue to use our leadership in the Security Council to shape their
mandates, and to strive to make them as effective as possible.
In recent years, peacekeeping operations have expanded rapidly in
size, complexity and scope. Since 2001, the number of authorized
peacekeepers has nearly tripled, from under 40,000 to almost 120,000,
as the Security Council has authorized large missions in Liberia, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Cote d'Ivoire, Lebanon, Southern
Sudan, and Darfur. Peacekeeping operations have taken on complex new
tasks. Traditional peacekeeping operations, such as the longstanding
operations in Cyprus or Kashmir, consist mainly of blue-helmeted troops
monitoring a green line or buffer zone between the parties to a
conflict. In another example, part of the mandate of the UNIFIL
operation in Lebanon, established in 2006 by resolution 1701, is to
play such a role, but its mandate also includes other activities like
facilitating humanitarian access, and assisting the Government of
Lebanon to extend its control over its territory and to secure its
borders.
In recent years, peacekeeping operations have tended to become more
complex. In operations in Liberia, Haiti, East Timor, Cote d'Ivoire and
the Democratic Republic of Congo, cease-fire implementation has been
only the first of a peacekeeping mission's many tasks, which may also
include: Facilitating the demobilization, disarmament, and
reintegration of ex-combatants; providing logistical and security
support to elections; helping a post-conflict government reform its
security sector and other governing institutions; even supporting
operations by the national security forces against recalcitrant militia
factions or criminal gangs. U.N. peacekeeping operations are
increasingly multidimensional, integrating military and police
components with expert civilian technical assistance. This dramatic
expansion in peacekeeping efforts has presented new opportunities for
the international community to assist local populations as they end
dangerous conflicts, promote reconstruction, and build lasting
reconciliation. However, we must also acknowledge that this expansion
has resulted in unprecedented demands on the U.N. Secretariat, on troop
contributing countries, and on the Member States that share the cost of
peacekeeping assessments.
We have learned some important lessons from our experience with
peacekeeping. One lesson is simply that peacekeeping is challenging.
Peacekeepers have always had to contend with shattered infrastructure
and hostile operating environments. The new multidimensional operations
have additional layers of complexity. For such operations to be
successful, many military, police, and civilian components must work
together effectively--in particular, the parties to a conflict must
learn to cooperate with the mission, however much they mistrust each
other. In Sudan's Darfur province, the environment is not permissive
and some of the parties to the conflict have not cooperated with the
multidimensional operation UNAMID. This, and UNAMID's difficulty in
coordinating among its own components have caused the operation to
struggle.
Another lesson we have learned is that successful peacekeeping and
reconciliation can take a long time and require a sustained commitment;
setbacks are to be expected. The peacekeeping operation that began
almost a decade ago in the Democratic Republic of Congo monitored an
uneasy cease-fire among a plethora of foreign troops and domestic
militias. Since that time, U.N. peacekeepers have assisted with the
democratic election of the current government, the demobilization of
ex-combatants, and the stabilization of much of the country. Even after
so many years, however, the peacekeepers still must contend with armed
groups that threaten to renew conflict in the eastern portion of the
country.
By far the most important lesson is that peacekeeping can be an
effective tool to help war-shattered countries make the transition from
war to peace; peacekeeping can help traumatized people to rebuild their
governing institutions, economies, and futures. Liberia stands as an
example of successful multidimensional peacekeeping. The conflict in
Liberia caused devastation and chaos--a nonfunctioning government,
shattered infrastructure, and no trace of law and order. The UNMIL
peacekeeping operation and its predecessors provided a framework of
security and technical assistance as Liberians rebuilt their country
and their government from the ground up. Today, UNMIL continues to
assist the democratically elected government of President Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf to restore law and order and rebuild Liberia. Peacekeeping has
also had successes in Haiti, where a multidimensional peacekeeping
force has broken criminal gangs and helped train and mentor Haitian
security forces, providing a security umbrella for the political
process. While Haiti's political impasse is far from resolved, the
dispute is now conducted peacefully through the political system. In
Timor-Leste and later in Kosovo, peacekeeping has sheltered newly
independent countries while they built their own governing institutions
from the ground up.
Peacekeeping may be difficult and fraught with challenges, but it
is well worth our efforts to collaborate with our U.N. partners to make
peacekeeping operations more effective and to make them work better.
Many people in countries such as Haiti, Liberia, Kosovo, Timor-Leste
and Congo, who once feared the scourge of war, can now look forward to
rebuilding their future. They surely would agree that it is worth the
international community's efforts to make peacekeeping work.
While we can be pleased with the many successes of U.N.
peacekeeping, we also must recognize and learn from the challenges that
still hinder some peacekeeping operations, most notably the UNAMID
operation in Darfur. UNAMID's difficulties in reaching full deployment
and operational effectiveness are well-known, and exemplify many of the
constraints facing the United Nations and African Union during this
period of extraordinary growth in peacekeeping. Understanding these
problems is the first step to working with our partners to improve the
effectiveness of UNAMID and of other important peacekeeping operations.
One important constraint is cost. U.N. peacekeeping assessments
have increased as peacekeeping has expanded, and all Member States are
feeling the strain. Our payments for U.N. peacekeeping assessments have
escalated from $1.022 billion in FY06, to $1.4 billion in FY07. We
estimate our FY08 payments could reach $2 billion. Assessments for
UNAMID, a massive operation with major startup costs this year, will be
a significant proportion of those costs. We are grateful for the
supplemental funding that will enable us to make payments for UNAMID
assessments during fiscal year 2008 and 2009.
Force generation has become another significant constraint to U.N.
peacekeeping. With record numbers of blue-helmeted personnel already in
the field, troop contributors are struggling to meet the requirements
for large new multidimensional operations such as UNAMID. Certain
specialized units are in short supply. To date, no troop contributing
country has come forward with pledges for force multipliers such as the
helicopter units that UNAMID needs to be fully effective. Pledges for
other key units, including heavy transportation, engineering units and
especially formed police units have so far fallen short of UNAMID's
needs. We are supporting the U.N.'s effort to generate troop
contributions for UNAMID with our own diplomatic outreach to countries
that might pledge these important missing assets. We have active
discussions underway with potential troop and formed police unit
contributors as we explore options for U.S. assistance to upgrade their
equipment so it meets UNAMID's requirements.
Many countries that are willing to participate in UNAMID need
assistance in training and equipping their troops to a level that meets
U.N. operational standards, with transporting their troops to the area
of operations, or with sustaining their troops in the field once they
arrive. The United States has extensive bilateral assistance programs
to train and equip peacekeeping troops, especially African ones. We
administer this assistance through programs such as the Global
Peacekeeping Operations Initiative and its African Contingency
Operations Training and Assistance program, commonly referred to as
GPOI and ACOTA. Earlier this year President Bush announced a $100
million plan to provide equipment and training to an additional 6,000
African soldiers for deployment to UNAMID. Since then we have initiated
``train and equip'' programs for three infantry battalions from Rwanda,
and one infantry battalion each from Ethiopia and Senegal. When these
programs are completed in August, we will launch a new round of train-
and-equip programs for UNAMID participants, with troops from Burkina
Faso and Tanzania. We continue to provide substantial bilateral
military assistance to countries who contribute peacekeeping troops to
UNAMID and to other peacekeeping operations worldwide. Over the past 5
years, the United States has spent over $800 million in such direct and
indirect support to multilateral peacekeeping.
UNAMID's structure--to date unique--as a hybrid United Nations-
African Union operation has proven to be another constraint. Before the
U.N. Security Council established UNAMID, the African Union
multinational force AMIS had deployed to Darfur, with significant
assistance from the U.S. and other donors. In July 2007, the U.N.
Security Council adopted Resolution 1769 to establish UNAMID.
Resolution 1769 specified that UNAMID was to incorporate the AMIS
troops, and deploy certain specialized logistical, engineering, and
transportation units that would lay the groundwork for deployment of a
much larger UNAMID force prior to the final transfer of authority from
the AU to the U.N. on December 31, 2007. However, the dual command
structure proved cumbersome and difficult to manage in practice;
furthermore, most of the specialized units were not ready to deploy in
the timeframe specified. Sudan's membership in the African Union gave
it leverage over the terms of the hybrid operation's deployment. Sudan
used this leverage to insist that UNAMID be a predominantly African
operation and that the African units deploy first, even when
specialized and urgently needed non-African units were ready to deploy.
This hybrid structure clearly impacted UNAMID's effectiveness.
Increasingly, peacekeeping is constrained by the limited capacity
of the U.N. Secretariat, which further complicates the problem of
generating forces and deploying forces quickly to peacekeeping
operation in the field. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations,
which has traditionally coordinated peacekeeping has simply been unable
to expand its personnel, planning, and logistical capacity quickly
enough to keep pace with the rapid growth in peacekeeping. We strongly
support the ongoing restructuring of the U.N. Secretariat, including
the establishment of a new ``Department of Field Support'' to help
support peacekeeping, and authorization of over 400 new staff positions
related to peacekeeping at U.N. Headquarters. The effort to reform the
U.N. Secretariat and increase its capacity to deploy complex
peacekeeping operations is still a work in progress. It will take time
for the Secretariat to incorporate the new personnel and procedures. In
the meantime, the United States will support force generation through
its diplomatic efforts to rally troop contributors, and its assistance
to train and equip them to an effective standard.
One additional constraint on effective U.N. peacekeeping bears
particular mention, and we must continue to take the necessary measures
to address and prevent it. Sexual exploitation and abuse of women and
children is prevalent in far too many conflict situations in which U.N.
peacekeepers are present. In most of these cases, regular troops,
militias, and rebels are the perpetrators and use rape as a weapon of
war. In some particularly shocking cases, U.N. peacekeepers are accused
of perpetrating sexual exploitation and abuse, preying on the very
people they are to protect. The United States has led international
efforts to eliminate sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. staff. With
our strong encouragement, the United Nations has instituted a wide
range of preventive and disciplinary actions to carry out its policy of
zero tolerance toward sexual exploitation and abuse by military,
police, or civilian personnel. Sexual abuse is unacceptable; especially
when the protectors become the perpetrators.
One of the greatest challenges for effective peacekeeping is
matching a mandate, its authorities, and its associated rules of
engagement with the requirements in theater. Empowering a mission to
respond appropriately and effectively to the conflict situation is
critical. The mandate is potentially either the greatest constraint or
the greatest contributor to an operation's success. The United States
uses its leadership in the U.N. Security Council to shape peacekeeping
mandates that are clear, credible, and defined to what is achievable.
That said, there is no simple, one-size-fits-all formula for designing
effective peacekeeping mandates.
As a case in point, we can look to the three peacekeeping
operations established to deal with the interrelated conflicts in Chad
and Sudan. The MINURCAT operation in Chad is primarily a police
operation, charged with protecting vulnerable civilians who have fled
from the subregion's conflicts; troops from the European Union
operation EUFOR provide force protection to MINURCAT, and secure a safe
haven in eastern Chad. MINURCAT has no mandate to resolve the
underlying conflicts in the region, but only to mitigate their effects.
As MINURCAT deploys, it is on track to succeed in its limited, but
vital goal of protecting vulnerable civilians. In Sudan, UNMIS is a
complex multidimensional operation, charged with facilitating the
implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two
decades of civil war between the north and the south. The peace process
is fragile. We can expect implementation of the Agreement's many
provisions to be slow, and often contentious. Fostering reconciliation
will be a long-term effort. UNMIS has a distant goal, but with the
continued support of the international community and of the parties
themselves, it is achievable. The third operation is UNAMID, in Sudan's
troubled Darfur province. Like MINURCAT, UNAMID has a mandate to
protect vulnerable civilians, and, like UNMIS, it has a mandate to
support a peace process. However, Darfur today is deeply factionalized
and the Government of Sudan has not yet demonstrated its willingness to
cooperate with UNAMID or to facilitate its objectives. These factors
clearly complicate UNAMID's ability to carry out its mandate. Ideally,
the peacekeeping operation would deploy only after a peace process is
well underway, and all of the parties view the peacekeepers as welcomed
partners in implementing a settlement. However, the brutal conflict in
Darfur has caused appalling human suffering on a truly massive scale,
with new fighting and displacements occurring regularly. Suffering
people in such a desperate situation cannot wait for a political
process to mature. For this reason, we support a two-pronged policy for
Darfur--to facilitate UNAMID's rapid deployment, while simultaneously
promoting the peace process.
Mr. Chairman, in my testimony, I have been able to touch only
briefly on the many important dimensions of U.N. peacekeeping. These
issues could be usefully explored in much greater depth. I stand ready
to respond in detail to any further questions from the committee.
Senator Bill Nelson. Look at a place like Somalia. Do you
think we are going to get around to a U.N. peacekeeping force
there?
Mr. Hook. You would have to have the right conditions, sir.
The Security Council has, on three separate occasions,
expressed an interest in looking at follow-on operations to
AMISOM. In the case of Somalia, there are not many good
options. It is sort of the least bad option. In light of the
fighting, in light of the unrest that has been going on there
since the overthrow of the regime, the Security Council is
interested in looking at contingency operations. What would
they look like?
The Secretary General a few months ago came back with some
options. The Security Council did not think they were in enough
detail, and so they asked him to go back to the drawing board
and come back with more information. We were expecting that
report in mid-July. We still do not have it. I think probably
the smartest thing to do is wait to see what we get back from
the Secretary General and look at what--you know, he has a
special representative there, SRSG Abdullah. AMISOM is there.
I was involved--I negotiated the resolution in New York
that authorized AMISOM. It is an issue of particular interest
to me, and it is also a very sensitive issue in light of what
happened, you know, the deaths of America soldiers in
Mogadishu. So all of these things are very much in our minds as
we look at options.
We have been very pleased with the--I think you may have
seen the Security Council passed a resolution on piracy to try
to combat it. We did that. That was a U.S. resolution. Canada
has since announced that it is going to be sending some
battleships into the waters. We have a presence there. There
may be a way to take--we are seeing a little bit of an
incremental approach. You know, address piracy, you know, make
some gains there. Right? And convey a presence there that does
not put people in harm's way. But I think we need to be very,
very careful and we need to be very smart about it.
We will have to wait and see what the Secretary General
comes back with, and then I think we look forward to just
talking about it with you and your staff and seeing what sort
of ideas come back.
Senator Bill Nelson. The military force that is there,
other than the Ethiopian troops, are what?
Mr. Hook. It is an AU force. It is the AMISOM, African
Union mission in Somalia. It is a tough mandate. It is a very,
very, very difficult environment to operate in.
Senator Bill Nelson. It is kind of a no man's land. Is it
not?
Mr. Hook. Well said, yes. It is a no man's land.
The council is focused on it. I do not think it is
suffering from inattention, and I think the fact that the
council has three times gone to the Secretary General and asked
for more information reflects the kind of commitment to make
some progress there. And the fact that they passed that
resolution on piracy was a real good step, but as I said, there
are no good options.
Senator Bill Nelson. Well, now, one area that there has
been some progress is the U.N. mission in Haiti.
Mr. Hook. Yes.
Senator Bill Nelson. How long do you think the U.N.
peacekeeping mission will stay there--the forces?
Mr. Hook. We have a long-term commitment to Haiti.
Yesterday I placed a call to Mr. Annabi, who is heading
MINUSTAH, to get a report from him. He was in Geneva, and so I
spoke with his deputy. They are going to be filing a report. I
think their renewal is up in October. They are finishing their
report for the Security Council. They will probably have it
done in September. They are going to ask for a 1-year renewal.
You may remember the council was doing 6-month renewals on
Haiti. We pushed to have a 1-year renewal and we got it. That
shows a long-term commitment there.
I think MINUSTAH has been a success story. I think it has
transitioned from a military force to really doing a lot with
police. And we are seeing certainly improvements.
The United States has 50 police officers serving with
MINUSTAH, and we are trying to root out corruption. I think you
know the $20 million that we gave to focus on Cite Soleil led
to 1,000 arrests. When I talked with the deputy head of
MINUSTAH yesterday, he said that made a real difference. And in
April, when we had the food riots, I think if you would have
asked people if there was rioting, where would it be--sort of
the flash point, it would probably have been in Cite Soleil.
There were no riots. So our aid there and I think our focus and
our commitment has made a difference.
The kidnappings are down.
I know that the absence of a Prime Minister and a
functioning government--when I spoke to the MINUSTAH deputy
yesterday, he said it is having a severe negative impact. We
are very hopeful that they get out of this position and get a
prime minister named and have a functioning government.
Senator Bill Nelson. Are we going to be able to still make
ends meet with the rising cost of fuel?
Mr. Hook. Well, this is part of the difficulty of the
budgeting. There are so many variables that go into this, and
some of these factors are outside of our control in terms of
parties to the conflict, whether they decide to become more
belligerent and adversarial, rising costs of food, the weak
dollar, the cost of oil. There are a number of factors that
play into this.
But I know that we are very committed to Haiti and we think
we are making a lot of progress there. And I think we should
continue. MINUSTAH is trying to further democracy. It is trying
to create the kind of conditions that we are going to see
better economic growth. It is helping on the humanitarian
assistance side. It played a role during the food riots that we
saw there.
When I was up in New York at the U.S. mission, Hedi Annabi
was the number two in DPKO. So I worked a lot with him, and
from all accounts, he is doing a good job in Haiti.
Senator Bill Nelson. The Senator from Wyoming?
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have
a statement, if I could just include it in the record.
Senator Bill Nelson. Without objection, as will be the
statement by the Senator from Louisiana.
[The prepared statements of Senator Vitter and Senator
Barrasso follow:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. David Vitter, U.S. Senator From Louisiana
Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this important hearing today.
The issue of U.N. reform, and the need to demand greater
accountability and stronger results from an organization to which we
provide billions in funding, resources, and personnel, is one of great
importance. As ranking member of this subcommittee, I have repeatedly
called for greater American oversight of the U.N.'s functions. This is
particularly true regarding the U.N.'s peacekeeping apparatus, which
has a separate budget, includes two full departments, and involves tens
of thousands of personnel. I welcome the chance to shed some light on
the peacekeeping process and examine whether the latest round of
reforms have decreased the number of instances of waste, fraud, and
abuse, or if we need to further reassess our policy toward U.N.
peacekeeping.
Sadly, the end of the cold war almost 20 years ago has not brought
about the peace and prosperity for all countries as we might have
hoped. Today, there are too many countries in distress or in conflict
or on the edge of failing. And, as we have learned, failed states are a
threat to our own national security as well as to regional and global
stability. The knee-jerk response to troubled states by the U.N. and
the international community has increasingly been to send in U.N.
peacekeepers. As a result, millions of people now rely on the U.N. and
its peacekeepers to provide the stability and support necessary to put
their countries on the road to peace and recovery. The United States
itself has invested significant resources and funding in U.N.
peacekeeping. Therefore, it is our responsibility to ensure that
American time, energy, and resources are utilized in the most effective
and appropriate manner possible.
The U.N. has 17 active peacekeeping operations worldwide, located
in every part of the world including Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle
East, and the Caribbean. These operations involve 88,000 uniformed
personnel representing 117 countries, plus an additional 19,500 U.N.
volunteers and civilian personnel.
The U.N. budget for peacekeeping operations, which is a separate
funding stream from the U.N.'s regular budget, is $7.4 billion for the
upcoming fiscal year. This is a 10-percent increase over the preceding
fiscal year. The United States contributes over a quarter of this
budget, on top of the 22 percent of the regular U.N. budget that it
contributes annually.
All of these numbers are just a narrow snapshot of the U.N.'s
peacekeeping operations, but they do give a good sense of the U.N.'s
peacekeeping activities' growing significance. In fact, since the end
of the cold war, the number of U.N. peacekeeping missions has increased
markedly. For example, from 1945 to 1990, the U.N. Security Council
established only 18 peacekeeping operations. Yet, from 1990 to today,
the Security Council has approved 40 new operations, and half of all
current operations have been approved since 2000.
The scope and responsibilities of these missions have increased
dramatically as well. In the post-cold-war environment, peacekeepers
are more likely to be involved in intrastate conflicts and civil wars,
where lines of allegiance are blurred and they are not always
guaranteed to have the acquiescence of all parties involved. This has
also resulted in an increase in attacks on the peacekeepers. And, even
as the environment becomes increasingly hostile to the U.N.'s
peacekeepers, these soldiers find themselves responsible for more than
just simple border and cease-fire monitoring. In addition to their
traditional roles, peacekeepers are now also involved in military
intervention, nation-building, and civilian law enforcement.
It is important to examine the reasons behind this expansion, to
make certain that broadening U.N. peacekeepers' responsibilities and
increasing the size and number of operations is indeed the right
response to help those countries struggling with the challenges of the
post-cold-war environment. This is particularly true because, while the
nature and size of the challenges have changed, the structure
underpinning the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations has not
been properly or effectively restructured to meet the new demands and
challenges. The upshot is that the U.N.'s Department of Peacekeeping
Operations, struggling to keep up with its expanded mandate, has been
plagued with scandal within its contract and procurement departments
and within its operations on the ground.
The sheer volume of waste, fraud, and abuse in peacekeeping-related
procurement contracts is staggering. The U.N.'s Office of Internal
Oversight Services (OIOS), during a recent audit, found at least $265
million of $1 billion in contracts over a 6-year period was subject to
waste and abuse. By its own admission, this is just the minimum amount
tied up in corruption schemes and lost in wasteful practices.
On the ground, acts of sex exploitation and abuse (SEA) have been
repeatedly committed by peacekeepers against the very citizens they
have been sent to protect. Allegations and incidences of SEA, including
human trafficking, forced prostitution, and rape, committed by U.N.
personnel have occurred with increasing and disturbing regularity,
engulfing operations in Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Guinea,
Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.
In addition to engaging in acts of abuse and exploitation against
local populations, peacekeepers have been accused of selling back
confiscated weapons to rebels for gold.
I am very disturbed that it appears the U.N. is incapable of
addressing the abuses occurring through its peacekeeping operations.
After a 2006 OIOS audit of peacekeeping accounting found serious
instances of fraud and waste, the U.N. Department of Management, which
holds the procurement contract portfolio, and the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations adopted the majority of the 32 OIOS audit
recommendations. Yet an OIOS report released early in 2008 revealed
that the OIOS found that 44 percent of the total $1.4 billion value of
peacekeeping contracts was tied to corruption schemes.
Global outrage over sex-related abuses by peacekeepers in 2004
spurred the U.N. to announce a ``zero tolerance'' policy toward SEA, as
well as adopt stricter standards for peacekeeping units and their
contributing countries. After a 2005 report was released by the
Secretary General's special advisor on SEA, the U.N. General Assembly
moved to endorse many of the recommendations, some of which have since
been implemented. Yet despite this flurry of activity, just this past
May, Save the Children accused aid workers and peacekeepers in Ivory
Coast, Southern Sudan, and Haiti of sexually abusing young children in
war and disaster zones. Compounding this crime against the victims, the
perpetrators were rarely punished.
Discouragingly, it does not appear that bureaucrats at the U.N.
understand that abuse of any sort is unacceptable and must be dealt
with immediately, severely, and in a transparent and publically
accountable manner. Even the OIOS itself does not appear immune from
pressures to gloss over fraud and abuse found during audits and
investigations. After accusations in 2006 that peacekeepers in the
Congo were involved in a gold smuggling and weapons trafficking scheme
with Congolese militias, a lead OIOS investigator stated that his team
was removed from the investigation after they rebuffed attempts by
officials to influence the outcome. The BBC and Human Rights Watch have
since provided substantiating evidence that U.N. officials covered up
evidence of wrong-doing in the Congo.
And finally, just this past weekend, I read a very disturbing
report regarding the neutrality and objectivity of U.N. peacekeepers in
Lebanon as part of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
According to Fox News, during the prisoner exchange between the
terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. Peacekeepers were
photographed saluting the coffins of the returned bodies of terrorists,
as well as a large image of Imad Mughniyeh, a top-ranking Hezbollah
terrorist killed last February.
Peacekeepers, in this mission, are supposed to be neutral actors
put in place to form a buffer between Lebanon and Israel and to disarm
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon--the very terrorists they were seen
saluting. It is appalling that U.N. peacekeepers would honor murderers
and criminal terrorists. I am hardly reassured by the response provided
by the UNIFIL spokesperson regarding the incident, whose dismissive
remarks that the salute was simply military tradition only served to
underscore that the U.N. bureaucrats just do not get it: It is a very
big problem when soldiers serving under the auspices of the United
Nations honor terrorists and law breakers and when they break with
their position of neutrality.
I know that I do not speak only for myself when I say that I am
very concerned that American dollars are going to pay these individuals
and provide them with support when they clearly are not supportive of
the rule of law, their U.N. mandate, and certainly not the values and
principles of a free, peaceful, and democratic society. I am very
interested in hearing from our witness, Acting Assistant Secretary
Hook, about what the Department of State is doing to address this very
disturbing event.
And I am looking forward to hearing from all of the witnesses about
what they feel would be the best way to address the very serious
problems of abuse and fraud that persist within the U.N. peacekeeping
structure despite attempts by the U.N. to ``reform the system'' or
``police itself.''
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to look into
this very important matter.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. John Barrasso, U.S. Senator from Wyoming
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would also like to welcome the witnesses.
The United Nations' peacekeeping efforts are extensive and
demonstrate the international community's desire to prevent genocide,
ethnic cleansing, and other atrocities.
Despite the U.N.'s commendable and essential efforts, U.N.
peacekeeping operations often lack proper management practices,
properly trained and equipped personnel, and sufficient resources.
There are many issues that contribute to the U.N.'s failure with
peacekeeping efforts, and it is difficult to get nations with different
ideologies and prioritiees to agree.
While U.N. bureaucratic red tape contributes to its share of these
problems, it does not let Member States off the hook for failing to
work together to find effective solutions.
The United States has a significant role in contributing funds and
other resources for peacekeeping operations.
The U.S. should be a leader in the U.N., but Member States must be
more willing to implement needed reforms and contribute appropriate
funds that truly reflect their commitment to support peacekeeping
operations.
Congress should demand reforms, accountability, and effective
participation by Member States.
Without these changes, the U.N. will be unable to achieve its
objective to promote peaceful resolutions to conflicts.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. Chairman, since the topic is U.N.
peacekeeping opportunities and challenges, what I would like to
do, rather than to get into some of the specific points around
the world, just more of an overview, if I could, Mr. Hook.
When I look at the peacekeeping costs, I see them as being
kind of unevenly covered by different members of the United
Nations. I understand the importance of peacekeeping operations
and the role the United States plays in covering a significant
part of those costs. Do you believe that the costs of these
peacekeeping efforts really are fairly configured in how the
assessments are made? Do the rates that are assessed to each
country fairly reflect the ability of the Member States to
contribute to the peacekeeping operations? Are we getting a
fair deal at this point?
Mr. Hook. We pay an enormous amount, and this is the
problem I have seen in the United Nations broadly where the
United States and Japan together account for almost 40 percent
of the U.N. budget. We have 192 Member States and there ought
to be, I think, greater fairness in how these assessments are
made.
I think on peacekeeping, the formulas--our assessments are
very high. We are at $1.7 billion this year, and that is out of
a $7.1 billion total cost for peacekeeping. It is something
which I think broadly I would like to see more fairness in
assessments. I think we end up shouldering a very large burden
of those.
And I think as a consequence, it makes us a little more
vigilant about waste and fraud and profiteering and
mismanagement. I feel a fiduciary duty to the taxpayer to make
this work. It has been a lot of my frustration with UNAMID.
Congo is the largest and most expensive operation. UNAMID is
likely to overtake that. And if it does, as we were talking
about earlier, these peacekeeping missions can go on for
decades and decades. And I think it is very important, as part
of that fiduciary duty, to make sure that we have mandates that
are clear, that we have benchmarks for progress, and that when
those benchmarks are met, there is an opportunity to withdraw.
Sierra Leone is closed. We have a drawdown for Liberia that
is underway. We expect to draw down next year in Cote d'Ivoire.
As I was saying earlier, Haiti has moved from a military
mission to a peace mission. UNMEE is closed down, not through
any positive action of the United Nations, but because Eritrea
kicked out the peacekeepers along the border there.
Whenever we have these renewals that come up in the council
for mandates, I think it is imperative--and I have instructed
my staff to take a very, very hard look at these renewals to
make sure that if there is an opportunity to drawdown because
of benchmarks that are being met or because the conditions have
changed, then we ought to do that because we do pay a lot of
money in peacekeeping.
Senator Barrasso. I would also like to discuss the
effectiveness of U.N. reform. I agree with you that there ought
to be greater fairness in U.N. assessment payments and how to
accomplish it. If other Member States were really seeing the
financial consequences of their decisions, would you feel that
then they would be more likely to support the reforms you are
talking about in terms of the waste and the abuse within the
system? And then how do we accomplish that?
Mr. Hook. There may be a way to illustrate that. I would be
open to exploring that. If there is a way to demonstrate to
them the financial consequences, that may be a way to sort of
graphically demonstrate how we would like to see more fairness
in some of this pricing.
Senator Barrasso. Well, in the past, Congress has used its
authority to withhold funds from the United Nations in exchange
for needed reforms. What is your assessment of that? Has it
been successful? Is that something we need to give serious
consideration to now?
Mr. Hook. Well, we have seen the case when we do deploy
these missions, we have troops in the field. They need to get
paid. They need the logistical and administrative support.
The fact of the matter is our assessments are what they are
right now. And when we fall behind and when we are not making
our payments in terms of the assessments, it does have an
effect in the field at the missions, a lot of them that we care
about. And we need to somehow strike that balance there of
fairness, but then also not putting the troops that are in the
field, the peacekeeping operations--and in a case like
MINUSTAH, we have 50 police who are there helping with policing
there.
But I think that troops need to get paid. If they are out
in the field, they need the logistical and administrative
support to accomplish their mission. So that is one thing that
I am sort of sensitive to about if commitments have been made
and troops have been deployed, then we need to make sure that
they are getting what they need.
But I have been in this position now just for less than a
month, but it is an issue that I want to explore further and
see if we can make some progress on it.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Bill Nelson. Senator Vitter.
Senator Vitter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a number of
concerns on this topic, many of which are common to my
colleagues' concerns, and some of which many not yet have been
mentioned.
One issue is the importance of ensuring peacekeeping troops
always maintain proper impartiality. This has not always been
the case, and I am especially concerned about a few recent
instances. Probably the most dramatic, at least according to
media reports, was a recent instance when U.N. peacekeepers who
were part of the U.N. interim force in Lebanon saluted the
coffins of Hezbollah terrorists and saluted an image of a top
Hezbollah member killed in Damascus in February. What is your
reaction to that? What is the appropriate U.S. response to
that?
Mr. Hook. I saw the picture the day it was released, and I
thought it was appalling. UNIFIL's credibility depends on its
impartiality, and when you have pictures being sent around the
world of it saluting Hezbollah terrorists, that creates a real
problem for UNIFIL. When I saw it, I sent it around the
Department and made people aware of it. All we have is the
picture, but I was deeply troubled by it. I know that
Ambassador Gellerman, whom I worked closely with up in New
York, expressed his outrage over it.
Just today I have received probably as much information as
I have on the issue. There was a letter that was released to
the media from UNIFIL which tried to explain what was going on.
Senator Vitter. I think I read those statements. They
tended to heighten my concerns not allay them.
Mr. Hook. Right. Obviously, UNIFIL was asked to help with
this exchange between Israel and Lebanon, this prisoner
exchange. UNIFIL is then helping in that capacity, but UNIFIL
needed, I think, to understand the political sensitivity of
that situation. And they ought to understand exactly what was
going on in that case. Now, that was a convoy of what? I think
eight different vehicles carrying the remains of hundreds of
people. They have said it is the custom of troops, if there are
coffins draped with flags, to salute, and it may be the case
they were saluting the entire convoy.
But it seems that that sort of skirts the issue of I think
UNIFIL being sensitive to the importance of its impartiality
and sort of anticipating exactly the sort of thing that we are
having to sort of talk about today. I think this is something
which could have been avoided. It is unclear if--I do not know
if they knew what they were doing. I do not know. I have not
interviewed these two soldiers.
Senator Vitter. I read those statements, and again, they
heightened my concerns instead of providing any sort of
reassurance. This is because the statement suggests that the
peacekeepers did nothing wrong when they saluted Hezbollah
terrorists and that it was simply tradition. The statement
completely misses the point that symbols, such as saluiting a
flag, image, or coffin, conveys a great deal of meaning.
Mr. Hook. They do. I know.
Senator Vitter. And for the United Nations or a branch or
agency of the United Nations to blur the distinctions between
traditional combatants or soldiers and terrorists is a big deal
in my mind.
Mr. Hook. It is.
Senator Vitter. This is a serious problem.
Has the State Department, on behalf of all of us, issued
any formal statement about this or taken any formal action?
Mr. Hook. I have asked my staff to follow up to find out
the facts. As I said, I have learned more today. I read some
communications from our Embassy there. I wanted to have all the
facts, and then I think once we have our facts, then I think we
can figure out how to respond appropriately. I share all the
concerns that you have raised, but part of it is I did not want
to just, starting with this picture, sort of take some action.
I wanted to at least find out exactly what was going on there.
I would have liked to have seen a quicker response I think from
UNIFIL.
Senator Vitter. Well, I would ask that you follow up with
me----
Mr. Hook. I will.
Senator Vitter [continuing]. And I am sure the whole
committee would be interested----
Mr. Hook. Yes.
Senator Vitter [continuing]. After you understand all the
facts. I am not arguing with that, but I would hope that if the
media reports are confirmed, the State Department would make a
formal statement and take other appropriate strong and formal
actions----
Mr. Hook. I will follow up with you.
Senator Vitter [continuing]. That go beyond just having a
conversation with someone.
Mr. Hook. Yes; I will follow up with the committee and you.
[The information referred to above follows:]
Mr. Hook. On instruction from Washington, our Missions raised this
issue with the U.N. Secretariat in New York, the U.N. Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, and UNIFIL officials in Lebanon. In these
discussions we noted these U.N. peacekeepers must be cautioned, and
that the U.N. must take steps to ensure peacekeepers never give the
appearance of taking sides in an internal conflict. Rendering honors to
a terrorist is simply unacceptable.
Department of Peacekeeping Operations Assistant Secretary-General
Edmond Mulet confirmed to us that the U.N. was also displeased at this
occurrence.
UNIFIL staff were instructed by U.N. Headquarters to be more
cautious and attentive to detail in the future. UNIFIL and our contacts
in New York also advised us that the soldiers in the photo were not
involved in any way in the Lebanese ceremonies, and were carrying out
their assigned duties along the road used by the convoy as it passed.
The soldiers are from a western European troop-contributing nation
whose soldiers, as in most armies, customarily salute whenever mortal
remains in coffins draped with national colors pass in procession.
According to the U.N. and UNIFIL, they saluted at their own initiative
following that tradition; they were reportedly unaware that the coffins
contained the remains of Hizballah terrorists and that the photo
displayed was of Mughniyah.
Senator Vitter. Great. Thank you.
I also share Senator Barrasso's concern--as I am sure many
of us do--that the U.S. could do much more to ensure that we
are effectively leveraging our major participation,
particularly in terms of funding, to demand reforms. Many of
the reforms we are talking about are reforms that have been
already proposed within the United Nations by the Secretary
General or others, but has not been effectively implemented, if
implemented at all. How can we better ensure that reform be
taken seriously at the United Nations and changes and reforms
be incorporated immediately and effectively by Member
Countries, U.N. officials, and bureaucrats? And if the answer
is not withholding funds, what is the answer short of that? A
lot of us think we need to be more effective at pushing
reforms. And therefore we are looking for some answers,
including withholding funds. I would ask if the State
Department does not want the Senate to withhold funds if
reforms are not implemented, then we are going to need a good,
effective alternative.
Mr. Hook. We do leverage our significant contribution to
the United Nations. I think you know about our UNTAI
initiative, the U.N. Transparency and Accountability
Initiative, that has been a real priority. Getting an ethics
that is systemwide at the United Nations, promoting internal
audits--we have got UNTAI ratings now with different missions
to try to get an assessment of how accountable and how
transparent they are.
Transparency and accountability I think are very important
for the credibility of any institution, particularly the United
Nations, and in light of the fact that we fund the U.N. more
generously than any other country in the world, our voice gets
heard and we do leverage, I think, our deep financial
commitments to try to achieve the kind of reforms that you are
talking about. I know on the procurement side, as of October
2007, we have seen about 47 percent of the reforms implemented.
I, in my capacity in this position, will keep pressing for
reforms. Personally it is a priority for me. When I was up in
New York working with the U.N., I saw firsthand, I think, how
important it is for the U.N. to be transparent and accountable
to its donors. And when you have procurement fraud taking
place, it is very important for allegations to be addressed.
I know that OIOS has been--their Procurement Fraud Task
Force we think has been doing pretty good work. Just in the
short time the task force has been understood up, it has found
10 fraud schemes, $25 million in misappropriations, and six
staffers have been charged with misconduct. I think that is
important work for the task force to be doing. That can also
provide a real deterrent effect. Making sure that we have very
good, strong qualifications for vendors, better vetting
process----
Senator Vitter. I do not mean to interrupt, but what about
with regard to peacekeeping forces and peacekeeping situations
specifically? There are a lot of issues there and there are a
lot of proposals regarding sex exploitation and abuses. What is
being done specifically there to promote and demand those
reforms?
Mr. Hook. Well, I think the United States has taken the
lead at the U.N. on zero tolerance for sexual abuse and
exploitation. Prince Zeid, as you know, did his report in 2005
after the abuses in the Congo, which are unacceptable. One
instance is too many. And then the council adopted those
recommendations from Prince Zeid.
I am pleased with some of the progress we saw just in the
last year. I mean, sometimes the council will take action like
in this case, 2005, and they feel like the itch has been
scratched, but we even saw some instances also of sexual
exploitation in the context with some Sri Lankan troops.
But even after Prince Zeid's report, then just this last
year the General Assembly passed a new template for a
memorandum of understanding between the U.N. and troop-
contributing countries. We already have seven that have been
completed with TCCs. They have not been signed yet, but when
they are signed, they will go into effect. And these revised
MOUs do a better job, I think, of strengthening the standards
of conduct and providing some help for victims and making sure
that the governments are going to be following up with victims
of sexual violence committed by peacekeepers.
The U.N. has very little leverage on this in terms of the
actions that it can take after the fact. But what it can do is
restrict--there was even some talk about trying to restrict
some of the peacekeepers from going to bars and going to places
where you can have some of these instances which can take off
and then lead to some sort of sexual violence.
Senator Vitter. Again, I do not mean to interrupt, but if I
can make a suggestion.
Mr. Hook. Yes, please.
Senator Vitter. As I understand it, a lot of the troop-
contributing countries are developing countries. These
countries get far more funding per peacekeeping soldier than
the true cost they incur by putting that person in the field--
--
Mr. Hook. Yes.
Senator Vitter [continuing]. The funding these counties
receive is far greater than their soldiers' wages and all of
the other related costs. Providing peacekeeping troops then
becomes a significant source of cash which--particularly for a
poor, developing country--makes peacekeeping a very attractive
and important activity.
What if we developed a metric that measured any problems
with a country's soldiers with a peacekeeping deployment and
then penalized these countries based on these problems by tying
it to future funding and deployment? This would affect the
future income of countries with a record of deployment
violations because peacekeeping funds are a source of income.
It would seem to me that you are going to get some people's
attention very quickly if you threaten future income because it
is an income source. In some cases, developing countries are
dependent on that income source and find it very significant.
Do you have any reaction to that?
Mr. Hook. Well, I think you're right. The U.N. benefits
from TCCs, but then TCCs also----
Senator Bill Nelson. What are TCCs?
Mr. Hook. I am sorry. Troop-contributing countries, TCCs in
the U.N. parlance.
But these troop-contributing countries also receive a
benefit, as you said, in terms of better wages, and then they
also get training. A lot of these missions provide good
training for some of these countries and better training than
they might otherwise get. One of the limitations we have seen
in UNAMID is when Bashir had put that condition on
predominantly African troops, a lot of these African troops
lacked the capacity to field an effective force. And so the
U.N. provides that training. There is a benefit that accrues to
them.
I think that is part of the MOU. The MOU I think that the
G-8 passed is trying to leverage some of that.
Punishment for perpetrators of these crimes varies from
country to country. It would, I think, be unacceptable for
people to be sort of given some sort of free pass when they are
out of their country. There ought to be consequences when they
go back home, but it is often up to the military to decide how
to handle these sorts of violations. The U.N. gets rid of them.
Senator Vitter. Well, again, just to be clear, what I am
suggesting is a metric so that when there is a clear instance
of abuse coming from troops of a certain troop-contributing
country, then there is a penalty associated with the use of
more of those troops from that country for the next year. That
is a financial penalty to the government. I guarantee you in
many instances that will instill the will and the discipline to
have the training and whatever else is necessary to make sure
that does not happen again simply because that military and
government find their participation in that program very
beneficial and do not want to lose their status as a troop-
contributing country.
Mr. Hook. Well, Senator, let me look into that and see if
there is a way to develop that nexus. I will follow up with
DPKO and see if that can be explored.
Senator Vitter. Great. Thank you.
[The information referred to above follows:]
Mr. Hook. The United States has been at the forefront of those
insisting that peacekeeping troop contributing countries recognize and
exercise their primary responsibility for preventing sexual abuse and
exploitation on the part of their national contingents, and for taking
prompt and effective action, in accordance with their own national
administrative and judicial process, to deal with accusations and to
punish the guilty.
With our leadership, the U.N. has instituted a wide range of
preventive and disciplinary actions to carry out its policy of zero
tolerance of SEA by military, police or civilian personnel. In addition
to providing pre- deployment training modules for troop contributing
countries to use in preparing their personnel for deployment, Conduct
and Discipline Teams (CDTs) have been established in all missions to
train all peacekeeping personnel on standards of conduct upon their
arrival in the mission area.
CDTs also publicize complaint procedures to local populations and
conduct preliminary investigations of any allegations of misconduct by
U.N. peacekeeping personnel. When a member of a peacekeeping contingent
is found to have engaged in misconduct, then that individual's own
military service has the responsibility for disciplining the member.
Typically the individual is sent home or dismissed.
The U.N. and the troop contributing country must deal with issues
of chain of evidence, proper investigation, and the rights of the
accused and the accuser. We are actively discussing these issues with
the U.N. and international colleagues. The U.N. General Assembly
recently approved a Model Memorandum of Understanding laying out
standards of conduct and procedures which the U.N. is using as a basis
for negotiating new agreements with troop contributors.
The U.S. also raises specific allegations of misconduct on a
bilateral basis , with troop contributors.
We believe that all of these measures can have a direct impact in
helping the U.N. to combat sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N.
personnel, and ensure the punishment of perpetrators.
We are interested in the idea that withholding funding from certain
troop contributors may assist with these efforts to combat SEA, and
will be exploring how this proposal could be administered fairly in
practice, and support other ongoing measures to combat SEA.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Bill Nelson. How many cases in 2008 have been
reported of sexual exploitation and abuse?
Mr. Hook. There were 105 allegations reported to the Office
of Internal Oversight Services this year.
Senator Bill Nelson. And of that number, how many have been
investigated?
Mr. Hook. There were 14 that have been investigated. Eight
have been substantiated. And some were repatriated and sent
home and some have been disciplined.
Senator Bill Nelson. So substantiated means they were found
guilty.
Mr. Hook. Right. This is in OIOS. Three people have been
repatriated and five have been disciplined.
Senator Bill Nelson. Of the eight.
Mr. Hook. Well, you had 105 allegations, and you had 14 so
far----
Senator Bill Nelson. You had 14 that were investigated.
Mr. Hook. Right, so far.
Senator Bill Nelson. Out of 108. Why do you think the big
difference between 108 reported and only 14 investigated?
Mr. Hook. I would imagine that conducting an investigation
out in these circumstances in some of these places like in
Congo is very hard where the evidence is very hard to come by.
One of the things which I know is being discussed and which
I would support--we ought to have units there in the field who
can respond quickly to allegations of sexual violence so that
they then can collect the evidence and preserve it because I
think in some of these cases it is well after the fact. The
victim is probably impossible to find. And the evidence is
probably very thin. And this is taking place in a place like
the Congo, which is the bloodiest war since World War II.
But we may be able to expedite more investigations if we
can anticipate out in the field, if we know that there are
certain areas like in the Congo where we have had problems,
DPKO should be maybe looking at how they can get people
deployed there to investigate crimes and then report that back
to OIOS so that we can have--you know, if we have 105
allegations and we only have 14 investigations completed, those
are numbers we need to improve.
Senator Bill Nelson. Well, just put it in context. When my
wife and I could not get into Darfur because the government
would not let me in because I had been quite critical of the
government, we went to the back door through Chad. And, of
course, here are these refugee camps that the women are sent
outside of the perimeter of the camp to get firewood. Now, they
are attacked and they are attacked by the various roving bands
that are in there. But when the women have to worry about the
U.N. peacekeeping force being the attacker, this is absolutely
unacceptable.
Mr. Hook. Agreed.
Senator Bill Nelson. Let me ask you about--are you through
for the moment? I mean, just hop in whenever you want to.
What is the criteria that the United States uses to decide
for a peacekeeping mission, and how do you express that
criteria in the Security Council?
Mr. Hook. It was actually a PRST that the council passed in
1994 after the tragedies in Somalia, and they set forth a
series of factors which the council should take into account
before it deploys a peacekeeping mission. President Clinton had
also issued a Presidential directive, PDD 25, that also set
forth factors, and interestingly, there was a fair amount of
overlap between those two.
I think that there is broad agreement on the kind of
factors that we look at. In our case, there has to be some sort
of international threat to peace and security. It has to
advance U.S. interests. I think the mandate needs to be very
clear, very well defined. And we also need to not impose a
mandate upon a mission and not give it the resources to do the
job. We see when that goes awry in UNAMID and the problems we
are having there. There are other factors that are complicating
that, obviously in the case of Darfur. Making sure that the
forces are going to be robust enough to execute the mandate and
they are going to have the money they need to do the mandate.
I think there is broad agreement on the kind of factors
that people look at, the criteria that we sort of bring to
this. The problem comes when we have got very, very difficult
circumstances like Darfur where a lot of these criteria are
challenged pretty vigorously. I mean, they are pushed up to the
limit. And you can sometimes deploy a mission. For instance, in
the case of Darfur, President Bashir did say that he will
permit--he unconditionally accepted the hybrid mission, and
then after the fact, he imposes conditions.
Now, historically peacekeeping missions have the consent of
the host country. The very traditional U.N. peacekeeping
missions which are blue helmets on a green line are--they want
them to come in. It is a useful presence to keep everybody
honest.
But in the case of UNAMID, this hybrid operation, I think
there will be lessons that we will take from this for years and
years and years to come. You can actually feel like you are
meeting your criteria when you deploy it, but then facts on the
ground change, for instance, the host country deciding that it
does not want it there and it is throwing all sorts of poison
pills into the mix. That makes it hard.
But I feel like there is general agreement on a lot of the
criteria. I think where we would probably get into arguments is
whether on a case-by-case basis, the facts that are relevant to
the criteria are in fact met.
Senator Bill Nelson. We will insert in the record this
chart showing the 17 ongoing operations now and where they are
in the world.
[The chart and information referred to follows:]
Senator Bill Nelson. Of those, what is your favorite?
Mr. Hook. Haiti. As I said earlier, I think Haiti is doing
a very good job.
We have had, I think, some success in Liberia. I think
Liberia has met most of its benchmarks. President Johnson-
Sirleaf--we had a nice combination of sanctions that were
there. We had timber sanctions, diamond sanctions. But we also
had a peacekeeping force there, and it is helping a war-torn
country make the transition to democracy.
We have seen the same thing I think in East Timor, in
Kosovo and, as I said, in Haiti.
Congo--I think we are in a much better place than we were 5
years ago with the DRC. I think 5 years ago I would not have
said that we are in a very good place. There are a lot of
challenges still in Congo. I do not want to overstate success
on Congo.
But Cote d'Ivoire--as I said, we are probably going to see
a drawdown there.
And then we have also places with more limited mandates
like in Cyprus, and in the case of Cyprus, which I think is--
these are, I think, largely observers. It is a limited mandate.
It is nothing like the multidimensional mandates we see in
places like the Congo, in UNMIS in south Sudan, in Darfur. But
they are accomplishing it. They do not get as much attention,
but we think they are executing their mandate.
Senator Bill Nelson. Let us up that next chart. Why don't
you share with us how you justify a budget request of $1.5
billion for fiscal year 2009 while the mission, for example, in
Darfur is still growing? And if it is going to be fully
deployed, it will be the largest with 25,000 troops.
And you can see from the chart the total number of U.N.
peacekeeping personnel on the ground, which has gone from the
year 2000 to 2008 from 18,000 folks to 107,000.
And you can see the assessment from the U.N. to the U.S. in
the blue line on the chart at the right, whereas the
administration request is far below that in each of the years
2001 through 2008.
So tell us why the difference.
Mr. Hook. Mr. Chairman, as you know, our requests are made
in the context of the constraints on the overall budget. That
is one thing that I would say.
You mentioned Darfur. We had originally requested--we had
expected that it would be $884 million. In fact, it is going to
end up being less than that because of the slower deployment.
In a lot of these cases, as I was saying earlier, it is
hard to predict the size of missions. For example, at the
beginning of the year, UNMEE. UNMEE was something that we had
budgeted for UNMEE, on July 31, is very likely going to cease
to exist. These are missions deployed in very difficult areas
with parties whom we cannot control, and it makes some of our
predictions--it makes it very hard to do. There are a lot of
variables. It is often unpredictable. We have the constraints
of the overall budget.
We try to keep you and your staff apprised as best we can
on changes in terms of shortfalls. I know that my staff meets
with your staff every month, with Senate Foreign Relations
staff, to discuss peacekeeping operations around the world. I
know budgets are discussed in that context. But I understand
your frustration with what that chart illustrates.
Senator Bill Nelson. Well take, for example, the force in
Darfur. What is our, the United States, strategy at the U.N.
for improving the mission?
Mr. Hook. What is our strategy for improving the mission
for Darfur?
Senator Bill Nelson. With the budget that you have put out.
Mr. Hook. Well, I am sort of looking ahead--I do not know
if you mean in the budget context or just in terms of making it
more effective.
Senator Bill Nelson. Both.
Mr. Hook. OK.
Our preliminary estimate is higher than what, in fact, DPKO
came back to us with. We thought it was going to be more. I
think we were surprised it is going to be less. So that number
has been revised.
You have heard me say, I think, that--we were talking about
how important it is to have the consent of a lot of these
governments to absorb and take in a peacekeeping operation. If
we can make progress on the political track, it is going to
help Darfur and it is going to help UNAMID in the same way that
we are seeing progress in southern Sudan with UNMIS. And we
would like to see Darfur head in the same direction that
southern Sudan did.
For some time we have asked for a single, full-time
mediator for the AU, and we now have one in the form of the
Foreign Minister from Burkina-Faso, Foreign Minister Bassole.
He is going to be full-time in Darfur. He has moved there. He
has taken up residence there. Recently we had rebel groups
splintering into like 25 factions. I think that is now
somewhere around five or six. He is somebody who I think enjoys
the respect of the parties to the conflict. He does not bring
any baggage to, I think, the negotiating table. So we think
that that could be useful.
The new head of the Department of Field Services, Susana
Malcorra, whom we have met with, did a great job at the World
Food Program which has enormous logistical challenges. There
was a period, during some of the worst fighting in Darfur,
where the World Food Program was still delivering 90 percent of
its aid to its intended beneficiaries. I think she is going to
be very good.
This reorganization that the Secretary General undertook to
split the formation of military police and civilians from the
administration and logistics piece we think is going to speed
deployment.
We have a lot of confidence in Malcorra.
We have a new French head of DPKO coming in, Le Roy.
So better efforts on the ground on the political track and
some encouraging sort of leadership in DPKO and DFS and the
Friends of UNAMID that we are leading. I attended the first
meeting in March of the Friends of UNAMID. We have 14 members.
Susana Malcorra is engaging very intensely with us, trying to
fill a lot of these administrative and logistical gaps.
So I am hoping the trend line is going to improve. If the
trend line improves on the political side, it is going to help
UNAMID. And also, the President's Special Envoy, Ambassador
Williamson, has met with President Bashir a few times, and we
are going everything we can on the political track because if
you make progress there, 1,000 flowers bloom especially for the
peacekeeping operation.
Senator Bill Nelson. As the new Africa Command is being set
up this fall, has it coordinated with existing U.N. efforts in
the continent of Africa?
Mr. Hook. Well, I think you remember when the President was
in Africa in January, he announced $100 million to train 6,000
African troops to deploy into UNAMID. We have already done
3,600. A lot of these folks are ready to go. Because of the
impediments that we are seeing by the government, it is very
hard for UNAMID to absorb these.
If we are going to have very robust mandates, sort of
multifunctional peacekeeping operations, that places a real
demand on peacekeepers from troop-contributing countries. And
you sometimes have countries that have the will but they lack
the capacity. And that is what the President's initiatives are
about, trying to improve the capacity and the training. In the
case of this GPOI and ACOTA, these are both initiatives which
are going to pay dividends for U.N. peacekeeping operations as
we ask them to do more in more places and take on more complex
mandates.
Senator Bill Nelson. My question is, is the U.S. Africa
Command going to be stepping over the U.N. peacekeeping
operations, or is it specifically, as it is being set up, being
coordinated with these peacekeeping missions.
Mr. Hook. I will have to follow up with you on that. I have
been looking mostly at GPOI and ACOTA in terms of the UNAMID
context. But I will be glad to follow up with you on that and
talk about the relationship between the two.
Senator Bill Nelson. OK. Why don't you just respond to us
in writing on that.
Mr. Hook. Sure, glad to.
[The information referred to follows:]
Mr. Hook. The creation of AFRICOM will not change the authorities,
roles, or missions of the Department of State, the Department of
Defense, and the United Nations with regard to U.N. peacekeeping.
AFRICOM will work through the interagency process, as other Combatant
Commands currently do, to coordinate with existing U.N. peacekeeping
operations.
Senator Bill Nelson. OK, Mr. Secretary, thank you very
much.
Mr. Hook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Bill Nelson. We appreciate it.
May I ask the second panel to come up? Mr. Brett Schaefer,
who is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory
Affairs from the Heritage Foundation; Dr. Bill Durch, who is
with the Henry L. Stimson Center; and Nancy Soderberg, who is a
visiting scholar at the University of North Florida. So welcome
to all of you.
Each of your statements will be put in the record, and
thank you very much.
You are a very distinguished panel. We have heard from the
U.S. Government witness. Why don't you all characterize for the
committee the support that the administration has given for the
U.N. peacekeeping missions? Does it vary mission by mission, or
is it consistent across all the missions? Who wants to start?
Ambassador Soderberg.
STATEMENT OF HON. NANCY SODERBERG, DISTINGUISHED VISITING
SCHOLAR, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA, JACKSONVILLE, FL
Ambassador Soderberg. First of all, it is nice to see you
and thank you again for holding this hearing and having us for
what I consider to be a very important issue.
I think it is important to look at why we care about
peacekeeping. I am always happy to hear a discussion about how
we can improve the U.N., how we need more transparency and
efficiency, but I think we need to look at the big picture. We
need U.N. peacekeeping and they need us, and I think it is fine
to talk about sexual exploitation and push the U.N. to be
better, but ultimately I think we need to look at how can we
help the U.N. do better.
And to answer your question, I think we are beginning to
get there, but very far from sufficient support. You have to
remember that Osama bin Laden fled to two failed states when he
was kicked out of Saudi Arabia. One was Sudan. The other was
Afghanistan. We are in Afghanistan. The United Nations is now
in Sudan. There are 17 of those peacekeeping operations on your
chart, 11 of which are in Africa. We know al-Qaeda is monkeying
around in Africa. We know that we are the ones with the target
on our backs. So unless we help the U.N. get this right, we are
going to have to do it.
Now, U.N. peacekeeping missions are less than half the cost
of U.S. peacekeeping missions, and we get a quarter of that
bill. That is a lot. Nobody else gets a quarter of that bill.
We actually get charged for 31 percent. So we are continuing to
accrue arrears on that, and that is something this committee I
am sure has dealt with many times. But we need to be doing
this.
To answer your question on AFRICOM, I have actually been
looking into this quite a bit myself with the National Defense
University on a project, and we did a paper, which I brought
along for folks who are interested, and it is: What the U.S.
Has Done and What it Should do to Support U.N. Peacekeeping. It
is a great project over at NDU, and there are copies in the
back for those of you who are interested.
Senator Bill Nelson. And a copy of it will be entered in
the record.
[The information referred to above will be maintained in
the committee's permanent files.]
Ambassador Soderberg. Thank you.
Essentially AFRICOM is a great idea and it has been poorly
executed. There was no consultation with the Africans or the
United Nations in setting it up. Its focus was antiterrorism,
not peacekeeping. I think that is changing and there is a
connection now between the two.
In 2006, the Pentagon put in its Quadrennial Defense Review
a commitment to do more for U.N. peacekeeping in areas of its
expertise: Training, equipment, doctrine, things like that. And
so there is now a real look at what the United States can do.
It is a lot of the Pentagon doing it, frankly, and there is a
big debate between whether it should be the Pentagon or the
State Department doing this. But the Pentagon happens to have
the money and so they are doing it, which is fine as long as
someone is doing it. But that is a big debate within the
community.
AFRICOM I think is ideally placed to try and help move this
forward. What they really need to do is work in partnership
with the U.N. The first meeting between the United Nations and
AFRICOM occurred in May, and they have committed to begin
biannual meetings at senior levels. And I hope you will push to
make sure that that does occur.
When I talk to the AFRICOM officials, they have no
Presidential directive to cooperate with the U.N. They are
looking for one, but it has to be a Presidential directive to
AFRICOM to cooperate with the U.N. They do not have that
authority to do that. So they have not been able to do much.
That was a discussion I had with them in May. I do not know if
that has occurred or not, but that would be something this
committee could absolutely look at.
Senator Bill Nelson. Now, that is interesting because the
forerunner to AFRICOM is the U.S. Southern Command where they
are taking a diplomatic approach to a military command. And I
have seen our commander of Southern Command work very well with
the U.N. mission in Haiti, for example.
Does anybody have any different information on the question
of AFRICOM while we are on it?
Ambassador Soderberg. They work very well. They just need
to get there. I think they are willing to do it. They just need
the directive. They have had a lot of problems. They do not
have a headquarters yet. Nobody wants them. There was no
diplomacy done before it was announced. It was announced with
no consultation. I think they will get through that, but it is
going to take a while. They are technically operational in
October. They are still in Stuttgart.
The AU on its level has a fair amount of its own problems
as well. So they have got a few challenges ahead.
But the most important mission for the U.N. peacekeeping
operation right now is trying to get Africa right in the United
States perspective because al-Qaeda is there, and unless we get
it right--and the Pentagon recognizes this. They call them
under- and ungoverned spaces, and essentially it means failed
states.
So I welcome your interest in this and I hope you can help
promote a dialogue on what AFRICOM is doing and how----
Senator Bill Nelson. You pointed out how many in Africa of
the 17 were----
Ambassador Soderberg. The last time I counted, it was 11. I
think there are 17 on that chart.
Senator Bill Nelson. Yes.
Ambassador Soderberg. And I believe there are 11 of them in
Africa. Just look at what is at risk here.
Senator Bill Nelson. That is the reason for the question.
So that is a message we will convey to the Department of
Defense.
Ambassador Soderberg. The other thing I would suggest is
that the troops--and you get into the sexual exploitation, the
mistakes that some of these troops have made. Ultimately it is
up to the Africans to do their peacekeeping for themselves. The
region's forces will go in faster. We went into Bosnia. The
Australians went into East Timor. The Latins can take care of
themselves, but Africans are not capable of taking care of
themselves.
Our training and equipping program and the State Department
programs, ACOTA, that were mentioned on the last panel are
terrific, but they are short-term training programs. There is
no sustaining equipment, training. They go through a training
program. A year later, there are no troops to deploy.
So in my view, the challenge of the African peacekeeping
missions is an enormous challenge for the United Nations and
the United States, and we need to work together on it. AFRICOM
is the place to have that coordination. I have called for a
core group where we sit down and say, OK, let us duplicate what
the State Department is doing with those 3,600 troops going to
Darfur. Brazil, you take three. China, you take four. And they
are yours for 10 years. You know, partner with them and sustain
them. And eventually 5 to 10 years from now, the next time
there is a Darfur that happens, you will actually have a
contingent of peacekeepers who can get there and do the job and
sustain themselves. But it does not exist.
The U.N. mission was authorized a year ago at 26,000. There
is about a third of it in the ground right now.
Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Schaefer, what do you think have
been lessons learned as we have been working with this U.N.
Department of Peacekeeping Operations?
STATEMENT OF BRETT D. SCHAEFER, JAY KINGHAM FELLOW IN
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, HERITAGE FOUNDATION,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Schaefer. A couple of comments about AFRICOM before I
start that, and that is, it is brand new. It will stand up
fully as an independent command next fall. It, for the most
part, inherits the area of responsibility formerly assigned to
EUCOM, which does have a long history of working with the U.N.
in various operations. So I am sure that relationship will
build as AFRICOM stands up.
I know that from talking extensively with a number of
people about AFRICOM, that the command is strongly focused on
trying to enhance the capabilities of African troops so that
outside intervention from the United States or other countries
is not necessary to the extent it has been thus far. So that is
a concentration. That is an interest. And it has specifically
been mentioned by General Ward and others.
Senator Bill Nelson. Lessons learned.
Mr. Schaefer. As far as lessons learned, what we have
learned from a number of mistakes from various United Nations
peacekeeping missions, unfortunate incidents in Rwanda and
Srebrenica and Somalia and other places, is that the U.N. is
not an organization that is capable of doing warfighting.
Having the U.N. to go into a conflict zone where the parties to
the conflict are not willing to have and support the U.N.
mission or are actively continuing the conflict, is unwise
because it makes more likely that the mission will fail or
result in an unsuccessful outcome.
Unfortunately, in its increasing willingness to approve
missions in areas like Darfur where there is an ongoing
confluct, the Security Council seems to have forgotten the
lessons of those earlier incidents, ignore the recommendation
of the Brahimi Report that the United Nations is not suited to
warfighting. These decisions need to be taken with extreme care
because it holds the potential of leading to disaster or making
the situation worse.
Acting Assistant Secretary Hook mentioned earlier that the
Sudanese dictated some terms to the United Nations about how
its involvement in Darfur specifically focused on African
participation in the mission. That has led to significant
constraints that undermine the mission, and we need to be aware
of that as well. It is something that should not have been
tolerated as a condition for U.N. participation there.
Also, the increasing size, scope, and number of U.N.
peacekeeping operations have revealed a number of flaws in the
U.N. system. Senator, you pointed out the number of instances
of sexual misconduct on the part of U.N. peacekeepers and other
U.N. personnel. We have also seen a number of instances of
fraud. The U.N. Procurement Fraud Task Force, which was
mentioned earlier, conducted an investigation of U.N.
procurement of about $1.4 billion in contracts, and they found
that over 40 percent of those contracts had serious instances
of corruption, fraud, or other improper involvement through the
procurement process.
There are also problems with the enforcement of conduct on
peacekeepers. We need to be aware and cognizant of the
potential for peacekeeping missteps if the U.N. Security
Council engages in peacekeeping operations without conditions
likely for success.
Senator Bill Nelson. Dr. Durch.
STATEMENT OF DR. BILL DURCH, SENIOR ASSOCIATE,
HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Durch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak before the panel.
I would like to go back to your initial question on
characterizing the administration's support for U.N.
peacekeeping looking at a list of missions and assessments and
budget estimates going into fiscal year 2009.
It seems like the State Department consistently
underestimates the larger missions by as much as a third and I
think partly because of a tendency to do best-case planning for
these. We tend to hit the United Nations for not doing worst-
case planning in planning its own missions, and then we do
best-case planning for our own assessments, which I think
fairly reflect our position in the world economy. We are
assessed extra for peacekeeping because we are a permanent
member of the council and we can veto any mission we do not
like. We pay about 22 percent on the regular budget, which is
far less than our share of the whole global economy. So if we
are talking about ability to pay, I think the payment structure
is not so bad.
In terms of support for U.N. operations and AFRICOM when it
gets going, this will facilitate the United States being able
to give in-kind support to U.N. operations in Africa, and by
in-kind, I mean things like airlift and other logistic support.
We have traditionally helped regional missions and the U.N.
mission in Darfur with contractor support. That is
traditionally going back more than a decade. And that is good.
Now we will have the focused ability to coordinate with the
United Nations and their missions to provide more strategic
support as they need it, especially to move some of these
battalions of Africans that we have trained into the mission
area.
It is an interesting comment on the use of mostly
developing country forces by the United Nations for both police
and troops. Certainly the salary structure of developing
countries is lower than in developed states. And so they do in
that sense get paid back more by the United Nations than they
spend in sending forces into operations. And when they are
trained, they should be held accountable to perform well. I
agree on all the points that have been made on accountability.
But equipment is equipment and fuel is fuel. And so the
costs of maintaining and sustaining equipment, once we train
and equip a battalion or a brigade, especially in Africa, and
the costs of paying to operate it are something that we have to
consider not just the initial training. So it is kind of the
sustainability of these forces that we are investing in under
ACOTA and under the GPOI that we need to consider with our
allies. Where is the sustainment of these groups? If we let the
cost fall back on national budgets, probably these forces will
fall apart in fairly quick order, and they compete for money
for development goals and other things that the country would
like to accomplish, say, on the civilian side of peacekeeping.
Senator Bill Nelson. Well, how would you rate the U.N.
peacekeeping mission in Lebanon?
Dr. Durch. How would I rate it, sir? Having listened to the
discussion earlier, I would say there is a certain amount of
retraining that could go on.
The U.N. operation in Lebanon is, as the U.N. operation in
Lebanon has been since 1978, much more of a traditional border
monitoring force, even though it has got many more troops now
than it had 2 years ago or 3 years ago. It is not a complex
operation. It is really not about solving the region's
problems. We do not see rockets flying back and forth between
Hezbollah and Israel these days. That is to the good. But it
still should be regarded as a traditional force.
Senator Bill Nelson. What do you think about the
interaction between the State Department's Global Peace
Operations Initiative interacting with the U.N. peacekeeping
operations?
Dr. Durch. I think it is all to the good, sir. I think as
some of my colleagues have mentioned, the investments that are
being made in training African forces in particular pay major
dividends when they deploy to U.N. operations because you get a
more professional force, you get a better equipped force. As I
said, the question would be sustaining that capability when
they come out of the U.N. operation. When they are deployed in
the field, the United Nations does have procedures for
reimbursing them for equipment and paying for fuel and so
forth. It is when they are back home that the problems arise of
keeping these forces trained, equipped, and ready to go for the
second and third deployments. So I think there is a very
positive interaction between the training and the operations.
The trouble occurs when there is resistance on the part of
a government, as we noted with Sudan, where they simply cannot
be deployed. And that is beyond the U.N.'s ken and it is beyond
GPOI's reach also.
Senator Bill Nelson. And any of you, if you had a magic
wand to straighten out the peacekeeping operation in Darfur,
which really needs to be done, what would you do?
Ambassador.
Ambassador Soderberg. I have a whole action plan on Darfur
that is perhaps a wish list. But there are a couple of problems
in Darfur. It starts with the Government of Sudan, whose
President has just been indicted for war crimes. Clearly, the
government is the one who is conducting the genocide,
obstruction of the peace.
But the Security Council has also gone along with that
obstruction. It has let the Sudanese dictate the terms of this
mission. It needs to stop doing so. That's the P5. So we need
to get together with China, Russia, Britain, and France and
say, no, we are not doing this. China is likely to veto that
effort because it gets lots of oil from Sudan, billions of
dollars a year. It also afraid that we will start poking around
in its back yard, does not want to have interference. But we
should be out there screaming from the rooftops that Sudan does
not get to dictate the terms of the peacekeeping mission.
Second, there is no peacekeeping mission. It is a number of
poorly trained African troops who cannot sustain themselves.
And so we need to have other troops go in until the Africans
can be trained and equipped or send in troops ourselves. We are
a little busy. So I would look toward the Asians and the
Africans perhaps. Latins have terrific peacekeepers. Right now
they are in Haiti, but there are a lot of others who are not
particularly busy in their own hemisphere for thankful reasons.
And we need to provide airlift, logistics, and transport
units. You can get all the troops on the ground. If they cannot
move and if they do not have basic sanitary conditions, places
to sleep and food, you do not have a peacekeeping mission
either.
So it is essentially three things: Stand up to the Sudanese
obstruction of this mission, not just insisting on African
missions, but trying to determine the deployment sequence. It
has objected to Thai and Nepalese troops. It says that certain
troops cannot go in until the Egyptians get in and these troops
cannot go there and these troops cannot go there, and the rest
of the Security Council sits there and says OK. You can get mad
at the United Nations for that, but it is the Security Council
that has the right to stand up to Khartoum, not the U.N. So
begin to tell Khartoum no, and that has to come from the P5.
The Olympics has been a good leverage point to get China not to
veto that effort.
Second, provide the troops immediately. They have only got
less than half ready to go.
And third, you have got to train, equip, and sustain them,
and the U.S. has to lead in that effort. It does not have to do
it itself, but it has to get on the phone and say will Brazil
do this, will Australia do it, will other countries do it. Then
you will have a peacekeeping mission on the ground.
Last, there needs to be a reinvigorated peace process in
all of the crises in Sudan, not just Darfur. It was alluded to
before. There is now finally one negotiator. So hopefully that
effort will move forward.
So it is a four-part process, all of which are difficult,
by the way. I do not mean to minimize the possibilities here.
But that is what needs to happen.
Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Schaefer, do you want to add to
that?
Mr. Schaefer. Senator, I think your last point was the most
important one. That there must be some sort of impetus for
reconciliation between the two sides of the conflict or the
multiple sides of the conflict because unless you have that,
you do not have the circumstances under which you can move
forward toward a lasting peace. That is the heart of the
matter. The Security Council has been unable to apply pressure
to the government in Khartoum largely because of protection
from China but other difficulties as well. Until pressure is
applied, I do not see a successful outcome moving forward in
Darfur, unfortunately.
The other problems are significant: The constraints imposed
by Khartoum restricting U.N. peacekeepers to African troops,
lack of African troops with the necessary skills to fulfill
those operations, the lack of infrastructure to support those
troops, and the lack of other equipment as well. But the
prospects for peace, the willingness to actually enter into a
peace arrangement--that is the crux of the matter.
Ambassador Soderberg. If I could just add one other point
for the record. I did an op-ed answering that question a little
while ago. Perhaps you could put that in the record as well.
Senator Bill Nelson. Without objection.
[The op-ed referred to follows:]
[The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2008]
The Way Forward on Darfur
(By Mia Farrow and Nancy Soderberg)
Next month the United States will assume the presidency of the U.N.
Security Council, and not a moment too soon. The Bush administration
will have perhaps its final opportunity to address the Darfur genocide,
preserving its legacy as an architect of the imperiled U.N. peace
agreement for Sudan.
In the past few weeks, the carnage in Darfur has escalated.
Government bombing campaigns continue apace, with tens of thousands of
terrified survivors joining the more than 2.5 million people already
displaced.
Aid workers are being targeted--the director of Save the Children
in Chad was shot and killed at the Chad-Darfur border. A primary school
in north Darfur was bombed, killing and wounding many children.
Countless people in the camps are slowly dying of hunger and disease,
yet the World Food Program has been forced to halve food rations due to
insecurity. Just this week, the violence spread beyond Darfur to the
outskirts of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan itself.
Never has the need for a protection force been greater or more
urgent. Last July, the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution
authorizing the deployment of 26,000 peacekeepers under the U.N.
Mission in Darfur (Unamid). But the Sudanese regime is blocking the
deployment of the full protection force, as it has for 5 years mocked
the international community's pleas for security.
The U.N.-mandated force was to have been ``predominantly African in
character.'' But Sudan has twisted the clear intention of the
resolution, and ``predominantly'' has become ``exclusively.'' Khartoum
has rejected offers of troop contributions from several non-African
countries, knowing full well that most African battalions are
undertrained and underequipped for the complex and difficult protection
mission in Darfur.
Just 9,000 troops are currently on the ground in various locations
in Darfur. U.N. officials have expressed the fear that as things stand,
peacekeepers in Darfur will be unable to protect themselves, let alone
Darfur's tormented civilians and the humanitarians struggling to
sustain them.
Sudan is playing a deadly game. But there is a way to save the
people of Darfur even under the regime's crooked rules. African nations
willing to contribute peacekeepers need partners, nations with capable
armies to provide training and essential logistical support. The U.S.,
the U.K., Canada, France and others have already initiated such
partnerships. More nations need to step forward, with a commitment to
sustain the battalions for several years.
The U.S. should expand the effort to assemble a group of volunteer
nations. Then, once it assumes leadership of the Security Council, it
could host a ``Unamid pledging conference''--a meeting of troop
contributing countries--to announce partnerships and logistical support
for struggling African battalions. The bare-bones contributions
necessary to stop the slaughter would be minimal: Currently, U.N.
peacekeeping is calling for 24 helicopters, two transport units and one
logistical unit.
All 15 Member States of the Security Council will visit Khartoum in
early June. This is an auspicious opportunity for the U.N. to unify in
its commitment to the deployment of the protection force.
China has a significant role to play here. Given its vast oil
investments and brisk arms trade, Beijing has unparalleled influence
with Sudan. The entry of a full protection force into Darfur would
likely give China the international ovation it craves in the leadup to
the Olympic Games.
Rations of hope are meager in Darfur. But this is an opportunity
for the international community, for the Security Council, and
especially for the U.S. and China, to step up and protect a defenseless
population. Will they do it?
Ambassador Soderberg. But it kind of lays out exactly the
answer to your question a little more eloquently than I just
put it.
Senator Bill Nelson. What peacekeeping operations has China
vetoed?
Ambassador Soderberg. Macedonia and Haiti. Macedonia
because the new government recognized Taiwan in a failed effort
to get substantial foreign aid from Taiwan. They vetoed it
overnight. It was actually the best successful preventive
deployment in history. I think it was in 1996, if I am correct.
And it was the last substantial participation by U.S. forces in
the mission as well. I think we had a battalion there. And it
did prevent the Balkans from spilling over into Macedonia.
China vetoed it right away.
Also in Haiti, when one of the governments--again, I think
this was in the 1990s--flirted around with Taiwan, then China--
I do not recall exactly whether they finally vetoed it or
whether the Haitians backed off. But it is a red herring for
the Chinese.
Senator Bill Nelson. Because of the Olympics, has China's
behavior been much more gold star?
Ambassador Soderberg. Maybe a green star or a red star, but
not Olympic star, not gold, silver, or bronze certainly.
There are indications that the Chinese have been urging the
Sudanese to accept the terms of the new mission. The Chinese
have sent some engineers to the mission as a sign of
willingness to participate. There have been some problems with
that. But there are indications that the focus on the Olympics
and the power of the Chinese to move the Sudanese Government
has prompted the Chinese Government to move, but only
incrementally. They could clearly do a lot more.
Mr. Schaefer. I will point out that----
Senator Bill Nelson. Yes, please.
Mr. Schaefer [continuing]. That point of leverage is going
away very quickly.
Senator Bill Nelson. And how do you see it down the road?
Mr. Schaefer. I expect China to quickly return to acting
like China has done historically in regards to Sudan, and that
is being an obstructionist.
Dr. Durch. And if I may, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Bill Nelson. Please.
Dr. Durch. We also have to realize that the Sudanese
Government is really playing the international community like a
violin as long as it is not subject to substantial high level
and economic pressure, and by that I mean not just obstructing
the deployment of the troops in Darfur but obstructing the
mission of the United Nations in the south. And as the
referendum approaches in 2011 on possible independence for the
south, I think you will see more and more activity to try and
disrupt that referendum much as there was activity to try and
disrupt the referendum in East Timor in 1999. So we have an
unsettled political outcome in the south that may or may not be
able to secede if it wishes to. We have an unsettled, basically
no political agreement in the west, and we have a lot of oil
sloshing back and forth.
There was discussion earlier about not putting in a force
where there is no peace to keep, and I basically agree with
that. On the other hand, the international community has not
been willing to put in a fighting force to stop a lot of
killing and displacement in Darfur. So what is left to do other
than wring our hands and do nothing? So the Security Council
reaches for a peacekeeping force, even a robust peacekeeping
force. But then it is not willing, as Ambassador Soderberg and
Mr. Schaefer said, to put the pressure on the government to
accept that force under the terms to which it agreed. So this
is all very high level, global politics we are talking about,
and it is all playing out in the Sudan.
Senator Bill Nelson. Since China is pumping a lot of that
oil for the Sudanese Government--so are you suggesting that
they have to be in bed with the Sudanese Government and are
ineffective in helping the world community to put together such
a U.N. peacekeeping force?
Dr. Durch. I would suggest--and my colleagues could chime
in on this--that the Chinese Government is behaving consistent
with Chinese interests as they define them now and in terms of
the relative cost-benefit calculus they make about whether that
causes them problems if they do nothing to pressure the
Sudanese to stop the killing on the ground and admit the
security forces. If they are not under pressure or not willing
to pressure the Sudanese and the world is not willing to
pressure China, I think nothing is going to change in a
positive direction.
Mr. Schaefer. I will add most of the oil is in the south.
There is a referendum coming up involving independence for the
south. That is an interesting dynamic and has led China to
start exploring ties with the south, which may lead them to
perhaps moderate their support for Khartoum. But it also is a
potential source of instability if that leads to a resumption
of the conflict between the north and the south. It is a very
complex situation, but China is acting right now as the
protector of the government in Khartoum, temporarily moderated
by the Olympics situation, but I think it will quickly return
to its historical pattern of behavior unless circumstances
change.
I will add that China with Russia also vetoed a sanctions
resolution on Zimbabwe, which is a country in which they have
far less direct interests than they do with Sudan. So they
certainly are not shy about stopping Security Council
resolutions to countries where they see the United Nations
acting on internal affairs, even if they do not have strong
national interests at stake.
Senator Bill Nelson. Is it possible in south Sudan that
until such a referendum would be held, that since that area
would be ostensibly under the control of the Sudanese
Government, that they would put the arm on China to support
them in whatever they wanted with regard to a peacekeeping
force since China gets its oil with an arrangement through the
Government of Sudan?
Mr. Schaefer. There is a U.N. peacekeeping force in
Southern Sudan right now, that is distinct from what is going
on in Darfur. Whether southern Sudan which operates with a fair
amount of autonomy, is going to be motivated to act on Darfur,
is uncertain. It depends on how they determine their interests
there and whether they would be willing to risk what could be
substantial consequences.
Senator Bill Nelson. Let me ask you about this Global Peace
Initiative that wants to train 75,000 peacekeepers primarily
for Africa by 2010. Does this complement the U.N. peacekeeping?
Mr. Schaefer. Absolutely. I think to the extent that the
United States can increase the capabilities and professionalism
of African troops, the better the African troops will be able
to address problems in their region. The AU has shown a
distinct inclination to try and assert its authority in the
region, and I think it is to the best interests of the U.S. to
try and increase their capabilities so that when a crisis does
arise, the AU is capable of acting quickly under a U.N.
mandate, an AU mandate or in the context of a U.N. peacekeeping
operation. I think it is all to the better and it serves the
interests of the United States and it serves the interests of
African countries.
Senator Bill Nelson. Dr. Durch, any comments?
Dr. Durch. I actually agree with my colleague from
Heritage. [Laughter.]
Ambassador Soderberg. If I could just point out, though,
from this committee's perspective on GPOI, it is a good program
but it is wholly inadequate to the task. It is underfunded,
understaffed, and not anywhere near broad enough. Their
training--I am not criticizing the individuals involved. I know
them. They are committed public servants doing as much as they
can with the little resources that they have.
But the United Nations today is the second largest deployed
military in the world. You compare the Pentagon to the U.N.
Department of Peacekeeping or even NATO headquarters and how
many troops does NATO have in Afghanistan? I think it is under
30,000. They have, depending on how you count it, about 100,000
actual troops and then personnel, military, civilian is 140,000
people, armies that they are deploying around the world with
very few people.
They cannot do it. There is no way the U.N. can train and
equip these troops that you see on that map up there. The only
way to do it is to have Member States, and the only way to get
Member States to do it is to have the United States taking a
much stronger leading and coordinating role in doing in it.
Nobody else can do it but us.
And it is not just training them like GPOI does. It is
sustaining them, equipping, training them, and basically
partnering with them until they can do it on their own, which
is at least a decade away.
So 2010--if you talk to the State Department, they will say
they are on target to meet that. They have actually gotten the
G-8 to endorse it at these summits that they have. The
Europeans are helping out. Japan is actually very eager to do
more. So on paper, they will meet it, but these are not troops
that are ready to go into Darfur and stop the genocide.
You asked earlier about Lebanon. Lebanon is the cadillac of
peacekeeping operations because it has got first world armies
capable in there, the French and others. They can fight and
they will fight if they have to. There are other political
problems in Lebanon but it is a good peacekeeping mission. A
bad political situation that they are deployed into, but it is
the only peacekeeping mission that has got a fighting force out
there.
Senator Bill Nelson. How big is it?
Ambassador Soderberg. I do not know off the top of my head.
I think it is around 17.
Senator Bill Nelson. Oh, 12,383.
Ambassador Soderberg. What is the date on that chart,
though? I think that is last year. I think it has been
increased. That is October 2007. I think it is bigger now.
Mr. Schaefer. As of June 30, it is 12,325 troops.
Senator Bill Nelson. Do either of you gentlemen have any
comment? Ambassador Soderberg has already commented about the
sexual exploitation and abuse.
Dr. Durch. Since the stories emerged in 2004 and 2005, the
United Nations has taken a number of steps both structurally
and procedurally to deal with this problem. They have greatly
increased the number of investigators in the Office of Internal
Oversight Services. They have embedded some of these
investigators in some of the key U.N. peacekeeping operations
so that they have a little faster response.
We find that the number of allegations in 2007, although
unacceptably high, is roughly 55 percent of what it was in
2006. So that when you have got the initial ability to take
allegations, the numbers ballooned, and now that the system is
in place to investigate them, we are finding that some of the
other measures to prevent abuse I think are beginning to take
hold. The investigations are beginning to work better, and
there is a little bit more deterrence.
As has been said earlier, with military forces, the
militaries around the world take responsibility and demand
command responsibility and discipline, as do we, for their
forces. And the trick has been to get them to accept their
responsibilities. As you noted, the revised memorandum that
troop contributors are now signing contains many of these
stipulations in it. So that is all to the good. So as countries
rotate into new missions, more and more will be under these
strictures.
We have a project of our own looking at accountability of
civilians and police in U.N. missions, and we think there
really ought to be much improved measures for criminal
accountability and not just administrative. Right now, the
United Nations is limited to administrative sanctions, which
means someone's pay is docked, they are blacklisted from
further missions, they are fired, they are sent home, but that
is about all that really happens to them unless their sending
state, their state of nationality, has extraterritorial
jurisdiction over crimes their citizens commit while abroad.
Not too many countries do. So this is a problem in general.
But there is a conduct and discipline unit in the
Department of Field Support with at least a dozen members full-
time now overseeing conduct and discipline units in every major
U.N. peacekeeping operation. So in terms of structures to
monitor, structures to investigate, and structures to kind of
hold troop and police contributors' feet to the fire, the
United Nations is making some progress. Are they where they
ought to be? No, not yet, but it is in the right direction.
Mr. Schaefer. I will just add a couple bits to that.
As you probably know, there have been incidents,
accusations and findings of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct
in virtually every peacekeeping operation around the world. The
list includes Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Guinea, Haiti,
Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan. It is far
too prevalent in U.N. peacekeeping operations, far more
prevalent than it should be.
he rules suggested by Prince Zeid were adopted in 2005, and
the contact discipline teams have been in place on an
increasing basis and that is welcomed. But there does not seem
to have been the dramatic improvement that we would like to
see. There was a report by Save the Children last year which
concluded--and I will quote from it--``children as young as 6
are trading in sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in
exchange for food, money, soap, and in a very few cases, luxury
items such as mobile phones.'' At 6 years old. That is absurd
and appalling.
Mr. Durch puts his finger on the problem here. The United
Nations is somewhat limited in its ability to discipline
peacekeepers. Basically what they can do is send them home. It
is up to the troop-contributing countries to actually
discipline them. The United Nations needs to be much more
serious about this with troop-contributing countries. I would
think that if a country shows repeated problems with sexual
misconduct on the part of its peacekeepers, the United Nations
should seriously consider not accepting them for future
peacekeeping operations until they make a commitment to
investigate, try, and prosecute as appropriate, peacekeepers
that have been accused of crimes. I know that may impede the
number of peacekeepers that the United Nations has available,
but the Member States need to make sure that U.N. peacekeepers
are protectors, not predators.
here are some additional steps that the United Nations can
take--and some of these have been implemented to some extent
but not universally or completely. Every U.N. peacekeeping
operation should embed an auditor and investigator on the
ground to immediately investigate crimes when they are alleged
because, as was talked about in the earlier panel, in places
like Congo, it is not easy to go back to a scene of a crime and
gather the evidence that you need. It is far better to have
somebody readily available when the alleged crime took place,
to take DNA samples and gather other evidence that may be able
to lead to exoneration or conviction in the courts of the
countries where the peacekeeper came from.
The United Nations should also take this investigatory and
this auditing element and make it truly independent. The way
the system works right now, the OIOS is part of the U.N.
budgetary system. In essence, they have to go to the United
Nations and say, ``Hello, we are here to investigate you. Would
you please provide us money to do that?'' Obviously, there is a
conflict of interest. There needs to be an budgeting for the
OIOS and other investigation or oversight bodies to avoid this
type of conflict of interest.
T4Soderberg. If I could just add one recommendation, which
is difficult for the United States on the issue of sexual
exploitation when it comes to minors. I personally believe that
it should be made a crime under the International Criminal
Court and make it universally unacceptable. Now, the United
States has its own problems with the ICC, but it is up and
running and it is functioning. And they are investigating and
they are prosecuting. This is one area, particularly given the
international problems with the U.N.'s jurisdiction issues,
where the ICC could and should have jurisdiction over any
international organization's sexual abuse of children in my
view, and it should be made a crime of that serious nature.
Senator Bill Nelson. The only thing that has been done was
the General Assembly passed a resolution. It calls on the
Member States to work toward prosecuting nationals for these
crimes. That same resolution called on the Secretary General to
name and shame countries that do not prosecute the
perpetrators.
So thank you for your comments.
Final question. I am going to give you a test. You are now
the National Security Adviser to the next President of the
United States. And this President likes brevity, and so in one
paragraph, advise the next President what to do about Darfur.
We will just go right down the line, and we will go
alphabetically.
Dr. Durch.
Dr. Durch. I knew that would come to haunt me some day.
[Laughter.]
I would advise the President to meet with the permanent
five members of the Security Council, which includes, of
course, China and Russia, major oil recipients from Sudan, and
work out an agreement that they will, in fact, press the
Government of Sudan to comply with the commitments that it has
made, that we would, regardless of the Government of Sudan's
responses--hopefully, they would be positive--provide airlift
and logistic support to the UNAMID operation in Darfur. We
would encourage NATO to do the same. They have been doing that
for the old African mission, and that should be extended to
UNAMID itself. And also too we would look very dimly at the
Government of Sudan's efforts to disrupt the peace in Southern
Sudan.
Senator Bill Nelson. Next alphabetically is Mr. Schaefer.
Mr. Schaefer. In my opinion the crux of the matter is the
peace process and whether that is progressing or not. That is
what I would focus on in advising the President. The need to
bring pressure on both the Government in Khartoum on the rebel
groups to try and resolve that situation. They are doing that
to some extent, but the United States is not the primary
driver. It is an interested party, but it cannot be the driver.
If you are going to have a lasting peace agreement, there is
going to have to be based on the interest of all the parties to
resolve that situation on their own terms. There is not a whole
lot the United States can do directly.
To the extent of the mission, the United States can provide
logistical support. The United States can provide some
equipment, and the United States can do its best to try and
train African troops to go into Darfur under the current
circumstances. It should also seek to try and remove the
restrictions that are impeding the current operations such as
the restrictions on participation by non-African troops.
Ambassador Soderberg. I would say four short-term issues
and one multifaceted, long-term issue.
The first is it is time to stand up to Khartoum through the
U.N. Security Council. Every time that they obstruct something,
there should be a public hearing and the Security Council make
the perm rep go down and defend why he will not let the
Egyptian battalions deploy because the Thais and the Nepalese
have not gotten there first, whatever ridiculous issue they
come up with. We need to tighten the sanctions not just on
travel and visas but start looking at their oil revenues. The
oil is the only thing that is going to get their attention. The
ICC may but that, as we have seen with Karadzic, it takes 13
years.
Second, get the peacekeepers on the ground. There are not
sufficient peacekeepers on the ground. They have offered us
26,000. There is nowhere near that number to get them there,
whether it is Africans or somebody else. Do not fall into this
African-only trap that the Africans themselves have fallen
right into. The South Africans, by the way, have not been
progressive on this issue.
Third, get the infrastructure on the ground. You can get
all the troops you want, but if they cannot move, fly, sustain
themselves, logistics, transport, and helicopters on the
ground, you do not have a peacekeeping mission. It has to be
robust. There is no peace to keep there. That is usually rule
No. 1, to not put a peacekeeping mission on the ground. We have
decided to do so. Then do so and do so robustly and quickly.
Fourth, I will echo my colleague's comments on the peace
process. He says it more gracefully than I can. It is the most
important issue.
But long-term, you have to look at peacekeeping in general.
Darfur is a failure of the world's peacekeeping system. In
Africa, it is broken. It works in Latin America. It works in
Asia. It works in Europe. It does not work in Africa because
the troops are not there. So long term we need to, first of
all, pay on time in full. We still pay a year behind, by the
way. You go to the Pentagon. Every Secretary of Defense hears
about it from other troops. Why are my troops not getting paid?
So in full, on time, which means you have got to double pay
this bill. Try and sell that to this body, but you got to do
it.
And set up a core group to get the Africans up to date in
peacekeeping missions, and that is a partnership effort, a
worldwide partnership effort, led by the United States to
train, equip, and sustain African troops. We are doing more
than our fair share in that part, and the United States has
gotten very little credit for it. But let us lead an effort in
trying to get others to do exactly that.
[The prepared statements of Ambassador Soderberg, Mr.
Schaefer, and Dr. Durch follow:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, Distinguished
Visiting Scholar, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL
First, let me thank Chairman Nelson for holding this important
hearing and for the honor of appearing before you today. The role of
peacekeeping is key to keeping America secure. We cannot do it alone.
The U.N. needs us--and we need the U.N.
A lot has changed in peacekeeping over the last 60 years. During
the cold war, the U.N. managed 13 peacekeeping operations--back when
that was the most boring job in the world for the U.N. soldiers--
sitting on a border where nothing ever happened.
Well, a lot has changed since the end of the cold war--over 50
missions, most extremely complex and today the U.N. manages nearly
90,000 troops--the second largest military deployment in the world.
With civilian personnel, the number is close to 110,000. And it does it
lean--although not mean. About $7 billion a year.
But today, peacekeeping is at risk and it is up to the
international community to help. Far too often, UNDPKO does its job--
but the UNSC and the international community do not do theirs. If the
international community is going to keep putting missions on the U.N.'s
back--it has a responsibility to give it the support it needs to do the
job right.
I commend the subcommittee for convening this important hearing. I
hope you will take away a plan of action to provide the U.N. the
support it needs. Simply put, the U.N. needs a much stronger
international support system--where capable countries partner with U.N.
troops that need training, doctrine, equipping, and sustaining. This
committee can play an important role in bringing such a network to
fruition.
The test going ahead is not to look for the U.N. to deploy in areas
as a band-aid solution--that risks disaster. When the UNSC has
authorized deployment of troops where there is no peace to keep--
Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia in the 1990s through to Darfur today--the
U.N. fails. But when there is a peace to keep and the U.N. mission is
well trained, equipped, and sustained--U.N. peacekeeping works. Look at
Liberia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, and of course the Cadillac of PKO--
the reinforced mission in Lebanon.
The world has already made great strides in conflict prevention and
the U.N. deserves high praise for its role in that task. Today,
however, the international community has not done its fair share in
building up African capabilities to keep and maintain the peace. Of 17
peace operations in the world, 11 are in Africa, with more on the
horizon such as Somalia. But far too many of us are opting out. Of the
90,000 peacekeepers out there, the P5 contributes only about 6,000.
China and France are close to 2,000. Russia, the U.S., and U.K.--
between 300 and 350 each. Japan provides only 36. Those numbers may not
change--but the level of engagement of the P5 and other capable
countries must.
INTERVENTION GAP
The West is often accused of a double standard in where it will
intervene--meaning never in Africa. The truth is there is an
intervention gap in Africa, but one that is largely driven by a
capability gap. Africa does not have a mechanism for enforcement--nor
does it have adequate peacekeeping capabilities.
Enforcement operations as well are unevenly undertaken. With a few
notable exceptions, such as the recent interventions by former colonial
powers, Britain and France, in Africa and NATO's deployment to
Afghanistan, American and European leaders share a core principle of
sending troops into harm's way only in one's own back yard.
For instance, the United States intervened in Haiti in 1994 and
2004 and the Balkans in 1995 and 1999; Australia led the intervention
into East Timor in 1999; and Nigeria intervened in 1998 in Sierra
Leone. Only South Africa answered the Secretary General's 1999 call for
troops in Burundi. The West will on occasion intervene in areas of
direct impact on their national security, such as the recent deployment
of Europeans to Lebanon and NATO's deployment in Afghanistan. And of
course, there is the unique situation in Iraq (or at least hope will be
unique).
Yet, for the most part, Africa lacks capable troops to deploy
quickly to stem violence in its own sphere of influence. To be sure,
they are making great progress. ECOWAS has deployed in many conflicts
and the AU has deployed in Darfur, although it lacked sufficient
capabilities for the mission. But the Darfur deployment--even after the
U.N. stepped in last summer--underscores the difficulties in Africa's
ability to deploy peacekeeping missions--the forces lacks key
capabilities of lift, equipment, communications, doctrine, and
training. And those are the very capabilities the other regions of the
world have--especially the U.S., NATO, and the EU--but also Latin
Americans and increasingly Asia.
To address that gap, nations with capable forces should build up
such a capability in Africa that might prevent future genocides. But
the programs to date are wholly inadequate. Both the U.S. and the G-8
have endorsed the goal of training and equipping 75,000 peacekeeping
troops by 2010, mostly in Africa. But the initiative is not
sufficiently funded or supported. Troops often go through training, but
there is insufficient equipping or ongoing training. What good is a
battalion that has been trained, but then disbands or lacks ongoing
training? There is some good news. On our side, the U.S. DOD has
recently made peacekeeping a priority--in fact a core mission of its
purpose.
The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) states that ``The
Department stands ready to increase its assistance to the United
Nations Peacekeeping Operations in areas of the Department's expertise
such as doctrine, training, strategic planning and management.'' Over
the last decade, and particularly following the attacks of September
11, the Pentagon has increasingly viewed failed states, also referred
to as ``under- or ungoverned spaces,'' as a threat to U.S. national
security. With that has come recognition of the importance of
peacekeeping for U.S. interests.
Yet, with our forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan,
significant new support will not be forthcoming in the short term. NATO
is uniquely situated to help train and equip Africa--but it too is
bogged down in Afghanistan. In discussing the issue with our own
Pentagon--they do not believe NATO has the capacity to do another
mission at the time. So, who is left?
The EU, China, the Latins, and Asia must all do more--but we also
can't let the U.S. and NATO off the hook. We all need to do more.
The G-8 has put the African Action Plan on its agenda--that is a
good sign. The U.S. has made the decision to establish a new combatant
command in Africa--and to make it operational by October 2008. While
the location has yet to be decided, it will provide new opportunities
to work closely with the AU and its regional hubs to develop its own
capabilities.
The AU needs are vast. The AU plan involves contingents on standby
in five regions of Africa (Eastern, Central, Southern, Western, and
Northern) which would be available for deployment for missions ranging
from observation to intervention against genocide. Current planning is
for the force to be ready by 2010. Each brigade would have
approximately 3,000 to 4,000 troops giving the AU a standby capacity of
approximately 15,000-20,000 peacekeepers.
That is an ambitious goal. The five regions vary greatly in
capabilities. The Central and Northern Brigades exist only on paper.
The Eastern Brigade, to be handled by IGAD, is not yet ready to be
deployed, nor is the Southern one, to be handled by SADC. The most
advanced is the Western Brigade, run by the most capable regional
organization, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),
made up of 15 nations formed in 1975. ECOWAS, based in Abuja, Nigeria,
has deployed to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Cote d'Ivoire,
and Liberia.
The establishment of the new USCOCOM in Africa, AFRICOM, will help
focus the U.S. on the peacekeeping needs in Africa. Hope it can serve
to galvanize the U.S. and others to meet the needs of African
peacekeepers. Would be an area that Japan can explore--ways to promote
new partnerships.
The African Union still has many unresolved issues, including where
to find the resources and the political will to establish the standby
force and how the body will relate to the many regional organizations
on the continent, as well as the EU, NATO, and the U.N. The African
Union recognizes it needs help and is refreshingly willing to seek it.
To address some of these needs, the U.N. should establish a
worldwide support group of peacekeepers--a Friends Group or Core
Group--to coordinate peacekeepers' needs and to make sure they are met.
It is up to the international community to help the AU succeed. Japan
is certainly well placed to play a leadership role.
It is also important to recognize that in the wake of the crises in
the 1990s in the Balkans and Rwanda, the world also recognized that
responsibility to respect those at risk when the government cannot or
will not do so. In 2005, the UNGA endorsed the R2P concept--but it has
failed to follow through with action.
That fact is sadly evident in Darfur where the world has failed to
protect the population at risk. The Sudanese have refused to permit a
more forceful peacekeeping presence than the one provided by the AU--
precisely because it is not yet ready to stop the killing. The UNSC
caved into Sudan's insistence on a ``predominantly'' African force--
which the Sudanese have turned into an exclusively African force. Only
one third of the authorized troops are on the ground. Good offers for
assistance have been rejected by Sudan, and today Sudan is holding up
the deployment of Thai troops and Nepalese support for the nonsensical
reason that some African troops must deploy first.
None of this is the fault of UNDPKO. It is time the UNSC stand up
to those hindering peacekeeping. There are some useful lessons in
Darfur that provide lessons on how to meet the new challenges of
peacekeeping.
There are four key steps:
First, the U.N. Security Council must no longer let countries
dictate the terms of the peacekeeping missions when civilians are at
risk. It is time to move beyond the absolute right of sovereignty. In
Darfur, it is time to stand up to Sudan. Khartoum should not be able to
object to capable troops and engineers nor to insist on a particular
deployment sequencing. Khartoum's preconditions on which troops can
participate in the mission rule out some of the most capable forces.
Second, Africa's forces must be trained, equipped, deployed, and
sustained. The United States and others have partnered with some troops
and those relationships must be expanded and sustained throughout the
course of the mission. Here the U.S. should play a critical role in
setting up a worldwide Core Group of partners who will support African
battalions and sustain them over a multiyear effort. The goal would be
self-sufficiency within 10 years.
Third, the members must put a higher priority on deploying the
mission's critical infrastructure so the force can function once on the
ground. For instance, in Sudan, even if the troops are deployed, there
is no infrastructure to support it. The world must provide the 24
helicopters, two transport units and one logistical unit it urgently
needs. Without such support, the U.N. mission cannot function. UNDPKO
has repeatedly asked for better stockpiling of equipment. A worldwide
effort is needed to provide this critical infrastructure. Again, Japan
can play a critical role.
Fourth, we must all be conscious of the risk of deploying
peacekeepers into areas where there is no peace to keep. Today, UNDPKO
officials are very blunt about the risks of Sudan and Somalia--no one
wants another Black Hawk Down crisis. But that is exactly what we are
risking today in Darfur--and certainly in Somalia
if that mission goes through. The UNSC has a responsibility to press
for peace harder--before and during any peacekeeping mission.
Certainly in Darfur--there is no peace to keep and the U.N. and AU
have already lost close to a dozen soldiers. Their weapons have been
stolen.
There must be a renewed effort to reach peace in Sudan's three
crises--in the south, east, and western area of Darfur. Any successful
peace process will require the engagement of the full spectrum of
actors, including all rebel movements and, of course, the Government of
Sudan.
I hope the subcommittee will take up these tasks. The United States
will be safer and more secure if we do.
______
Prepared Statement of Brett D. Schaefer, Jay Kingham Fellow in
International Regulatory Affairs, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom,
The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC
Thank you for inviting me to speak about ``United Nations
Peacekeeping: Challenges and Opportunities.'' My name is Brett
Schaefer. I am the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory
Affairs at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this
testimony are my own and should not be construed as representing any
official position of The Heritage Foundation.
U.N. PEACEKEEPING
One of the United Nations' primary responsibilities--and the one
that Americans most agree with--is to help maintain international peace
and security, but the U.N. has come under increasing criticism, both
within the United States and around the world, for its inability to
keep the peace where it is asked to do so. The U.N. Charter places
principal responsibility for maintaining international peace and
security within the U.N. system on the Security Council.\1\ The Charter
gives the Security Council extensive powers to investigate disputes to
determine whether they endanger international peace and security; to
call on participants in a dispute to settle the conflict through
peaceful negotiation; to impose mandatory economic, travel, and
diplomatic sanctions; and ultimately to authorize the use of military
force.\2\ This robust vision of the U.N. as a key vehicle for
maintaining international peace and security quickly ran athwart the
interests of the Member States, particularly during the cold war when
opposing alliances prevented the U.N. from taking decisive action
except when the interests of the major powers were minimal.
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\1\Charter of the United Nations, Article 24, at www.un.org/
aboutun/charte.
\2\ In matters of international peace and security, the U.N.
Security Council was originally envisioned, unrealistically in
retrospect, as the principal vehicle for the use of force, except for
the inherent right of every state to defend itself if attacked, facing
an imminent attack, or facing an immediate threat, which the Charter
explicitly acknowledges. Charter of the United Nations, Article 51.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a result, between 1945 and 1990, the Security Council
established only 18 peace operations, despite a multitude of conflicts
during that period that threatened international peace and security to
greater or lesser degree.\3\ Traditionally, Security Council
authorizations of military force have involved deployments into
relatively low-risk situations such as truce monitoring. The bulk of
these peace operations were fact-finding missions, observer missions,
and other roles in assisting peace processes in which the parties had
agreed to cease hostilities.\4\ U.N. peace operations were rarely
authorized with the expectation of the use of force.\5\
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\3\ Since 1945, there have been approximately 300 wars resulting in
over 22 million deaths. The U.N. has authorized military action to
counter aggression just twice: In response to the North Korean invasion
of South Korea in 1950 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
\4\ For example, the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)
was established in 1948 to observe the cease-fire agreements among
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel and still operates today. The
UNTSO and UNEF I missions are examples of ``traditional'' U.N. peace
operations. Interestingly, the first venture into peacekeeping was
taken by the General Assembly in 1956 after the Security Council was
unable to reach a consensus on the Suez Crisis. The General Assembly
established the U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF I) to separate Egyptian and
Israeli forces and to facilitate the transition of the Suez Canal when
British and French forces left. Because the UNEF resolutions were not
passed under Chapter VII, Egypt had to approve the deployment.
\5\ This restraint was reinforced by the U.N. venture into peace
enforcement in the Congo (1960-1964), in which U.N.-led forces
confronted a mutiny by Congolese armed forces against the government,
sought to maintain the Congo's territorial integrity, and tried to
prevent civil war after the province of Katanga seceded. According to a
RAND Corporation study, ``U.N. achievements in the Congo came at
considerable cost in men lost, money spent, and controversy raised. . .
. As a result of these costs and controversies, neither the United
Nations' leadership nor its Member Nations were eager to repeat the
experience. For the next 25 years the United Nations restricted its
military interventions to interpositional peacekeeping, policing cease-
fires, and patrolling disengagement zones in circumstances where all
parties invited its presence and armed force was to be used by U.N.
troops only in self-defense.'' James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith
Crane, Andrew Rathmell, Brett Steele, Richard Teltschik, and Anga
Timilsina, ``The U.N.'s Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to
Iraq,'' RAND Corporation, 2005, p. xvi, at www.rand.org/pubs/
monographs/2005/RAND_MG304.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the end of the cold war, the U.N. Security Council has been
far more active in establishing peace operations. In the early 1990s,
crises in the Balkans, Somalia, and Cambodia led to a dramatic increase
in missions. However, the debacle in Somalia and the failure of U.N.
peacekeepers to intervene and prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and
or to stop the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia, led to a necessary
skepticism about U.N. peacekeeping.
With a number of troubling situations, many in Africa, receiving
increasing attention in the media in recent years, however, the
Security Council has found itself under pressure to respond and ``do
something.'' The response, for better or worse, has often been to
establish a new peacekeeping operation.
The Security Council has approved over 40 new peace operations
since 1990. Half of all current peacekeeping operations have been
authorized by the Security Council since 2000. These post-1990
operations involved a dramatic expansion in scope, purpose, and
responsibilities beyond traditional peace operations. Moreover, these
missions reflected a change in the nature of conflict from interstate
conflict between nations to intrastate conflict within states by
authorizing missions focused on quelling civil wars.\6\
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\6\ According to one estimate, 80 percent of all wars from 1900 to
1941 were conflicts between states involving formal state armies, while
85 percent of all wars from 1945 to 1976 were within the territory of a
single state and involved internal armies, militias, rebels, or other
parties to the conflict. See Charter of the United Nations, Article 2,
and Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, ``Making War and Building
Peace: United Nations Peace Operations'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2006), p. 11, at www.press.princeton.edu/chapters/
s8196.pdf.
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This expansion of risk and responsibilities was justified by
pointing out the international consequences of the conflict, such as
refugees or preventing widespread conflict and instability. While such
actions may be justified in some cases, they represent a dramatic shift
from earlier doctrine. As a result, from a rather modest history of
monitoring cease-fires, demilitarized zones, and post-conflict
security, U.N. peace operations have expanded to include multiple
responsibilities including more complex military interventions,
civilian police duties, human rights interventions, reconstruction,
overseeing elections, and post-conflict reconstruction.\7\
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\7\ The broadening of U.N. peacekeeping into these nontraditional
missions and the mixed U.N. record in pursuit of these missions raise
legitimate questions as to whether the U.N. should be engaged in these
activities. Such a question is beyond the scope of this paper and is
primarily a political question that can be resolved by the members of
the Security Council, particularly by the permanent members. For more
information, see John R. Bolton, ``United States Policy on United
Nations Peacekeeping: Case Studies in the Congo, Sierra Leone,
Ethiopia-Eritrea, Kosovo and East Timor,'' testimony before the
Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives,
January 21, 2000, at www.aei.org/publications/pubID.17044,filter.all/
pub_detail.asp.
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At the end of May 2008, there were 17 active U.N. peacekeeping
operations and another three political or peacebuilding operations \8\
directed and supported by the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping
Operations (UNDPKO). Ten of these operations, including political
missions, were in Africa (Burundi, Central African Republic, and Chad,
Cote d'Ivoire, Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and
Eritrea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Western Sahara); one was in the
Caribbean (Haiti); three were in Europe (Cyprus, Georgia, and Kosovo);
and the remaining six missions were in the Middle East (the Middle
East, Lebanon, the Syrian Golan Heights) and in Asia (Afghanistan, East
Timor, and India and Pakistan).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan or UNAMA, U.N.
Integrated Office in Sierra Leone or UNIOSIL, U.N. Integrated Office in
Burundi or BINUB.
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The size and expense of U.N. peace operations have risen to
unprecedented levels. The 17 peacekeeping missions cited above involved
some 88,000 uniformed personnel from 117 countries, including over
74,000 troops, 2,500 military observers, and 11,000 police personnel.
There were also over 19,500 U.N. volunteers and other international and
local civilian personnel employed in these 17 operations. Additionally,
over 2,000 military observers, police, international and local
civilians, and U.N. volunteers were involved in the three political or
peacebuilding missions directed and supported by UNDPKO.\9\
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\9\ United Nations Peacekeeping, ``Current Operations,'' at http://
www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/currentops.shtml#africa; United Nations
Peacekeeping, ``Monthly Summary of Contributions of Military and
Civilian Police Personnel,'' at http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/
contributors/; and ``United Nations Political and Peacebuilding
Missions,'' Background Note, May 31, 2008, at http://www.un.org/Depts/
dpko/dpko/ppbm.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All told, including international and local civilian personnel and
U.N. volunteers, the personnel involved in U.N. peacekeeping,
political, or peace-building operations overseen by UNDPKO totaled more
than 109,500 at the end of May 2008. These operations involved the
deployment of more uniformed personnel than were deployed by any single
nation in the world other than the United States. (See attached Table)
This activity has also led to a dramatically increased budget. The
approved budget for UNDPKO--just one department in the U.N.
Secretariat--from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008, was approximately
$6.8 billion. The projected budget for U.N. peacekeeping operations is
$7.4 billion for the July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009, fiscal year. This
is a 10-percent increase over the previous budget and nearly a
threefold increase in budget and personnel since 2003.\10\
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\10\ Harvey Morris, ``U.N. Peacekeeping in Line of Fire,'' The
Financial Times, May 20, 2008, at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67ae1fe4-
23ac-11dd-b214-000077b07658.html.
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By comparison, the annual peacekeeping budget is now triple the
size of the annualized U.N. regular biennial 2008/2009 budget for the
rest of the Secretariat.
In general, the U.S. has supported the expansion of U.N.
peacekeeping. Multiple administrations have concluded that it is in
America's interest to support U.N. operations as a useful, cost-
effective way to influence situations that affect the U.S. national
interest but do not rise to the level of requiring direct U.S.
intervention. Although the U.N. peacekeeping record includes
significant failures, U.N. peace operations overall have proven to be a
convenient multilateral means for addressing humanitarian concerns in
situations where conflict or instability make civilians vulnerable to
atrocities, for promoting peace efforts, and for supporting the
transition to democracy and post-conflict rebuilding.
The U.S. contributes the greatest share of funding for peacekeeping
operations. The U.S. is assessed 22 percent of the U.N. regular budget,
but is assessed over 26 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. All
permanent members of the Security Council--China, France, Russia, the
United Kingdom, and the United States--are charged a premium above
their regular assessment rate. However, none pay nearly what the U.S.
is assessed. In 2008-2009, the U.N. assessment for the U.S. is just
under 26 percent. China is assessed 3.15 percent, France is assessed
7.4 percent, Russia is assessed 1.4 percent, and the U.K. is assessed
7.8 percent.\11\ Thus, the U.S. is assessed more than all of the other
permanent members combined. Japan and Germany, even though they are not
permanent members of the Security Council, rank second and third in
assessments at 16.6 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.
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\11\ U.N. General Assembly, ``Scale Implementation of General
Assembly Resolutions 55/235 and 55/236,'' A/61/139/Add.1, 61st Sess.,
December 27, 2006.
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Based on the U.N.'s July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2008, budget
projection for peacekeeping, the U.S. will be asked to pay over $1.9
billion for U.N. peacekeeping activities over that time.\12\ As a means
of comparison, the 30-plus countries assessed the lowest rate of 0.0001
percent of the peacekeeping budget for 2008-2009 will be assessed
$7,352 based on that projection.
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\12\ This is, of course, a best guess on the part of the U.N. If a
new mission is approved during the year, if a mission is closed
unexpectedly, or if a mission does not deploy on schedule, the
estimates would be adjusted. The U.S. is perpetually out of sync
because it prepares its budget requests a year in advance. Shortfalls
and other unforeseen changes are usually addressed in a subsequent or
supplemental appropriation.
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Although the U.S. and other developed countries regularly provide
lift and logistics support, many developed countries that possess
trained personnel and other essential resources are generally reluctant
to participate directly in U.N. peace operations. The five permanent
members contribute a total of less than 6 percent of U.N. uniformed
personnel. The U.S. contribution totaled 14 troops, 16 military
observers, and 259 police. This is roughly comparable to Russia and the
U.K., which contributed 358 and 299 uniformed personnel, respectively.
China and France contributed more at 1,977 and 2,090 personnel.
The top 10 contributors of uniformed personnel to U.N. operations
are nearly all developing countries: Pakistan (10,623); Bangladesh
(9,037); India (8,862); Nigeria (5,218); Nepal (3,711); Ghana (3,239);
Jordan (3,017); Rwanda (3,001); Italy (2,864); and Uruguay,
(2,617).\13\ A number of reasons account for this situation, including
the fact that major contributors use U.N. participation as a form of
training and income.\14\
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\13\ Troop contributor data are as of May 31, 2008. See U.N.
Department of Peacekeeping Operations, ``Monthly Summary of
Contributions (Military Observers, Police and Troops),'' at http://
www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/2008/may08_1.pdf.
\14\ According to the United Nations Foundation, ``The U.N. pays
the governments of troop contributing countries $1,110 per soldier each
month of deployment.'' This amount is far greater than the nations pay
the troops participating in the missions. United Nations Foundation,
``Season of the Blue Helmets,'' UNF Insights: New Ideas for
International Cooperation, at www.unfoundation.org/features/
unf_insights/season_blue_helmets.asp.
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While the U.S. clearly should support U.N. peacekeeping operations
when they support America's national interests, broadening U.N. peace
operations into nontraditional missions like peace enforcement and the
inability to garner broad international support in terms of troop
contributions, logistics support, and funding raise legitimate
questions as to whether or not the U.N. should be engaged in the
current number of missions and whether these situations are best
addressed through the U.N. or through regional, multilateral, or ad hoc
efforts with Security Council support. Concerns are growing that the
system for assessing the U.N. peacekeeping budget is inappropriate,
given the far larger financial demands of this expanded role for U.N.
peacekeeping. Such questions are primarily political questions that can
be resolved only by the Member States.
Outside of the political realm, however, is the fundamental
question of whether the system as currently structured is capable of
meeting its responsibilities. Indisputably, the unprecedented frequency
and size of recent U.N. deployments and the resulting financial demands
have challenged and overwhelmed the capabilities of the U.N. Department
of Peacekeeping Operations, leading to serious problems of
mismanagement, misconduct, poor planning, corruption, sexual abuse,
unclear mandates, and other weaknesses. Let me highlight two notable
problems.
Mismanagement, Fraud, and Corruption. The U.N., as illustrated by
the Oil-for-Food scandals and the more recent instances of
mismanagement by UNDP in North Korea, has proven to be susceptible to
mismanagement, fraud, and corruption. This also applies to U.N.
peacekeeping. The Secretariat procured over $1.6 billion in goods and
services in 2005, mostly to support peacekeeping, which has more than
quadrupled in size since 1999. An Office of Internal Oversight Services
(OIOS) audit of $1 billion in DPKO procurement contracts over a 6-year
period found that at least $265 million was subject to waste, fraud, or
abuse.\15\ The U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded:
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\15\ U.N. Security Council, ``Peacekeeping Procurement Audit Found
Mismanagement, Risk of Financial Loss, Security Council Told in
Briefing by Chief of Staff,'' SC/8645, U.N. Department of Public
Information, February 22, 2006, at www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/
sc8645.doc.htm.
While the U.N. Department of Management is responsible for
U.N. procurement, field procurement staff are instead
supervised by the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations,
which currently lacks the expertise and capacities needed to
manage field procurement activities.\16\
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\16\ David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States,
``United Nations: Internal Oversight and Procurement Controls and
Processes Need Strengthening,'' GAO-06-701T, testimony before the
Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives,
April 27, 2006, at www.gao.gov/new.items/d06701t.pdf.
In reaction to the OIOS audit, the Department of Management and the
DPKO accepted a majority of the 32 OIOS audit recommendations for
addressing the findings.\17\ However, a more recent report from earlier
this year indicates that these new procedures may not be sufficient to
prevent a recurrence of fraud and corruption. Specifically, the OIOS
revealed earlier this year that it is investigating about 250
corruption cases ranging from sexual abuse by peacekeepers to financial
irregularities. According to Inga-Britt Ahlenius, head of the OIOS,
``We can say that we found mismanagement and fraud and corruption to an
extent we didn't really expect.'' \18\ According to the report, $1.4
billion worth of peacekeeping contracts turned up ``significant''
corruption schemes involving more than $619 million, or 44 percent of
the total value of the contracts.\19\ At the time of the report, the
task force had looked at only 7 of the 18 U.N. peacekeeping missions
that were operational over the period of the investigation. A 2008
report on the audit of the U.N. mission in Sudan revealed tens of
millions lost to mismanagement and waste and substantial indications of
fraud and corruption.\20\
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\17\ U.N. Security Council, ``Peacekeeping Procurement Audit Found
Mismanagement, Risk of Financial Loss, Security Council Told in
Briefing by Chief of Staff.''
\18\ Louis Charbonneau, ``U.N. Probe Into Abuse, Corruption,'' The
Courier-Mail (Queensland), January 12, 2008.
\19\ George Russell, ``Report Details Progress in Battle Against
Corruption at U.N. Office,'' Fox News, October 11, 2007, at http://
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301255,00.html.
\20\ Colum Lynch, ``Audit of U.N.'s Sudan Mission Finds Tens of
Millions in Waste,'' The Washington Post, February 10, 2008, p. A16.
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Worse, even the OIOS seems to be susceptible to improper influence.
Allegations were made in 2006 that U.N. peacekeepers had illegal
dealings with Congolese militias, including gold smuggling and arms
trafficking. According to the lead OIOS investigator in charge of
investigating the charges against the U.N. peacekeepers in the Congo,
he had found the allegations of abuses by Pakistani peacekeepers to be
``credible,'' but ``the investigation was taken away from my team after
we resisted what we saw as attempts to influence the outcome. My fellow
team members and I were appalled to see that the oversight office's
final report was a little short of a whitewash.'' \21\ BBC and Human
Rights Watch have provided evidence that the U.N. covered up evidence
of wrongdoing by its peacekeepers in Congo.\22\
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\21\ Matthias Basanisi, ``Who Will Watch the Peacekeepers?'' The
New York Times, May 23, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/
opinion/23basanisi.html.
\22\ BBC, ``U.N. Troops `Armed DR Congo Rebels','' April 28, 2008,
at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7365283.stm, and Joe Bavier,
``U.N. ignored peacekeeper abuses in Congo, group says,'' May 2, 2008,
at http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN02278304.
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Sexual Misconduct. In recent years, there have been several
harrowing reports of crimes committed by U.N. personnel, from rape to
the forced prostitution of women and young girls, the most notorious of
which have involved the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. Indeed, allegations and confirmed incidents of sexual
exploitation and abuse by U.N. personnel have become depressingly
routine in Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Guinea, Haiti, Kosovo,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.\23\
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\23\ See Kate Holt and Sarah Hughes, ``U.N. Staff Accused of Raping
Children in Sudan,'' The Daily Telegraph, January 4, 2007, at
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/03/wsudan03.xml;
Kate Holt and Sarah Hughes, ``Sex and the U.N.: When Peacemakers Become
Predators,'' The Independent, January 11, 2005, at
www.news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article14411.ece; and Colum
Lynch, ``U.N. Faces More Accusations of Sexual Misconduct,'' The
Washington Post, March 13, 2005, p. A22, at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/articles/A30286-2005Mar12.html.
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The alleged perpetrators of these abuses include U.N. military and
civilian personnel from a number of U.N. Member States involved in
peace operations and from U.N. funds and programs. The victims are
refugees--many of them children--who have been terrorized by years of
war and look to the U.N. for safety and protection.\24\ In addition to
the horrible mistreatment of those who are under the protection of the
U.N., sexual exploitation and abuse undermine the credibility of U.N.
peace operations and must be addressed through an effective plan and
commitment to end abuses and ensure accountability.\25\
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\24\ For more information on U.N. peacekeeping abuses, see Nile
Gardiner, Ph.D., ``The U.N. Peacekeeping Scandal in the Congo: How
Congress Should Respond,'' Heritage Foundation Lecture No. 868, March
1, 2005, at www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/
upload/76028_1.pdf.
\25\ U.S. Institute of Peace, Task Force on the United Nations,
American Interests and U.N. Reform, June 2005, pp. 94-96, at
www.usip.org/un/report/usip_un_report.pdf.
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After intense lobbying by the U.S. Department of State and U.S.
mission to the United Nations since early 2004, as well as pressure
from several key Members of Congress, the U.N. Secretariat agreed to
adopt stricter requirements for peacekeeping troops and their
contributing countries.\26\ The U.S. also helped the DPKO to publish a
resource manual on trafficking for U.N. peacekeepers. In 2005, Prince
Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein of Jordan, the Secretary General's adviser on
sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeeping personnel, submitted
his report to the Secretary General with recommendations on how to
address the sexual abuse problem, including imposing a uniform standard
of conduct, conducting professional investigations, and holding troop-
contributing countries accountable for the actions of their soldiers
and for proper disciplinary action. In June 2005, the General Assembly
adopted the recommendations in principle, and some recommendations have
been implemented. For instance, contact and discipline teams are now
present in most missions, and troops are now required to undergo
briefing and training on behavior and conduct.\27\ Tragically, this
does not seem to have addressed the problem adequately.
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\26\ See Kim R. Holmes, ``United Nations Organization Mission in
the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Case for Peacekeeping Reform,''
testimony before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and
International Operations, Committee on International Relations, U.S.
House of Representatives, 109th Cong., 1st Sess., March 1, 2005, at
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa99590.000/
hfa99590_0.HTM.
\27\ U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Organization
Affairs, United States Participation in the United Nations 2005,
October 2005, pp. 43-44, at www.state.gov/documents/organization/
74052.pdf.
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Only this past May, Save the Children accused aid workers and
peacekeepers of sexually abusing young children in war zones and
disaster zones in Ivory Coast, Southern Sudan, and Haiti and going
largely unpunished. U.N. peacekeepers were most likely to be
responsible for abuse. According to a report by Save the Children,
``Children as young as 6 are trading sex with aid workers and
peacekeepers in exchange for food, money, soap and, in very few cases,
luxury items such as mobile phones.'' \28\
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\28\ Corinna Csaky, ``No One to Turn To: The Under-Reporting of
Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Aid Workers and Peacekeepers,''
Save the Children, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/
27_05_08_savethechildren.pdf. See also BBC, ``Peacekeepers `Abusing
Children','' May 27, 2008, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/
7420798.stm.
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However, despite this action and then-Secretary General Kofi
Annan's announcement of a ``zero tolerance'' policy, the perpetrators
of these crimes are very rarely punished, as was revealed in a January
2007 news report on U.N. abuses in Southern Sudan.\29\ The standard
memorandum of understanding between the U.N. and troop contributors
clearly grants troop-contributing countries jurisdiction over military
members participating in U.N. peace operations, but little is done if
these countries fail to investigate, try, and punish those guilty of
such crimes.
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\29\ According to Fox News, ``U.N. military officials have the
power to direct the troops placed under their command, but are
relatively powerless when it comes to punishing them if they are
accused of crimes against humanity. There are 13 misconduct
investigations ongoing at the Sudan mission, [and] some include sexual
abuse. From January 2004 to the end of November 2006, investigations
were conducted for 319 sexual exploitation and abuse cases in U.N.
missions throughout the world. These probes resulted in the dismissal
of 18 civilians and the repatriation on disciplinary grounds of 17
police and 144 military personnel. . . . What's frustrating to military
commanders on the ground is that there is little they can do to
offending peacekeepers, other than putting them on desk duty,
restricting them to quarters, and requesting a full investigation and
repatriation.'' Liza Porteus, ``U.N. Peacekeepers Accused in Sudan Sex-
Abuse Case Get Reprimand,'' Fox News, January 05, 2007, at
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,241960,00.html.
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The problems of mismanagement, corruption, and misconduct cry out
for fundamental reform of the U.N. peacekeeping structure to improve
accountability and transparency. However, corruption, mismanagement,
and sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers are not the only problems
with U.N. peacekeeping. The other problem is a political problem. The
vast expansion of U.N. peacekeeping--with the possibility of even more
operations on the horizon like the proposal for a new Somalia mission
with up to 27,000 peacekeepers--has led some to point out that the U.N.
Security Council has gone ``mandate crazy'' in its attempts to be seen
as effective and ``doing something.'' \30\ The willingness of the
Security Council to approve missions where ``there is no peace to
keep''--such as Darfur, Somalia, or Chad--violates a dearly learned
lesson that U.N. peacekeepers are not war fighters.
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\30\ Morris, ``U.N. Peacekeeping in Line of Fire.''
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In general, the U.N. and its Member States had accepted the fact--
in the wake of the Somalia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone
missions in which there was no peace to keep--that U.N. peace
operations should not include a mandate to enforce peace outside of
limited circumstances and should focus instead on assisting countries
to shift from conflict to a negotiated peace and from peace agreements
to legitimate governance and development.\31\ As noted in the ``Report
of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations'' (the Brahimi Report):
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\31\ Doyle and Sambanis, ``Making War and Building Peace: United
Nations Peace Operations,'' p. 20; Dobbins, Jones, Crane, Rathmell,
Steele, Teltschik, and Timilsina, ``The U.N.'s Role in Nation-Building:
From the Congo to Iraq,'' p. xvi; and Victoria K. Holt, testimony
before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and
International Operations, Committee on International Relations, U.S.
House of Representatives, May 18, 2005, at www.international
relations.house.gov/archives/109/hol051805.pdf.
[T]he United Nations does not wage war. Where enforcement
action is required, it has consistently been entrusted to
coalitions of willing States, with the authorization of the
Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter.\32\
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\32\ U.N. General Assembly and U.N. Security Council, ``Report of
the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations,'' A/55/305-S/2000/809,
August 21, 2000, p. 10, at www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/
docs/a_55_305.pdf.
Yet even situations short of war that may require a U.N. peace
operation are still rife with danger, as illustrated by the nearly
2,500 peacekeepers that have been killed in operations since 1948. They
also involve great demands in resources, management, and personnel.
Indeed, it has increasingly strained the ability of countries willing
to provide peacekeepers, especially in Darfur. Worse, this investment
may not be helping the situation.
Dr. Greg Mills, Director of the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst
Foundation, and Dr. Terence McNamee, Director of Publications at the
Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies
(RUSI), have conducted several cases studies of U.N. peacekeeping
operations in a chapter in a forthcoming book. They have concluded
that, in the cases of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lebanon, it
is an open question whether the U.N. peacekeeping mission has
contributed to resolving the situation or exacerbating it.
Mills and McNamee note that a 30-year United Nations
presence has failed to resolve the deep-seated problems in
Lebanon. The U.N. operation has failed to prevent a succession
of Israeli incursions. Nor was the mission able to stop
Hezbollah and other groups from using the Lebanese border to
launch raids and rockets into Israel. The 12,000-plus U.N.
troops currently in place following the 2006 Israeli
intervention have not been instructed specifically to disarm
the group. Ironically, Hezbollah is now in a stronger position,
and the U.N. mission acts as a buffer to prevent any Israeli
assault. Mills and McNamee note, ``The problem in Lebanon is
more profound than any deal-making or U.N. force can solve
however. It goes to the heart of reconfiguring the state and
its role in Lebanon.''
The Democratic Republic of Congo is a state in name only.
Decades of instability and insecurity have entrenched the view
in Kinshasa that anything benefiting the periphery of the
country is a threat. Instability is viewed as a political
advantage in Kinshasa because it keeps potential rivals focused
on each other rather than on the central government. As such,
Kinshasa does little to aid the U.N. effort. Despite more than
19,000 U.N. military and civilian peacekeepers in Congo at an
annual cost of over $1 billion, MONUC has not brought peace or
stability. Eastern Congo, bordering Rwanda, Burundi, and
Uganda, remains violent. According to Mills and McNamee,
``Disarmament, pacification, demobilization and repatriation/
reintegration programs could help to dilute the extent of the
security threat to the civilian population. But this will
require holding [DRC President] Kabila to task . . . removing
the fig-leaf of respectability to his indecision and weakness
in filling the vacuum with U.N. troops. But it will require
fundamental, root-and-branch reform, with decentralization at
its core.''
In other cases, such as the U.N. missions in Cyprus and the Western
Sahara established in 1964 and 1991, respectively, the U.N. presence is
simply an historical palliative. The peacekeepers perform little in the
way of keeping the peace. Nor does their presence seem to have
contributed to the process for resolving the decades-long political
standoff. Instead, the missions continue out of inertia and requests by
parties to the conflict that they remain in place. It is an open
question whether the U.N. presence has actually contributed to the
intractability of the situation by providing the excuse not to develop
a resolution to what is largely a political problem.
The next administration should fundamentally reevaluate all U.N.
operations that date back to the early 1990s or earlier--some, like
UNTSO in the Middle East and UNMOGIP in Kashmir, date back to the
1940s--to determine whether the U.N. is contributing to resolving the
situation or retarding that process. These missions are generally small
and among the least costly, but such a reevaluation would send a
welcome message of accountability and assessment that too often has
been lacking in the rubber-stamp process of reauthorizing peacekeeping
operations.
This is not to say that U.N. missions are never useful and should
be rejected out of hand. U.N. missions have been successful in
situations like Cambodia where it helped to restore stability following
dictatorship and civil war. Indeed, no one wants another Rwanda, and
the consequences of doing nothing may be unpalatable. But a long list
of operations that have been less than successful indicates that the
Security Council should be far more judicious when adopting decisions
to intervene.
The situation in Darfur is particularly relevant. The U.S. has
called the situation in Darfur ``genocide.'' The U.N. did not come to
that conclusion, but it did recognize the widespread human rights
violations and suffering. After the African Union mission failed to
curtail the violence and suffering, the U.N. adopted a resolution
authorizing a joint AU/U.N. peacekeeping force despite ongoing conflict
and considerable evidence that neither the rebels nor the government-
backed forces were prepared to abide by a peace agreement. Protected by
China's veto, Sudan also demanded that the peacekeepers be African.
This has led to a severe constraint of available troops: There simply
are not enough trained and capable African troops to meet the demand.
As a result, Jan Eliasson, the Secretary General's Special Envoy for
Darfur, told the Security Council that the situation in Darfur had
deteriorated despite the efforts of U.N. and African Union troops.\33\
The recent decision of the International Criminal Court to seek an
indictment against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir may, if approved
by the ICC pretrial chamber, lead to further complications.
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\33\ U.N. News Centre, ``Darfur: U.N. Envoy Doubtful Parties Are
Willing To Enter Serious Negotiations,'' June 24, 2008, at http://
www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27149&Cr=
darfur&Crl=.
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In Darfur, the U.N. Security Council yielded to the pressure to
act. Massive suffering was occurring and would likely have grown worse
without U.N. backing and support for the AU peacekeeping effort.
However, the Council accepted demands from Sudan that vastly complicate
their efforts, such as restricting peacekeepers to African nations. It
also entered a conflict situation against the lessons of its own
experience. It compounded the error by failing to adopt clear
objectives, metrics for success, and an exit strategy. Because of these
failings, not to mention the potential for deterioration toward broader
conflict or a stiffening of resolve by President Bashir if the ICC
proceeds with its indictment, Darfur could very easily become the
U.N.'s next spectacular failure.
RECOMMENDATIONS
There are a number of steps the U.N. and the Security Council
should adopt to address the weaknesses identified above.
Be more judicious in decisions to authorize U.N.
peacekeeping operations. The pressure to ``do something'' must
not trump sensible consideration of whether a U.N. presence
will improve or destabilize the situation, clearly establishing
the objectives of the operations and ensuring that they are
achievable, carefully planning the requirements for achieving
those objectives and securing pledges for providing them prior
to authorizing the operation, and demanding that an exit
strategy be included to prevent the ``perpetual mission''
trap.\34\
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\34\ An example of this thought process that should be pursued by
the U.S. and other countries was summarized by former Assistant
Secretary of State Kim R. Holmes: ``While the Security Council is
hammering out the details of a peacekeeping resolution, Member States
work with the U.N. to figure out what that mission will require. We
consider causes, regional equities, resources, the need for military
forces and civilian police, the involvement of rule of law and human
rights experts, reconstruction needs, and more. From the outset, we
work to ensure each mission is right-sized, has a clear mandate, can
deploy promptly, and has a clear exit strategy. This was particularly
the case in getting peacekeepers into Haiti and expanding the mission
in the Congo to target the main area of instability, the African Great
Lakes region. Nevertheless, as this committee well knows, new CIPA
requirements arise quickly. It is not possible to predict when
conflicts will intensify to the point where they require U.N. action.
We are cautious because, historically, U.N. missions are not as
effective at peace enforcement, when offensive military action is
needed to end the conflict, as they are at maintaining cease-fires and
supporting peace agreements. But our focused analysis has helped the
U.N. close down most of the peacekeeping missions begun during the
early 1990s, once their jobs were done. It is helping Member States
look for possible reductions in some longstanding missions, and press
the U.N. to right-size or close other missions as they complete their
mandates. The United States, in voting on peacekeeping mandates, always
pushes for prudent mandates, force size, and missions that not only
would succeed, but also just plain end.'' Unfortunately, this type of
analysis in the context of Security Council authorization of U.N.
peacekeeping operations appears to be the exception rather than the
rule. See Kim R. Holmes, Assistant Secretary for International
Organization Affairs, ``Statement Urging Congress to Fund Fully
President's 2006 Budget Request for the U.N.,'' Statement Before the
House Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and
Related Agencies, April 21, 2005, at http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/
45037.htm.
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This process should also apply in reauthorization of existing
missions where there is often a rubber-stamp approach. If a
mission has not achieved its objective or made evident progress
toward that end after a lengthy period, the Council should
assess whether it is serving a positive function. In its
deliberations, however, the Council should recognize that
short, easy missions are extremely rare. When authorizing a
mission, the Council should recognize that it may be there for
a lengthy period. If the Council seems unlikely to persevere,
it should consider not approving the mission.
Critically, this recommendation should not be construed as
implying that all U.N. peacekeeping operations should or can be
identical. On the contrary, differing circumstances often
require differing approaches. Indeed, if peacekeeping missions
are to be successful, the Council must be flexible in the
makeup and composition of U.N. peacekeeping operations or in
choosing to stand back in favor of a regional intervention or
an ad hoc coalition if those approaches better fit the
immediate situation. However, in the process of deciding to
authorize a mission, the Council should not let an
``emergency'' override the prudent evaluation and assessment
process necessary to make sure the prospective mission has the
largest chance of success.
Transform the DPKO organizational structure to enable it to
handle increased peace operations demands and plan for future
operations more effectively. This requires more direct
involvement of the Security Council; more resources for staff,
supplies, and training; and greatly improved oversight by a
capable inspector general dedicated to peace operations.
A key element of this should include transforming the DPKO to
incorporate greater flexibility so that it can rapidly expand
and contract to meet varying levels of peace operations
activity. Current U.N. rules do not permit the necessary
authority and discretion in hiring and shifting resources to
meet priorities. A core professional military staff must be
maintained and utilized, but the DPKO should also be able to
rely on gratis military and other seconded professionals to
meet exceptional demands on U.N. peace operations.\35\ This
would readily provide the expertise and experience needed to
assess the requirements of mandates under consideration,
including troop numbers, equipment, timeline, and rules of
engagement, both efficiently and realistically.
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\35\ According to the Secretary General, ``gratis personnel were
not regulated until the adoption by the General Assembly of resolutions
51/243 and 52/234, in which the Assembly placed strict conditions on
the acceptance of type II gratis personnel. Among the conditions set
out in administrative instruction ST/AI/1999/6, is the requirement that
type II gratis personnel be accepted on an exceptional basis only and
for the following purposes: (a) To provide expertise not available
within the Organization for very specialized functions or (b) to
provide temporary and urgent assistance in the case of new and/or
expanded mandates of the Organization.'' See U.N. General Assembly,
``Gratis Personnel Provided by Governments and Other Entities,'' A/61/
257/Add.1, August 9, 2006, at www.centerforunreform.org/system/files/
A.61.257.Add.1.pdf. The restrictions on gratis personnel were adopted
at the behest of the Group of 77 developing nations, which thought that
their nationals were not being given equal opportunity to fill
positions at the U.N. because their governments could not afford to
provide staff gratis. A possible solution could be to allow the
countries to receive credit toward their assessed dues equivalent to
the estimated salaries of gratis personnel. See ``U.N. Gratis Personnel
System Is Undemocratic, Says G-77 Chairman,'' Journal of the Group of
77, January/February 1997, at www.g77.org/Journal/janfeb97/6.htm.
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Build up peacekeeping capabilities around the world,
particularly in Africa, and further develop a U.N. database of
qualified, trained, prescreened uniformed and civilian
personnel available for U.N. operations. The U.N. has no
standing armed forces and is entirely dependent on Member
States to donate troops and other personnel to fulfill peace
operation mandates. This is appropriate. Nations should
maintain control of their armed forces and refuse to support
the establishment of armed forces outside of direct national
oversight and responsibility. However, the current arrangement
results in an ad hoc system plagued by delays; inadequately
trained personnel; insufficient numbers of military troops,
military observers, civilian police, and civilian staff;
inadequate planning; inadequate or nonfunctional equipment; and
logistical gaps.\36\
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\36\ Operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote
d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Lebanon, and Darfur all recently experienced
difficulties in raising the numbers of troops authorized by the
Security Council.
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The U.N. has established a Stand-by Arrangements System (UNSAS),
wherein Member States make conditional commitments to prepare
and maintain specified resources (military formations,
specialized personnel, services, material, and equipment) on
``stand-by'' in their home countries to fulfill specified tasks
or functions for U.N. peace operations.\37\ This is their
prerogative, but the resources committed under the UNSAS fall
short of needs. To speed up deployment on missions, the U.N.
would be well served to further develop a database of
information on individuals' and units' past experience in U.N.
operations; disciplinary issues; performance evaluations;
expertise (e.g., language, engineering, and combat skills); and
availability for deployment. In addition, U.S. efforts under
the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) contribute
significantly to bolstering the capacity and capabilities of
regional troops, particularly in Africa, to serve as
peacekeepers through the U.N. or regional organizations like
the African Union.\38\
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\37\ U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, ``United Nations
Standby Arrangements System (UNSAS),'' April 30, 2005, at www.un.org/
Depts/dpko/milad/fgs2/unsas_files/sba.htm.
\38\ The State Department budget request includes a request for
$106 million for GPOI in FY 2009, up from $81 million in FY 2007. Most
of the funds for GPOI, including the African Contingency Operations
Training and Assistance program (ACOTA), go to Africa-related programs.
According to the budget, ``Funding in FY 2009 is intended to train over
15,000 peacekeeping troops to reach the initiative goal of 75,000
peacekeeping troops trained worldwide.'' See U.S. Department of State,
Congressional Budget Justification Foreign Operations Fiscal Year 2009,
p. 113, at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/101368.pdf.
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Implement a modern logistics system and streamline
procurement procedures so that missions receive what they need
when they need it. To be effective, procurement and contracting
must ``have a formal governance structure responsible for its
oversight and direction,'' as former Under Secretary General
for Management Catherine Bertini advised Congress in 2005.\39\
Critically, the new logistics system and the procurement system
must be subject to appropriate transparency, rigorous
accountability, and independent oversight accompanied by robust
investigatory capabilities and a reliable system of internal
justice.\40\
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\39\ Catherine Bertini, former U.N. Under Secretary General for
Management, statement in hearing, ``Reforming the United Nations:
Budget and Management Perspectives,'' Committee on International
Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, 109th Cong., 1st Sess., May
19, 2005, at www.commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa21309.000/
hfa21309_0.htm.
\40\ U.S. Government Accountability Office, ``United Nations:
Procurement Internal Controls Are Weak,'' GAO-06-577, April 2006, at
www.gao.gov/new.items/d06577.pdf.
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The new restructuring of UNDPKO into a Department of Peacekeeping
Operations and a Department of Field Support, as proposed by
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and approved by the General
Assembly, does not appear to have substantially improved
peacekeeping procurement. This may be due to the fact that the
new department did not receive requested positions or budget,
but it also appears to be a case of a ``paper reform'' rather
than an actual reform. Most of the same people remain in place,
and it is uncertain that tasking or procedures have changed.
Implement mandatory, uniform standards of conduct for
civilian and military personnel participating in U.N. peace
operations. If the U.N. is to take serious steps to end sexual
exploitation, abuse, and other misconduct by peacekeepers, it
must do more than adopt a U.N. code of conduct, issue manuals,
and send abusers home. It should not necessarily involve
yielding jurisdiction over personnel to the U.N. or non-
national judicial authority, but it should entail commitments
by Member States to investigate, try, and punish their
personnel in cases of misconduct.
Investigators should be granted full cooperation and access to
witnesses, records, and sites where alleged crimes occurred so
that trials can proceed. Equally important, the U.N. must be
more willing to hold member countries to these standards.
States that fail to fulfill their commitments to discipline
their troops should be barred from providing troops for peace
operations.
CONCLUSION
Today's hearing is very pertinent. U.N. peacekeeping is being
conducted at unprecedented pace, scope, and ambition. Unsurprisingly,
this activity has revealed numerous flaws, limitations, and weaknesses
inherent in U.N. peacekeeping.
Problems with U.N. peacekeeping are serious and need to be
addressed, and the administration and Congress need to consider
carefully any requests by the United Nations for additional funding for
a system in which procurement problems have wasted millions of dollars
and sexual abuse by peacekeepers is still occurring. Without
fundamental reform, these problems will likely continue and expand,
undermining the U.N.'s credibility and ability to accomplish one of its
primary missions--maintaining international peace and security.
U.N. peacekeeping operations can be useful and successful if
entered into with an awareness of the limitations and weaknesses of
U.N. peacekeeping. This awareness is crucial, because there seems
little indication that the demand for U.N. peacekeeping will fall in
the foreseeable future.
______
Prepared Statement of Dr. William J. Durch, Senior Associate, the
Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am honored to be invited
to testify before this subcommittee. I am a senior associate at the
Henry L. Stimson Center, where I codirect the Future of Peace
Operations program, which focuses on modern challenges for peacekeeping
internationally. Stimson is an independent research center that
develops practical policy solutions to pressing international security
problems, including the problems faced by United Nations peacekeeping
operations. United States support for these operations has never been
more important and the challenges that they face have never been more
daunting.
Peace seems like it ought to be self-enforcing, but the most
peaceful states are those with effective police--and fair laws,
competent courts, and consent of the governed. States emerging from
civil war usually have none of these. Sustaining whatever fragile peace
they initially achieve may require outside help, and that help may be
needed for several years. In 1995, for example, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) poured 60,000 troops into Bosnia to cement
the Dayton Accords; today, 2,300 troops and police remain, under
European Union (EU) command. So the effort is less but the presence
remains. Other places where peacekeepers go are much bigger and more
dangerous than Bosnia was when NATO deployed there. Bosnia itself was a
very dangerous place before U.S. pressure and NATO air strikes brought
its own civil war to a halt, a war where U.N. peacekeepers had earlier
been deployed with neither the power nor the mandate to create and
sustain peace. Yet that earlier operation was authorized by unanimous
votes of the U.N. Security Council, votes in which the United States
participated; votes that helped to discredit U.N. peacekeeping in the
West for the remainder of the 1990s, because they sent U.N. forces into
dangerous combat environments with which the United Nations cannot
cope.
In this decade, the U.N. found its feet once again as major reforms
in how peacekeeping is managed and mandated began to take hold. But in
recent years, and especially the past 12 months, the Security Council
has again begun to overuse its tools, with the result that U.N.
peacekeepers find themselves in situations better suited to combat
forces. One of the lessons of the 1990s is that peacekeepers must be
able to defend themselves and their mandates when subject to violent
tactical challenge, but such challenges must be balanced by high-level,
political acceptance of the U.N.'s presence. The Democratic Republic of
Congo (or DRC) is one such dangerous place where the U.N. nonetheless
has the support of the elected government and works closely with it
against various violent opponents of the peace, especially in this
large country's lawless east. Darfur, Sudan, on the other hand, is a
dangerous place where the government gives little more than lip service
to the U.N. presence and does everything it can to delay and obstruct
its deployment, up to the possible use of proxy forces to attack U.N.
personnel.
Most peace operations in difficult places struggle to attract the
manpower and funds they need to create real change over time. The
United Nations promotes stability in the DRC, for example, with one-
third as many troops as NATO started with in Bosnia, spread over an
area six times as large that is teeming with well-armed and vicious
militias. At the end of May, the U.N. deployed 88,000 troops and police
globally. Few of those deployed in its toughest operations (which are
mostly in Africa) come from developed states, which are the U.N.'s
major funders. Not only are in-kind contributions to U.N. operations
from these states rather rare but late payments keep U.N. operations
perennially underfunded. At the end of May, 11 months into its
peacekeeping fiscal year, the U.N. was still short $1.6 billion on a
$6.8 billion peacekeeping budget. In one of life's greater ironies, the
U.N. may not borrow funds to cover that shortfall, a rule enforced by
the most indebted government on the planet: Our own.
As imperfect as the United Nations may be, people around the globe
understand, accept, and applaud most U.N. actions. Compared to regional
organizations and ad hoc coalitions, the U.N. has both broader
political legitimacy, greater political reach, and a deeper logistics
network supporting both humanitarian relief and peace operations--a
network that leans heavily on private sector service providers. But the
United Nations also needs consistent U.S. political, financial, and
material support to makes its operations work. Each of these is well
worth strengthening.
Early in the next administration, the President should begin that
strengthening process by:
Affirming that the United States and the United Nations
share common goals in expanding the writ of human rights and
realizing human dignity, which in turn requires international
peace and individual human security.
Offering strong support--in cash and in kind--to every U.N.
peace operation for which it casts its vote in the Security
Council, setting an example for others by promptly contributing
the U.S. share of U.N. peacekeeping costs.
Supporting the continued restructuring and strengthening of
U.N. headquarters offices that plan and support peace
operations.
Pledging strong and sustained U.S. diplomatic and political
support to U.N. peacekeeping operations, especially in volatile
states and regions.
Promising temporary U.S. military support, in collaboration
with its NATO Allies, for U.N. operations that experience
trouble from local spoilers or terrorist action.
Continuing to train foreign peacekeepers, contingent on
their governments' willingness to discipline troops who violate
international humanitarian law.
Announcing that the United States will expand its own
capacity to contribute to the nonmilitary elements of peace and
stability operations.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PEACE AND STABILITY OPERATIONS
Contemporary peace operations got their start after World War II,
when some 200 unarmed military observers wearing U.N. armbands
patrolled cease-fire lines between India and Pakistan and armistice
lines around the new state of Israel.\1\ Six decades later, 110,000
troops, police, and civilian personnel in 20 U.N. missions on four
continents use presence, persuasion, and modern weapons to support the
rebuilding of peace under tough conditions. The African Union-United
Nations ``hybrid'' mission in Darfur (UNAMID) will, when fully
deployed, drive that total near 130,000. NATO manages a further 50,000
peacekeepers in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the EU manages 2,300 in Bosnia,
and the African Union (AU) managed about 7,000 in Darfur through the
end of 2007, when that force merged into UNAMID. Washington has
authorized, endorsed, or supported all of these operations through its
votes in the U.N. Security Council or on NATO's North Atlantic Council.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Some peacekeeping missions still deploy along international
borders: Between Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, for example, or
between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Some keep the peace within split but
relatively stable states like Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its largely
separate Serb and non-Serb populations, and Cyprus, where the ``Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus'' is recognized only by Turkey but backed
by 36,000 Turkish troops. Most peace operations, however, deploy within
states that are rather less stable, with recently ended wars that no
local party was strong enough to win. Note that the counterinsurgency
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not included in this tally, as they
far exceed reasonable definitional limits of peace/stability
operations. For discussion, see William J. Durch and Tobias C. Berkman,
``Who Should Keep the Peace?'' (Washington, DC: Stimson Center,
September 2006), pp. 1-5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the past 2 years, in fact, the United States has supported a
substantial increase in the size, use, and deployment of U.N.
peacekeeping around the globe, including:
A new peacekeeping mission in Somalia;
A sevenfold expansion of the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in
Lebanon;
The fourfold expansion of the peacekeeping mission in
Darfur;
Reauthorization of the U.N.'s large peacekeeping missions in
Haiti and Liberia;
A renewed peacekeeping mission for East Timor; and
New missions in Chad, the Central African Republic, and
Nepal.
Peacekeeping today costs $10 to $12 billion annually, not including
counterinsurgency in Iraq or Afghanistan. The U.N.'s peacekeeping
budget accounts for just over half of that total and Washington pays
for roughly one-quarter of the U.N. peacekeeping budget.
The costs of U.N. peacekeeping operations are prorated among Member
States according to a ``peacekeeping scale of assessment,'' which is
based on states' shares of the regular U.N. budget. The five permanent
members of the Security Council each pay a 20-percent larger share of
peacekeeping costs than they do of the U.N. regular budget, given their
special responsibility under the U.N. Charter for international peace
and security, and because they can veto any operation they dislike.
U.N. operations, as currently conducted, are a relative bargain for
their major funders, costing less than one-fifth of what they would
cost if conducted exclusively by the funders' own military forces.
The costs of other peacekeeping missions are borne primarily by the
troop contributors. NATO and the EU collectively fund mostly minor
``common costs'' for their missions. Occasional subsidies from wealthy
states allow less-wealthy states to send troops to non-U.N. operations.
Substantial outside cash and in-kind support (airlift and civilian
contractors) have enabled the AU, for example, to deploy and support
its observer force in Darfur.
THE CASE FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
In deciding how best to defend themselves and their interests, all
states face tough policy choices. Small, poor states have few options
and often find their choices dictated by others. Big, rich states have
more choices--but each choice comes with consequences. America can act
on its own in many matters of peace and security, but there are times
when acting in concert--through coalitions, alliances, regional
groupings, or global institutions--is not only useful but necessary,
because even a superpower has finite resources, as the U.S. experience
in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to demonstrate. And where resources
needed to shore up the peace can be found among many implementing
partners and organizations, smart engagement argues for leveraging
those resources to accomplish common goals and to better manage hard
problems multilaterally.
The United States has found it increasingly cost-effective and
politically helpful to lean on other states and organizations to help
it advance shared strategic interests in international peace, security,
justice, and prosperity. The available forms of collaboration have
complementary strengths: Coalitions of the willing are better at
suppressing violence but typically lack staying power and means of
joint finance. Regional organizations have greater legitimacy and
cohesion when working within their regions but risk losing both when
they venture farther afield. The U.N. cannot handle full-scale combat
since it lacks both full control over the forces it receives and the
cohesion of the best alliances and coalitions, but what it lacks in
combat power, the U.N. makes up for in its legitimacy and staying
power.
Compared to regional organizations and ad hoc alliances of states,
the U.N. has greater political reach and a deeper network supporting
humanitarian relief as well as peace operations. Those who think of the
U.N. system as desk-bound should witness its fieldwork firsthand, since
more U.N. staff members work in field postings than in headquarters.
Peacekeeping operations are supported by a global system of financial
assessments that enable the U.N. to tap the strengths of the private
sector, with more than 100 ``systems contracts'' in place for essential
mission support.
Given the growth in this area, it is a sure bet that the next
administration will face serious questions of resource allocation
regarding the U.N. and global peace and stability operations.
COPING WITH GROWTH IN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS
In the face of explosive growth in U.N. peacekeeping over the past
decade, the first question is whether the world, and the United States
in particular, are providing sufficient resources to support this
growth--which they have promoted. The answer to this question would
have to be ``no.'' The surge in U.N. peacekeeping has not been met with
steady funding, by commensurate increases in the number of staff in the
U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), or in the number of
troops or police volunteered to the U.N. by its richest members for the
U.N.'s toughest missions. The result has been forces of highly variable
professionalism. In the past 3 years, the U.N. has asked states to take
back hundreds of troops and police as investigations have implicated
them in sexual abuse and exploitation of local populations.
The United States chronically underbudgets its share of U.N.
peacekeeping costs, even as it votes for more and expanded peacekeeping
missions on the Security Council. As of February 2008, the U.S. had
built up $1.2 billion in essentially permanent prior-year debt for U.N.
peacekeeping and was likely to fall at least another $500 million short
in its peacekeeping dues for 2007-08.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Better World Campaign (BWC), ``FY 2009 Budget Request: Growing
Debt to the United Nations and Peacekeeping,'' fact sheet, February
2008. BWC estimate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyond this challenge, ever since operations in Somalia (1992-93),
the United States has declined to provide troops for the riskier U.N.
peacekeeping forces. The Force Commander and majority of U.N. forces in
Haiti (1995-96) were American but the last U.S. military unit to serve
in a U.N.-led mission came home in 1999. Subsequent U.S.
nonparticipation means that our government has no military commanders
in any current U.N. field missions and dwindling institutional memory
of how U.N. operations work. U.S. contributions of police officers to
U.N. operations also has dwindled in this decade, from 849 in December
2000 to 230 this June.
The second big question is whether the world and the United States
are lining up the right kinds of capabilities to meet the world's needs
in the peace and stability arena. In peace operations, the military's
real exit strategy is successful peacebuilding, or ``transition and
reconstruction.'' This involves many tasks--from arranging and
supervising elections, training novice lawmakers, and jump-starting
economic activity to rebuilding police forces and promoting independent
judiciaries--all tasks for which armed forces are poorly suited or
totally inappropriate. Successful peacebuilding, and therefore a
successful exit strategy, require complementary civilian capacity
working alongside the military.
WHAT WASHINGTON SHOULD DO: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
As U.N. peacekeeping's largest and most influential donor, the U.S.
Government, under a new administration, should make it clear, very
early on, that it supports an effective U.N. that, in turn, supports
international peace and security in irreplaceable ways--not as a tool
of U.S. policy but as a venue for leveraging scarce funds and people
toward a just public order that improves people's lives and contributes
to our national security.
Early in the new term, while the U.N. Special Committee on
Peacekeeping Operations is in session, the President should set out the
following principles and policy goals:
Affirm that the United States and the United Nations share
common goals in expanding the writ of human rights and
realizing human dignity, which in turn requires international
peace and individual human security. The majority of U.N.
Member States are poor, less than free, and often difficult to
deal with. As a global institution, the U.N. includes the
world's worst human rights offenders but also its strongest
human rights proponents. Moreover, the U.N. Charter and the
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reflect Western values
on a global stage. The General Assembly regularly votes budgets
for peace operations that Washington sees fit to support in the
Security Council, and those budgets are cleared first by a
committee of 16 states on which the United States has nearly
always had a strong voice. The U.N. system also provides a wide
range of services through its operational agencies that work
beyond the realm of high politics and security, in food aid,
refugee support, human rights support, global public health,
vaccinations against childhood diseases, and nuclear
nonproliferation.
Offer strong support--in cash and in kind--to every U.N.
peace operation for which it casts its vote in the Security
Council and set an example for others by promptly contributing
the U.S. share of U.N. peacekeeping costs. The U.N. is
precluded from borrowing to finance its operations, so when the
Security Council votes to support a mission, the U.N. must rely
on Member States' payments toward the mission's ``assessed''
budget to get things underway. The administration frequently
underbudgets for U.N. peacekeeping operations, and the Office
of Management and Budget in recent years has cut State
Department requests, making it up later with ``supplemental''
requests. This sleight-of-hand approach means that money
shortages have driven U.S. dealings with the U.N. on matters of
peace and security that should have been driven by U.S.
interests. Even U.N. missions launched with urgent U.S. backing
may not receive U.S. funds for months unless they can hitch a
ride on a timely supplemental in the Congress. U.S. delays
encourage other member nations to hold back funds. The bottom
line? Mission deployments slow down to match the flow of funds,
jeopardizing the people, places, and peace they are intended to
protect.
Support the continued restructuring and strengthening of the
U.N. headquarters offices that plan and support peace
operations. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proposed, and the
General Assembly approved, splitting the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations into two parts, one (which keeps the
old name) that is focused on policy, strategy, and planning,
and another (the Department of Field Support) that is focused
on finance, personnel, logistics, and communications. The
General Assembly also agreed to add 287 staff to U.N.
Headquarters support of peacekeeping, bringing the total New
York staff to about 1,200, to manage up to 130,000 personnel in
the field. Its cost, together with that of the U.N.'s main
peacekeeping logistics base at Brindisi, Italy, is 5 percent of
the U.N.'s peacekeeping budget. It is difficult to find any
other agency (or company) in defense and security that runs on
5 percent overhead.
Pledge strong and sustained U.S. diplomatic and political
support to U.N. peacekeeping operations, especially in volatile
states and regions. Every successful peace operation has had
the strong support of at least one great power. Such support
does not guarantee success, but its absence is a near guarantee
of failure.
Promise temporary U.S. military support, in collaboration
with its NATO Allies, for U.N. operations that experience
trouble from local spoilers or terrorist activities. In spring
2000, in Sierra Leone, Britain turned a noncombatant evacuation
operation into a mini-counterinsurgency campaign against the
armed gangs who had threatened both the country's fragile peace
and a wobbly U.N. peacekeeping operation. Most of the British
troops withdrew within 4 months, leaving behind a training
mission to rebuild Sierra Leone's army. The U.N. operation
restructured itself and ended up doing a creditable job,
withdrawing in 2005. In 2004, in Haiti, U.S. armed forces led a
coalition of the willing that preceded a U.N. operation,
instead of serving in parallel. There is no good reason why
such U.S. deployments could not be made in parallel, however,
as Britain and the EU have done, should a U.N. operation run
into trouble.
Continue training foreign peacekeepers, contingent on their
governments' willingness to discipline troops who violate
international humanitarian law. The U.S. supports the G-8s
Global Peace Operations Initiative, which aims to train 75,000
peacekeepers, primarily in Africa, by 2010. This is a valuable
program worth sustaining and extending, but it could also be
used to give the U.N. better leverage over troop-contributing
states whose troops commit crimes while on U.N. duty. The U.S.
Government should tie continued assistance under this and
similar initiatives to recipients' demonstrated willingness to
discipline troops who violate their own military codes of
justice or U.N. standards of conduct while serving in U.N.
operations.
Announce that the United States will expand its own capacity
to contribute to the nonmilitary elements of peace and
stability operations. This includes police personnel, political
advisors, and civilian substantive experts who specialize, for
example, in infrastructure repair, human rights, or de-mining.
In the past 2 years, the U.S. Government has taken important
steps toward the goal of building its nonmilitary capabilities
for stabilization and reconstruction. The next administration
should reinforce this nascent interagency process for
recruiting, training, and deploying civilian personnel, acting
on the knowledge that effective ``transition and
reconstruction'' programs are the best exit strategy for
peacekeepers--our own and everyone else's.
LIVES AND LEADERSHIP: BOTH ON THE LINE
For nearly half a century, Washington was the recognized leader of
the free world, earning that distinction by investing in and protecting
the freedom of others. In the new century, as in the last, alternatives
to Western-style liberty and self rule are being offered to--or forced
upon--peoples in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the borderlands of
Europe, especially in countries recently torn apart by war. Preserving
liberty and fostering democracy among such countries is critical to
America's interests. It is too big a job for any one country to
shoulder alone, but by working with allies and institutions like the
U.N., we can share that burden and earn back the respect of the world.
Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you very much.
Well, since that was a test, you all get an A. And the
meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:51 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Additional Questions Submitted for the Record to Acting Assistant
Secretary of State Brian Hook by Senator Richard G. Lugar
Question. I understand that the U.N. is considering increasing the
delegation of procurement authority to peacekeeping missions from the
current $250,000 (U.S.) to $1,000,000 and on occasion $2,000,000. This
would permit heads of missions to forego headquarters approval and
require only the approval of the Local Committee on Contracts (LCC), on
which the heads of missions typically also sit. Please explain why this
policy is being contemplated when reports of procurement violations
persist, particularly in missions in the Congo and Sudan.
Answer. The delegation of procurement authority is currently
$200,000 for non-core requirements and $1,000,000 for core
requirements. Core requirements are items such as construction
materials. Non-core requirements are items needed for specific projects
(with the exception of pharmaceutical and information technology
products).
The U.N. Secretariat has proposed an increase to the financial
threshold of the delegation of procurement authority from $200,000 to
$500,000 for non-core requirements, and from $1 million to $2 million
for core requirements, to bring the threshold into line with the
operational requirements of peacekeeping missions.
There are certain core needs common to all peacekeeping operations
and for which detailed contract specifications are already available,
but going through Headquarters can be a slow process. When there is an
urgent need to procure goods or services, the current limit of $200,000
for delegation of procurement authority may not be sufficient.
Without question, the proposed increase in the delegation of
authority must have adequate controls to prevent fraud, waste, and
abuse. To provide appropriate oversight, the Secretariat has proposed
that the Headquarters Committee on Contracts (HCC) increase its
monitoring of local procurements. Furthermore, to enhance
accountability in the procurement service, approximately 700
procurement staff, requisitioning officers, and Local Committees on
Contracts (LCCs) underwent extensive training on procurement
procedures, best practices, and ethics from Spring 2007 to Summer 2008.
The Procurement Division has also issued a strategic paper on
procurement training providing for the continuing training of
procurement staff in the organization, including training leading to
internationally recognized procurement certification.
Question. What measures are being put in place to ensure bid
collusion and rigging do not occur between vendors and Department of
Peacekeeping officials?
Please provide information relating to instances of U.N.
procurement officials that were found to have steered contracts to
specific vendors. Who were the employees, what were their
nationalities, who where the companies, what nationalities, what were
the contracts for, were they signed, what punishments or penalties were
meted out to the contracting officials and vendors?
Answer. Regarding allegations of collusion or corruption in the
awarding of contracts, we do not comment on individual cases which are
part of ongoing investigations or judicial proceedings. However, the
Procurement Task Force (PTF) of the Office of Internal Oversight
Services (OIOS) issues detailed reports on its findings. The PTF
reports include much of the information that you have requested
including the names of procurement officers, companies, their
nationalities, and the recommended dispositions. Please find attached a
summary report submitted by OIOS that covers the activities of the PTF
over the past 18 months.
The reports include, among others, two highly-publicized cases
involving contract fraud by U.N. officials. In the Yakovlev case, a
supervisory procurement officer accepted $3.5 million in bribes over a
period of 20 years for steering accounts to vendors in 11 different
countries. In the Bahel case, an official with responsibility for
overseeing procurement actions steered at least eight contracts with an
aggregate value of $100 million to various vendors over the course of
five years.
The General Assembly has asked the Secretary-General to report on
all issues related to the levels of delegation of procurement
authority, including mechanisms used to strengthen effective
monitoring, oversight, and accountability. The Procurement Division
makes field visits to peacekeeping operations to identify and report on
performance, weaknesses, and areas of risk.
A wide-ranging procurement reform program proposed by the
Secretary-General in May 2006 (A/60/846/Addendum 5) has, to date,
achieved 80 percent of its stated objectives. The Procurement Division
is coordinating with other U.N. offices, including the Office of Legal
Affairs and the Office of Human Resource Management, to implement the
remaining reform elements.
In order to foster integrity and ethical conduct, in 2006 the U.N.
Secretariat established an Ethics Office with a mandate that includes
the development of ethics training and policy for staff throughout the
organization. Given the fiduciary nature of their responsibilities, the
organization has placed special emphasis on accountability of
procurement officials. The Procurement Division is developing an ethics
training program, in collaboration with the Ethics Office and the
Office of Human Resource Management. This program is mandatory for all
Procurement Division staff. The module on ethics and integrity was
integrated into the fundamental procurement training which was provided
to approximately 700 staff members working at Headquarters and in the
field.
The U.N. Secretariat has introduced a number of measures designed
to prevent such abuses as bid collusion and rigging. These include (1)
a financial disclosure program which is mandatory for procurement staff
in order to identify potential conflicts of interest and to monitor the
financial interests of staff, their dependents and spouses; (2) an
enhanced policy on post employment restrictions; (3) strict segregation
of duties throughout the procurement process; and (4) strengthening of
measures to preserve the confidentiality of information.
In addition, the United States has been working with other Member
States and the U.N. Secretariat to improve the vendor registration
process so that violators of the U.N. supplier code of conduct are
disqualified from bidding. Finally, the independent bid protest system,
once fully operational, will promote greater fairness and transparency
in the awarding of contracts.
Question. Does the U.N. specifically list the steering of contracts
to specific vendors as a violation of procurement regulations? If not,
how is the U.S. Mission working to correct this?
Answer. The U.N.'s Financial Regulations and Rules establish
"effective international competition" as one of the key principles of
U.N. procurement; this principle is cited in the Procurement Manual.
Any exemption from effective competition requires a special waiver by
the Assistant SecretaryGeneral/Controller, that is only granted with
strong justification. Adherence to the principle of effective
international competition is also fostered through training in the
fundamentals of procurement, ethics, and integrity.
Question. Please describe measures in place to prevent a vendor who
was barred from one U.N. agency or peacekeeping mission from being able
to bid on contracts in another agency or mission.
Answer. Information about vendors who have been suspended or
removed by any U.N. agency is incorporated into the U.N. Global
Marketplace (UNGM), the central sourcing portal for procurement in the
U.N. system. In addition, within the context of the High Level
Committee on Management-Procurement Network (HLCM-PN), an initiative is
being developed to ensure that decisions on suspension or removal of
defaulting vendors are observed by the Secretariat as well as by all
U.N. agencies, funds, and programs. The next HLCM-PN meeting addressing
this issue will be held in Rome in early September, seeking final
consensus on this principle.
Question. I understand that the OIOS Procurement Task Force is
scheduled to be disbanded in December. How does the administration plan
to prevent that from happening?
Answer. We strongly support the work of the Procurement Task Force
(PTF). During negotiations last fall on funding the PTF, members of the
Group of 77 and China, in particular Singapore, called for limiting the
PTF's mandate to six months. This would have meant a premature end to
the PTF's work. At the time, the PTF had 289 open cases, including more
than 40 complex investigations. Furthermore, the PTF would have found
it difficult to retain its investigators if funding was limited to six
months. Considering that the PTF had already exposed 10 different
schemes to defraud U.N. procurements that had tainted over $610 million
in contracts and resulted in the misappropriation of more than $25
million, it was imperative that the General Assembly approve the full
funding, and we worked with other Member States to extend the mandate
through 2008. After much deliberation, the General Assembly adopted
resolution 62/234, which extended the PTF mandate through December 31,
2008.
The United States will continue to engage other Member States on
ensuring that the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) has
adequate capacity to investigate allegations of fraud and corruption in
the procurement service. The great number of procurement investigations
demonstrates the clear need for the capacity to look into this
particularly vulnerable sector of the U.N. Secretariat now and in the
future. In December 2007, OIOS outlined a plan to integrate the PTF,
its positions, and its caseload into the regular work of the OIOS
Investigations Division. That proposal will be considered by the
General Assembly's Fifth Committee in the fall, and we will press for
approval of permanently integrating the PTF into the OIOS
Investigations Division.
Question. On June 29, the Washington Post reported on a meeting
between Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer and U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon. According to the article, during the meeting Assistant
Secretary Frazer urged the Secretary-General to renew the contract of
Rwandan General Emmanuel Karenzi Karake, the deputy force commander of
the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The
article reports that General Karake has been charged by a Spanish
magistrate with responsibility in the killings of thousands of ethnic
Hutus during the mid-1990s.
a) Does the Washington Post report accurately characterize
Assistant Secretary Frazer's meeting with Secretary-General
Ban? If not, please indicate what Assistant Secretary Frazer
said to Secretary- General Ban about whether General Karake
should continue to serve with UNAMID.
b) What is the administration's position as to whether
General Karake should continue to serve with UNAMID? Please
indicate the reasons for this position.
c) What assessment has the administration made of the
credibility of the charges against General, Karake referred to
in the Washington Post article? What steps has the
administration taken to determine whether these charges are
credible?
d) How does the administration assess General Karake's
performance to date as deputy force commander of UNAMID?
Answer.
a) Contrary to the June. 29 Washington Post article,
Assistant Secretary Frazer did not meet with nor discuss
General Karake with UNSYG Ban Ki Moon, although she did meet
with the U.N.'s Department ofPeacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO)
to discuss, inter alia, the situation in Sudan and the urgent
need for increased peacekeepers given the conditions on the
ground in Darfur. In that context, she shared the substance of
Rwanda's communications about Karake, in which they expressed
their strong advocacy for renewal of his contract.
b) The Department of State is firmly committed to a strong
UNAMID and has worked extensively with African partners and the
United Nations to generate the provision of experienced
commanders and the deployment of additional troops. In that
context, we have expressed concern about any action that might
create additional obstacles to efforts to enhance UNAMID or
jecipardize steps already taken. We believe that removing a
qualified commander at a key juncture-in UNAMID's deployment
would undermine UNAMID's efficacy and mission.
c) The Department is aware of a number of allegations with
respect to Karake's involvement in or connection to crimes
committed in Rwanda and DRC between 1994 and 2000. The
Government of Rwanda vigorously disputes those allegations. We
are also aware of the indictments issued by the independent
Spanish magistrate and theincluded allegations of General
Karake and others. We understand the Government of Rwanda and
the Government of Spain are in communication on this matter.
The U.S. did not have information at the time of General
Karake's appointment that corroborated the allegations, and
therefore did not call for a rejection of Karake's candidacy.
Should new information corroborating the allegations come to
light, the U.S. will again examine the issue.
d) Karake has shown that he is an active, experienced, and
capable officer within UNAMID.