WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Bill Delahunt today called on the Bush Administration to work closely with Congress at the outset of potential United Nations peacekeeping operations, rather than simply presenting lawmakers with bills for commitments the White House has already made.

“To many in the world we appear to be a deadbeat, by voting to authorize international peacekeeping missions and then when the bills come due, we fail to pay for them,” Delahunt said.

Delahunt made his comments following a hearing Wednesday of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, which he chairs.  The hearing, entitled “United Nations Peacekeeping:  A Force Multiplier for the United States?” examined the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of UN peacekeeping missions.

As of June 2007, the US is in arrears to the United Nations for UN peacekeeping for $569 million, and the Administration’s FY 2008 budget request for the UN peacekeeping account is short by an additional estimated $500 million.  Delahunt is concerned that if this issue is left unaddressed, US arrears to the UN will exceed $1 billion by the end of 2007 for peacekeeping alone and complicate efforts to undertake future missions.

“I fault our own Executive Branch – both Republican and Democratic – for not implicating the first branch of government,” the US Congress, in planning for these missions before they are formally authorized by a vote in the UN Security Council, said Delahunt.  He explained that by including Congress from the beginning, the Administration would ensure that “we don’t find ourselves in the totally embarrassing situation whereas the US, as a great power, to many in the world we appear to be a deadbeat, despite getting our way most of the time.”

According to testimony from the Government Accountability Office, UN missions can cost the US taxpayer almost eight times less than if the US had to use its own forces.  Other witnesses at the hearing testified that UN efforts are often more politically palatable to the nations involved, because they are seen as more neutral than a US intervention, especially after the damage wrought to America’s reputation from the invasion of Iraq.

Delahunt noted that even though the US has voted to authorize every UN peacekeeping operation – and that many, such as the mission in Haiti, address vital US interests and would require US troops if the UN wasn’t there – both the Administration and Congress have often failed to provide the necessary funding for them.  In part, he said, that was because Administrations in the past had not raised this with Congress before agreeing to such efforts.

“We spend less in a year on UN peacekeeping than we do for a week in Iraq,” said Delahunt after the hearing. “Yet the UN takes care of so many issues that we might otherwise be called upon to handle.  It’s time that we got our own house in order, and better coordination between the Administration and Congress is critical.”

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