[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 61 (Wednesday, May 11, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H3170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         UNITED NATIONS REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, as we approach the 60th 
anniversary of the United Nations, it is appropriate that we look at 
its original mission and evaluate whether the United Nations has 
accomplished what it was set out to do.
  The U.N. charter states in part that its purpose is to maintain 
international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among 
Nations; to achieve cooperation; and to promote and encourage respect 
for human rights. But, unfortunately, if we look at the U.N.'s record 
on these issues, we see that they have failed on every account.
  Firstly, the U.N. has not maintained international peace and 
security. In fact, since 1945 there have been over 300 wars and over 22 
million people have died in those wars. The only two times that the 
U.N. has ever supported intervening to stop hostilities was the Korean 
War, when the Soviet Union had boycotted the Security Council meeting, 
and the first Persian Gulf War.
  In fact, the biggest threat to the civilized world today is 
terrorism, and the U.N. has failed throughout its existence to develop 
a clear definition of what terrorism is even.
  Another main mission of the U.N. is to promote and encourage human 
rights and equal rights throughout the world. The U.N. Commission on 
Human Rights is the primary body to get that job done.
  However, such countries as Cuba, Sudan and China, all of which have 
long histories of violating human rights, sit on that commission. In 
fact, several years ago, Libya, with its terrible human rights record, 
was selected to serve as chairman of that human rights commission.
  In regards to the U.N. fulfilling its mission of solving 
international problems of an economic, social and cultural character, 
recent reports by the Heritage Foundation, the Freedom House, and The 
Wall Street Journal all indicated that a majority of the nations that 
are in the U.N. are neither politically nor economically free nations.
  These general problems with the unaccountability of the U.N. lead me 
to one of the biggest problems and biggest scandals in the history of 
the U.N. and that is the Oil-for-Food scandal.
  Right after the first Gulf War, this was put in place. The Oil-for-
Food program was created to help those people in that country get the 
food and supplies that they needed. However, Saddam Hussein used the 
money to advance his own weapons and military programs as the poor 
people continued to be plagued by starvation and disease.
  By allowing the corrupt Saddam Hussein regime to manipulate the Oil-
for-Food program and bribe officials from other countries around the 
world, more than $21 billion was stolen by Hussein at the very expense 
of the people that the program was designed to help, the Iraqi poor.
  The U.N. has continuously denied access to the papers that would help 
us to get to the bottom of this. That is perhaps one of the most 
troubling problems with the Oil-for-Food program, the lack of 
cooperation by the U.N., lack of cooperation to help us all get to the 
bottom of what really went on. They have denied us access to papers, 
and they have also denied us access to the people who were involved and 
shielded them from responsibility.
  The U.N. claims to be addressing these concerns by establishing the 
Volker Commission to investigate the allegations. However, it has been 
stated by a member that Volker has close ties to the U.N. and also to 
Secretary General Annan, as well as other conflicts. He has been 
accused of down-playing Kofi Annan's involvement in the scandal in his 
most recent interim report, and it was just 2 weeks ago that two of his 
top investigators on that very commission resigned because they felt 
that the report was too soft on Annan.
  Volker is continuing to block congressional investigations by 
demanding that those committees return relevant documents and not 
allowing the investigators that resigned to testify before Congress.
  I think that this behavior by the U.N. and its investigating 
committee is totally indefensible and cannot be tolerated. Kofi Annan's 
complete lack of humility, contrition, and acknowledgement of any 
wrongdoing should be disappointing to the entire world; and it is for 
that reason that I support suspending all U.S. funding to the U.N. 
until they agree to cooperate fully with the ongoing investigations 
into the Oil-for-Food scandal.
  Another ongoing scandal at the U.N. that has not received as much 
press is the human rights violations in the Congo. U.N. peacekeepers in 
the Congo stand accused of committing 150 major human rights 
violations. They are accused of raping and forcing prostitution on 
hundreds of refugees, many of them children. These barbaric acts raise 
serious questions of the ability of U.N. oversight on their very own 
peacekeepers.
  The United States has contributed over $750 million towards that 
Congo peacekeeping mission since 2000. So the U.S. taxpayers at home, I 
believe, should know where their money is going and should know that 
the U.N. is doing its job to make sure that the people over there are 
protected.
  All these problems that I have mentioned just now lead back to the 
very point that I am trying to make here tonight, that there is a lack 
of oversight and accountability by an international body that claims to 
represent the moral conscience of the world, and this should not be 
tolerated. As the largest financial contributor to the United Nations 
in the world, the United States is the one country in the best position 
to demand these reforms.
  Tomorrow, we are expecting an extremely important vote to take place 
on the other side of the Capitol. A vote ``yes'' there will be a vote 
for U.N. reform, but a vote ``no'' will be a vote against U.N. reform. 
I certainly hope that that other body will vote in favor of U.N. 
reform.

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