[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 76 (Thursday, June 9, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4329-H4336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE UNITED NATIONS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mack). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to
discuss a topic of worldwide importance, and that is the United
Nations.
The United Nations was created in 1945 after World War II, and it was
done to preserve world peace through collective security; and I
believe, quite frankly, that it has failed miserably in its role.
As we approach the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, I wanted
to discuss the United Nations this afternoon, to look at its original
charter and its mission, and evaluate if the United Nations has
accomplished what it was designed to do.
If we look over here, we have set out what its initial mission was:
``The United Nations Failing its Mission.'' Its charter calls as
follows: The U.N.
[[Page H4330]]
charter calls for maintaining international peace and security and to
that end to take collective measures for the prevention and removal of
threats to peace.''
It sets forth in more detail, if we would read the charter, to
maintain international peace and security, to take effective collective
measures for the prevention and removal of threats, to bring about the
peace and world order.
Secondly, to develop friendly relations among nations based upon
respect, respect for the principles of equal rights and self-
determination of peoples.
Thirdly, to achieve cooperation in solving international problems,
problems of economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian in character.
And fourthly and finally, to promote and encourage respect for human
rights and for the other fundamental freedoms that we all hold dear.
Freedom from distinctions such as race, sex, language, and religion.
Unfortunately, if we look at the record of the United Nations over
the last 60-some-odd years on any one of these issues, I think people
would have to be in agreement with me that it has failed on each and
every one. The United Nations has not maintained international peace
and security. As we point out here, the number of wars that have
occurred since 1945 number well over 300 wars. Those wars have
translated into the deaths of some 22 million people.
The only times that the United Nations has ever supported intervening
to try to actually stop hostilities, to try to prevent wars, to try to
do and live up to what its mission says were on two occasions. One was
with respect to the Korean War. And the only reason that that came
about, if the Members recall their history, was that the Soviet Union
at the U.N. in New York boycotted the Security Council meeting, and
they were able to take a vote to intervene at that point.
And the second one was much more recent, and that, of course, was in
the first Persian Gulf war. But other than those two examples, there
has never been any example where the U.N. has successfully stepped in
and prevented these wars; and because of it, 22 million lives have been
lost.
Just over the last 10 years, there have been multiple genocides that
occurred under the United Nations' watch. These have occurred in
Bosnia; Rwanda; and now, as we speak, in the Darfur region of the
Sudan. Each time the United Nations has failed to take the appropriate
action and the action that was needed to put an end to those mass
killings, and it was mainly due to political and economic pressures.
If we think about it, the biggest threat right now to the civilized
world today, as we speak, is terrorism. And even in this field, the
U.N. has failed throughout its existence to develop a clear definition
of what terrorism really is.
Another main mission of the United Nations is to promote and
encourage human rights and equal rights throughout the world. In this
regard we have something called the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
This is the primary body that the U.N. has that is charged with
accomplishing this objective. However, again, look at the record and
see that the U.N. has failed in this area as well. Countries such as
Cuba, the Sudan, China, countries that have a long history of violating
human rights, countries such as these sit on the very commission in the
U.N. that is supposed to be protecting the human rights and dignity of
the people in these countries.
These countries' membership and others like them on this panel
destroys the very credibility of this commission; and it prevents the
United Nations from achieving its goals, those goals in promoting and
strengthening human rights. In fact, it was just a short time ago,
several years ago, that Libya, that country with that terrible human
rights track record, was selected to serve as the very chairman of the
Human Rights Commission.
When we get into the issue of dollars and cents, American taxpayers
should be questioning just where their hard-earned tax dollars go. The
United States pays almost 25 percent of the entire United Nations
budget. The United States pays upwards of 25 percent of the entire
budget for the U.N., estimated in the 25 percent ratio. But then when
we compare that to the number of votes in the U.N. that side with the
United States on important issues relative to the citizens of the
state, the pie chart looks particularly different.
On the left, the pie chart showing almost a quarter of the budget
coming from the U.S., U.S. taxpayers; on the right the pie chart
showing the number of votes that are with us as opposed to being
against us, and we just get a slight sliver. What is that number? The
share of votes in the U.N. General Assembly siding with the United
States is \1/2\ percent. Less than 1 percent of the time does the U.N.
side with the United States. The majority of the time, almost 99.5
percent of the time, they are against us. And despite the fact that we
pay a vast majority, a huge percentage, of the U.N.'s budget, we have
the same voting rights as anyone else there; we have the same voting
power as countries such as Tunisia, Bulgaria, El Salvador; the same
voting rights as some of the other countries that I mentioned
previously, those countries with terrible human rights violation
records that serve on the Commission of Human Rights, et cetera.
Countries that are headed by dictators and tyrants have the same
ability to influence that world body that we do in the U.N.
All these problems that I have mentioned lead back now to the very
point that I am trying to make this afternoon, that the United Nations
is in serious need of major change and reform. Over the next hour my
colleagues and I will discuss some of these problems, problems that the
United Nations has had from its very foundation, from its very creation
in 1945, and have existed right up to the present time. Some of these
problems should be familiar to the Members as we see they make the
headlines of some of the papers. Other papers we have to read in the
back to actually find out what is going on with the U.N., problems
including such things as the now infamous Oil-for-Food scandal, the
sexual exploitation of women and little children in the Congo, also the
ongoing crisis that I referenced earlier in the Darfur region of the
Sudan.
We need to examine now the ways we need to take to reform the United
Nations and make it a more accountable and transparent world body, if
that is possible.
I should say that I commend the House Committee on International
Relations, and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) as well, the
chairman of that committee, because he and the committee, as we speak
and just recently, have been working to bring up legislation out of the
committee now and before this House that will address these problems,
bringing up and passing a substantial United Nations reform proposal. I
look forward to that legislation coming to the floor of the House for
our consideration, for our review, and hopefully for a vote on that
legislation soon.
The lack of oversight and accountability by an international body
that claims to represent the moral conscience of the world really
should not be tolerated, should not be tolerated by the citizens of
this country, should not be tolerated by the citizens of the world. As
the largest financial contributor to the United Nations in the world,
the United States is the one country in the best position now to demand
those reforms.
So tonight let us take a look at some of those particular areas that
I have referenced already in need of reform with regard to the
legislation that we will be seeing soon out of committee and before
this House for consideration.
Probably the one that is most familiar to the general public today is
that dealing with the Oil-for-Food scandal; and when we think about it,
it really is not that familiar to a lot of people because for a long
time it was not getting mainstream press attention. In fact, if it was
not for a newspaper in New York and a few other papers that focused on
this extensively, we would never have seen this issue make the front
pages of the paper elsewhere. And if it was not for certain news
commentaries on stations like Fox and otherwise that did actually do a
good job of bringing this issue to the fore, the rest of the mainstream
media failed to dig into this issue to find out what the problems were
with regard regards to the Oil-for-Food scandal.
[[Page H4331]]
So let us take this opportunity here this afternoon, then, to revisit
that topic to allow the public to dig in and take a look at what the
history was there and hopefully open the eyes of some people to some of
the real problems within the U.N.
With regard to the Oil-for-Food scandal, we have to go back to the
first gulf war. Back at that time, sanctions were put in place on
Saddam Hussein and his entire regime, and those sanctions were put in
place that forbade them from exporting their oil outside of their
country. And we know that, of course, the oil revenue was his main
revenue stream coming into that country. So restrictions were placed on
that country saying that they could not export any more oil. And, of
course, that was having a tremendous economic downward impact upon his
country and, of course, the people that lived in it as well.
The U.N. became involved and said that there were problems for the
regular common people in that country because of these sanctions. So in
1996 these restrictions were softened, and the U.N. established the
Oil-for-Food program. And in that program, it allowed the Iraqi
government, Saddam Hussein, to sell a limited amount of oil and a
limited amount from his reserves, was able to sell outside of that
country.
{time} 1445
The revenue that would be coming back into Iraq was to be used for
humanitarian purposes and supplies, food, housing and the like, medical
supplies, for the regular people who were suffering in Iraq.
When the U.N. established this, however, Saddam Hussein demanded
certain transaction payments from the companies and officials that were
doing business with him. In other words, what happened here, these were
basically kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, money that would turn around and
then he would be able to use for other purposes, other than helping the
people of his country.
The way it worked was simply this: Under the agreement set up with
the U.N., he was able to designate those companies that would be the
ones that would provide the humanitarian services. Well, if those
companies wanted to have anything to do with getting that lucrative
contract with his government, he would in turn compel them to make some
sort of, I guess you would say, under-the-table kickback to himself
personally and his government.
And what did he use that money for? He turned around and used that
money for his army, for his generals, for munitions, and, of course,
also to provide for the palaces that we have since seen that he enjoyed
in that country, meanwhile while his people were destitute and in
poverty. Also money that was used to provide funding to Palestinians
and the homicide bomber families. Suicide bombing families who engaged
in that conduct were soon informed that their families would be
receiving a stipend, if you will, of $15,000 to $25,000 or more, care
of the Saddam Hussein government, care of the Oil-for-Food revenue
stream.
Now, by allowing this corrupt system to continue and allowing Saddam
Hussein to manipulate the Oil-for-Food Program and also to bribe
government officials from other countries, and the reports have shown
there has been an extensive list of government officials and people in
high levels and positions in other countries, countries that perhaps it
really should not surprise us, whether we are talking about people in
Russia or in France, countries that were fighting the United States and
our positions where we had taken a tougher stance on Saddam Hussein. I
guess now, in retrospect, we know why some of those countries were
fighting the United States and our position to try to help the people
of Iraq, because there were people over in those countries that were
receiving part of those kickbacks from Saddam Hussein.
In the end, how much money was diverted from the legitimate purposes
of helping these people? How much money was diverted from providing for
food and shelter and medical supplies? Well, altogether, the reports
are now looking at $21 billion was stolen by Saddam Hussein at the
expense of his own people of his country.
Think about it. The U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program was created to help
provide humanitarian supplies, food and medicine, to the less
fortunate. But Saddam Hussein, under the auspices and the willing hand,
if you will, of the U.N., was allowed to use that money to advance
weapons and military programs as the poor were continuing to be plagued
by starvation and disease.
Now the most troublesome facts about the ongoing Oil-for-Food
investigation now is the lack of cooperation being provided from the
U.N. to get to the very bottom of how all this occurred and what
actually took place. We will be taking a look at that in a little more
detail to see how those reports came out and the fact that the U.N.
continues to this day to fail to cooperate with Congress, with the
information that we have sought to receive and also with regard to the
information that we had received and actually now that the U.N. would
like to get that information back.
I see I have been joined by one of my colleagues, the gentleman from
the great State of Florida, who also I would presume would like to
speak to the issue of the U.N. and the need for reform and some of the
problems with the U.N.
I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney).
Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for
his distinguished leadership in this and other matters.
Mr. Speaker, it is very sad that as I go back and talk to people in
my district about the role of the U.N., Americans know they are very
disturbed by the U.N., but they like the idea of having this United
Nations as a place where we can promote world peace and world security
and do some other things. It is not until you explain the record of the
United Nations, and before then the League of Nations, of total failure
when it comes to promoting freedom, total failure when it comes to
protecting collective security, total failure across the board that
they really get frustrated.
I want to congratulate the gentleman from New Jersey. The U.N. is in
need of deep and drastic and dramatic reform, and it is very sad to see
liberals in the United States Senate hold up a reformer like John
Bolton's nomination merely because he believes that America's security
and freedom should come first, and the United Nations needs a serious
dose of reality.
I will tell you it has been sad historically to watch the fact that
the United Nations, that was primarily the child after World War II of
the British Government and the United States Government to promote
security for the world and peace, has been a failure.
It was NATO that protected the freedom and the peace during the Cold
War. The League of Nations, which was started in 1914-1915, failed to
deter any major aggressor, including ultimately Hitler's Germany that
attacked Western Europe and threatened peace throughout the world.
Just like the League of Nations failed to protect the security of
free countries, so the U.N. has never once had any impact on protecting
freedom-loving, peaceful countries from aggressive totalitarian
countries, the Cold War being the biggest example but not the only
example. The U.N. was of absolutely no value whatsoever throughout the
Cold War with the Soviet Union, and it was NATO that preserved through
power the peace. As Lady Thatcher said, it was Ronald Reagan who won
the Cold War without firing a single shot.
Even in smaller regional conflicts, the U.N. historically has been a
total waste of time, money, effort and resources. For example, Cuba
having forces in Angola was never deterred by the U.N.; the Soviet
Union invading Afghanistan, the Vietnamese and the Korean conflicts,
again examples of the complete impotence of the United Nations to the
detriment of freedom-loving peoples.
As my colleague pointed out, the Saddam Hussein failure has been a
dramatic one, but it is just the most recent one, along with the Oil-
for-Food scandal, the perverted use of some U.N. troops in undermining
the safety of women and children, actually engaging in the rape and
torture of these people.
Even when it comes to peacekeeping, something you would think the
United Nations would be good at, they have a miserable record. In
Somalia, it was U.N. troops that presided over the largest genocide in
the last 10 years. They
[[Page H4332]]
actually facilitated the genocide by herding together folks that were
ultimately slaughtered. In Rwanda, you had the Tutsis slaughtered by
their oppressors. The United Nations was totally useless. In
Yugoslovia, you had the horrible situation that resulted from the U.N.
embargo, denying one side the arms to protect themselves while the
other side engaged in mass slaughter in Bosnia and elsewhere.
I want to end, Mr. Speaker, by thanking the gentleman from New Jersey
and saying there are some things that the United Nations can help at:
distributing food in times of crisis. They are a nice debating society,
but they have never once provided any bit of security to the United
States or any of our friends. To the extent that they condemn anybody,
it is typically our friends like Israel, when they equated Zionism, the
belief that the Jewish people ought to have a state where they can be
free from threats from oppression and anti-semitism and absolute
genocide. It is Israel that has been condemned more than any other
nation on Earth by the United Nations.
Finally, the United Nations has never been united in any way, shape
or form. Some people say it is a democracy, but it is a democracy where
a majority of the people that vote are actually dictators, tyrants. The
majority of the United Nations is governed by places like the African
Union, the Arab League and the Islamic Conference, often not only
hostile to America's interests but some of these nations actually
promoting terrorism itself.
So I congratulate the gentleman from New Jersey. U.N. reform is a
must. If we are not going to reform the U.N., it is time to pull out of
the U.N., put together a group of freedom-loving, peaceful nations that
will engage in real collective security, and not engage in this mirage
where we pour our money down a rat trap, fund our enemies often, and
embarrass ourselves by being a participant.
I yield back to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank
the gentleman for those comments. The gentleman made a number of good
points, the last one with regard to what they are good at. Before the
gentleman got here, I put up the one chart as to what the charter of
the U.N. says, what is their ultimate responsibility, why did we create
the U.N. back after World War II. It was basically the larger mission.
There it is. The larger mission is maintaining international peace
and security, which means to try to prevent future wars so we would not
have another war of the world as we had in World War II, and to try to
prevent future wars, where we have had over 300 wars.
Then the gentleman alluded to another point, which is interesting.
The gentleman says if they are not doing what the charter tells them to
do, which is to try to make us all feel a little more secure at home,
that we are not going to engage in another world war, maybe at least,
the gentleman suggested, that they are helping out providing the
delivery of food and the like, disaster relief.
But I think the gentleman will agree with me, because I know the
gentleman follows the issue of the United States providing tsunami
relief after the last devastation that occurred at the end of last
year, how the White House was immediately taking action. Although it
was not getting a lot of press and it was not actually looking for
press at that time, the White House and this administration said we are
going to just go in and get the job done, and we immediately sent our
troops over there, our ships over in that region of the world.
We were not calling up the press on the same day we were doing it.
The administration, they just said, we have a problem. Let us get the
United States over there and try to solve the problem with regard to
getting the food and supplies to the people.
I know the gentleman is very aware of that and was helpful in regard
to moving the legislation to get funding there.
But as an individual who has gone on the ground in those countries
that were suffering from the tsunami, one of the interesting aspects of
it is not so much what the U.N. did, it is what the United States did
and what some other bilateral agreements did. As the gentleman recalls,
what happened was the United States stepped up and said we will provide
troops and equipment immediately. We will also provide funding.
They intermediately entered into agreements with countries like
India. India, of course, was right there. They had their ships within
less than an hour on the scene. And we were actually getting the job
done.
Later, the U.N. became involved. Even after the U.N. slowly began to
make its presence known, it was not so much the U.N. that was doing the
work, as the gentleman knows, it is the NGOs, all those other, what is
the word for it, nonprofit entities, you might sort of say, that were
on the ground, that were already in some of these countries, funded in
large part by American taxpayer dollars. Those were the guys who were
getting the job done.
So, just to conclude, I think the gentleman makes a good point that
the U.N. does not do its original mission at all, which is to provide
security to this country, but the other point is that all they really
do is come in after the fact when it comes to providing food and
medicine and still rely upon our tax dollar to get the job done.
Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I thank
the gentleman.
The United Nations, to the extent it does anything, it distributes
food and resources largely provided by the United States of America.
There are other non-governmental organizations that do at least as good
a job on most occasions. If it was not for the generosity of American
taxpayers and American contributions, much of the world would never
recover from some of the horrible disasters that occur.
But I do believe there is a potential role for the United Nations to
play in continuing to be a world welfare organization in times of
emergency relief perhaps and maybe a cocktail debating society. But
unless there are dramatic reforms, they are good for nothing more. And
it is a threat to our security if we even pretend that they ever have
deterred an aggressor.
As the gentleman points out with his chart, since 1945, their main
mission was to deter aggression by hostile countries to freedom. They
have failed 300 times to do their main mission. So let us never depend
on the United Nations for our security or to protect American
interests.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank
the gentleman. Before I go on, I will comment that the gentleman's
comment about a debating society is one that I have used as well, but
it is a debating society made of who? It is a debating society made up
of tyrants, dictators and thugs, sort of like governments. I do not
know that I really want to be engaged in a debating society like that.
But I thank the gentleman for his work and support.
As was alluded to, one of the things the U.N. does not do is prevent
wars. One of the things they might be able to do is help the people.
That is what they were supposed to be doing with regard to the Oil-for-
Food scandal situation, providing food to the people of Iraq through
their oil revenue stream.
Unfortunately, as I was alluding to a moment ago, they failed
miserably in that respect inasmuch as they allowed the dictator Saddam
Hussein to use those dollars for other things, to use those dollars to
help build up his military, to use those dollars to help build up their
palaces for their generals, some of which I had the opportunity to see
when I had gone over to Iraq to visit our troops over there,
magnificent palaces that these generals and Saddam Hussein lived in at
the time while the rest of the country was basically in squalor and
poverty. That is where the Oil-for-Food revenue was going to.
It was also going to, as I said, people outside of his country,
bribing basically government officials and other high-ranking
individuals in other countries, such as Russia and France and
elsewhere, the very same countries that were battling the United States
in the U.N. saying that we should not be taking a tough position with
Iraq, that we should allow them to continue on with the Oil-for-Food
Program.
{time} 1500
Well, now we know why. They wanted the Oil-For-Food program to
continue
[[Page H4333]]
just so that they could continue to have a stream of money coming into
their private bank rolls. Well, the U.N. finally found out that that
was going on. Investigations were taking place, investigations are
taking place here in this Congress. But, as I alluded to a moment ago,
the very U.N. that we fund and house here in the United States in New
York City, they failed to work with us here in Congress so that we can,
as American citizens, get to the bottom of it and find out where our
dollars are going to and exactly what sort of transparency we need in
order to find out this information. The U.N. has shielded their very
own people. The U.N. has said that we are not going to provide
documents to Congress that the Congress wants, we are not going to
provide people to come and testify before Congress that Congress needs.
So what did the U.N. do in this regard? Well, what the U.N. did do
was set up their own commission, or the commission has been set up, as
we are all familiar with now, to investigate, which is now known as the
Volcker Commission, to investigate the allegations involving the Oil-
For-Food.
The problem with that is a number of folds:
First of all, the gentleman who is heading up the Commission, Paul
Volcker, an honorable gentleman, but someone it has been discovered has
close ties himself to the U.N. in the past and to the Secretary
General, Kofi Annan, in the past, as well as other conflicts of
interest, so perhaps not the best to be heading up the investigation.
Also, as far as the powers that that commission has, lack of subpoena
powers, lack of ability to hold people in contempt in order to get them
to testify before this commission.
And it is for those reasons that that commission has not done the
study and has not done the inquiry that we would all like to have had,
so we could get all the information out with regard to the Oil-For-Food
scandal and the mismanagement at the top, at least the malfeasance,
misfeasance at worst, at the top of the hierarchy of the U.N.
Paul Volcker also has been accused of downplaying Kofi Annan's
involvement in the scandal. Several reports have come out of his
commission with regard to this scandal, and others. They are called
interim reports.
Several weeks ago, unfortunately for them, two of their top
investigators who were working on his commission resigned from that
investigatory body; they resigned. And the reason they did so, they
said, was because they felt that the commission and the reports that
have been issued by the commission basically are too soft, not hard-
hitting enough, on Kofi Annan and Kofi Annan's involvement with the
Oil-For-Food scandal. Those individuals and the information that they
have been able to take out as far as documents and what have you would
not have been available to Congress, had it not been that those people
did not do the honorable thing and stand up and say that they are not
going to be part of an investigation that is not much more than a
whitewash of what is going on over at the U.N.
The second report, remember I said there were several interim
reports, the second interim report's most troubling finding was the
fact that Kofi Annan's chief of staff authorized the shredding of
documents, numerous documents authorized by the chief of staff of Kofi
Annan relating to the Oil-For-Food scandal. He retired on January 15,
earlier this year. It was the same day that the committee was informed
that these documents had been shredded. In other words, documents that
would have been necessary to show the direct involvement of the parties
to this action for Oil-For-Food were simply destroyed and shredded.
It is interesting to note that this is the same individual, the same
chief of staff that previously had supposedly sent out an order saying
that no documents should be discarded, that the commission should have
access to all documents that they needed and sought; but at the end of
the day, it was that individual himself, the chief of staff, that was
found guilty. Well, not found guilty, but found as the individual who
was shredding these documents.
Now that these other two individuals have resigned from the
commission that have been referenced before because of their views on
the report being too soft, they took with them certain documents and
they took those documents, and those documents have found their way
here to this House and to the investigatory bodies here in this House.
One would think that the U.N. and the Volcker Commission would say,
that is fine. Now that you have the documents, go ahead and do all that
you need. But what happened right after that? Well, we know from the
reports in the press that Paul Volcker then came back and attempted as
best he could to block congressional investigations from looking at
these documents and, in fact, demanded those very same documents back.
So, basically, just a pattern of blocking inquiry into what the U.N.
has been doing and a pattern of standing in the way of citizens of the
United States and the citizens of the world to see for themselves the
poor job that the U.N. has done with regard to living up to its charter
of protecting and making a secure world and protecting the people in
Iraq.
I see that I am joined here this afternoon, and I appreciate that, by
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence); and I yield to him.
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I rise in strong agreement with the sentiment expressed by the
gentleman from New Jersey and our colleagues who have spoken in this
Special Order, and I especially want to commend the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Garrett) for being one of the singular and most effective
voices about the truth about the United Nations in the 21st century on
Capitol Hill, and I appreciate his leadership in organizing this
Special Order today.
As a member of the newly organized Subcommittee on Oversight for the
United Nations, I am especially grateful to have an opportunity to
speak and to do so specifically, as the gentleman has requested, about
legislation that we on the Committee on International Relations
reported, literally just hours ago, when, by a very close vote, and
what was I think an extraordinary and civil and thoughtful debate, the
Committee on International Relations produced U.N. reform with teeth.
The Henry Hyde U.N. Reform Act of 2005, we believe, will come to the
floor of this Congress next week, and it will represent, in sum total,
the most significant effort by the people of the United States of
America to reform and amend this half-century-old institution. And that
is the intention and the purpose of what, when it was introduced with
the authorship of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and my
singular cosponsorship, the Hyde/Pence bill purposes to do.
The truth is, Mr. Speaker, that if the United Nations did not exist
as a forum for international deliberation, we would very likely have to
invent it. The United Nations, not as a world government, but as a
world deliberative forum, serves an important role. But because of
years of mismanagement, mindless bureaucracy, and, as the gentleman has
spoken with force and authority today, profound corruption, this
institution's vitality and survival in the 21st century is at risk
without fundamental reform. And that is precisely what the Henry Hyde
U.N. Reform Act brings.
But I say very carefully and directly, this is not a bill that
provides an outline for reform of the United Nations with, if I can
speak plainly, the United States providing virtually a third of the
funding for this institution and then saying, we think these are good
ideas for reform; we sure hope you do too. This is U.N. reform with
teeth.
In fact, we use a variety of methods of leverage in the United
Nations Reform Act of 2005, but that which has caught the most notice
is the potential withholding of 50 percent of U.S. assessed dues if
certifications are not made in the critical areas of reform that are
described. Those areas include budgeting. The Hyde legislation urges
the shifting of 18 programs from regular assessed budget authority to
voluntary funded programs that will be a great deal more accountable in
the process.
On the subject of accountability, the Hyde legislation mandates the
creation of an independent oversight board with broad investigative
authority through the Office of Internal Oversight Services, what will
come to be known as
[[Page H4334]]
the OIOS, will have the authority to initiate investigations into
mismanagement and wrongdoing and establish procedures to protect U.N.
employees or contractors who serve in a whistleblowing capacity.
In the area of human rights, the U.N. Reform Act also has a get-tough
policy mandating that the United Nations adopt criteria for membership
on any human rights policy within the institution. Under these
criteria, countries that fail to uphold the universal declaration of
human rights would be ineligible for membership. Now, this may come as
a shock to any that are looking in today, Mr. Speaker, but that is not
required today. There are countries who participate in human rights
forums in the United Nations that do not uphold the universal
declaration of human rights. We say that should not be the case.
And in the area of peacekeeping, where there have been such
extraordinary scandals of late, children, little girls, 10, 11 and 12
years of age being sexually molested by blue-helmeted U.N.
peacekeepers, which photographs record being made of the molestation
and then the trafficking of those records, there are fundamental
reforms in the Hyde legislation that would mandate a single and
enforceable uniform code of conduct for all personnel serving in
peacekeeping missions.
And there is a strict mandate that the criteria of the commission on
peacekeeping reform that was adopted by the United Nations, that the
five criteria and objectives be implemented in the immediate before any
additional peacekeeping operations can be authorized by the President
of the United States.
I want to yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey because there
will be ample time on the floor next week, I believe, when the U.N.
Reform Act comes to this floor, to unpack it for the American people.
But it is, in a very real sense, an opportunity to take that
information that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is leading
on to the floor today and who has been such a champion of, taking the
truth about the U.N. and saying, here is the proper response of the
American people.
As I close, let me say that one response could simply be the American
people, through their elected representatives, could profoundly reduce
our participation financially in the United Nations. And it is
important to say that the U.N. Reform Act keeps funding level. There is
no reduction in funding by the people of the United States of America
to the United Nations in the U.N. Reform Act. There is a potential for
as much as a 50 percent reduction in assessed dues if the United
Nations, through its membership and internal organs, does not
fundamentally adopt and implement reform in the next 2 to 3 years.
It is U.N. reform with teeth, and for all of the reasons that the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) effectively brings to the floor
today, the Henry Hyde U.N. Reform Act of 2005 is an idea whose time has
come.
I yield back with gratitude to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, as
well, for joining us here this afternoon and also for the work that he
has already done on the committee. I commend him for that. I know the
gentleman is well respected by all of our colleagues for his
insightfulness and level-headedness as far as addressing this issue
because, as he pointed out, we could be going in either extreme on this
issue.
Probably, when we get into the debate on this legislation next week,
whether it becomes partisan or not, I can imagine that there will be
extremes from both sides, so I appreciate the gentleman's moderation on
this and his hard work on this. I am sure the gentleman joins with me
in supporting the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde).
In essence, what the committee is doing is they are looking for in
the Reform Act of 2005, these are my words, not the committee's words,
but they are looking for oversight, accountability, and cutting
bureaucracy, I guess the same thing that they were always looking for
in any form of entity, government or otherwise, that plays an important
role in our lives. We do not want a huge bureaucracy, we do want a
level of accountability so we know who is responsible and we can hold
them accountable for what they have done, and we want oversight. We
want somebody, as the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) alluded to,
somebody, some apparatus who would be in a position to be able to step
back for a moment and take a look at the situation as a whole and see
whether they are complying with their overall charter and complying
with their overall mission.
{time} 1515
As we have alluded to already this evening, we already know
throughout history they have not been doing so, so now we have to
decide what to do with it.
I referenced before the problems, the ongoing investigation with the
U.N. and what they have found so far. The behavior of the U.N. up to
date, in my opinion, is just totally indefensible with regard to their
investigations and the investigations that they are taking, blocking
for Congress to take. I, for one, take the position, and have signed on
to legislation that we had last year when these issues first came up,
to say that we should be suspending all, we should be suspending all
funding to the U.N. until they agree to fully cooperate and provide us
with that level of accountability.
The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) has legislation that addresses
the issue and says that we should be withholding some level of funding
to the U.N. until there is a true accounting, until we can certify that
we actually know where all of that money went to.
Remember how much we were talking about here? $21 billion has been
effectively stolen, stolen from the people of Iraq, the poor, destitute
people of Iraq, during the entire scandal by Saddam Hussein and other
people around the world and his regime, the largest theft, I guess, in
world history. And we are just looking for an accountability for that.
It is really an outrage when you think about it. The American public
should be outraged about what has occurred at the U.N. The world
community should be outraged about what occurred at the U.N., and right
over in Iraq in the work of Saddam Hussein and right under the noses of
the administrators at the U.N.?
A $21 billion scandal, and it is only now beginning to have the facts
come out. We have a responsibility as Members of the Congress to
continue with this investigation. We have a responsibility, as alluded
to before by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), to make sure that
if we are going to be providing them any of your hard-earned tax
dollars that we will get to the bottom of it, hold those people
responsible for what their actions were, for participating in or
profiting from this outrage. They need to lose their jobs or go to jail
or both.
So that is just one tip of the iceberg problem with the U.N. And I
can allude just to a point how this impacts upon the world issue, world
community as far as security and terrorism is concerned. I think I have
the chart here.
I referenced before what Saddam Hussein was able to do with the
money, buy houses and palaces and military. But part of it, also, in
not too complex an arrangement here, part of it also helped to
facilitate suicide bombers which we see on TV more frequently than any
of us want. But suicide bombers in other parts of the world as well?
I mentioned before that there was a situation where he was getting
kickbacks from payments from companies in the Oil-for-Food program.
Some of that money then went to a bank account in Jordan. There was
also revenue coming into the regime, a $3 a barrel fee for oil. That
was paid by the Jordanian Government as part of their agreement over
with Iraq to get some of money out. Again, that money ended up in a
Jordanian bank account there. There is a bank, Rafidian Bank in Iraq.
That money was there; and other sources as well, I should say. The top
line here shows sources of money: kickbacks, fee per barrel and other
sources of funds as well.
All of that money coming into the regime, and where did it go? Into
the various bank accounts that regime controlled. And eventually out of
that bank account and to the families of suicide bombers. $15, $20,
$25, upwards of $35,000 each was going to the families of suicide
bombers to help them
[[Page H4335]]
out and to encourage that heinous type of action that we see as life is
being taken from other families and individuals.
The regime was supporting it. The U.N. was basically facilitating it
by allowing it to occur under their noses.
I am seeing now that I am joined by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
King).
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey
(Mr. Garrett) for bringing forth this important special order and for
his presentation with regard to the United Nations.
I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about how we might
better reform the United Nations and how we might better direct the
future of this country and the world. There has been a lot said, Mr.
Speaker, about the United Nations and what kind of a structure it is.
This country has for a long time believed very firmly in the sense that
we can bring together an international dialogue, resolve the world's
problems and avoid war. That was why the League of Nations was
established and certainly why the United Nations was established. The
U.N. was established in an endeavor to correct some of the mistakes
that were made with the League of Nations and establish an organization
that might function essentially in perpetuity in a fashion that is
going to be helpful towards peace and security in the world.
Unfortunately, it has not worked out so much that way, Mr. Speaker.
In fact, the entire structure of the United Nations is something we do
not talk about very often. It has a huge flaw, and the flaw is this,
that in the minds of the people in this country and around the world we
believe, since we have a forum there, we have a general assembly there
that brings in voices from nearly every nation in the world and they
sit in a place and they have an open forum and an open debate, that
somehow that is a semblance of democracy and so, therefore, the will of
the people of the world will be manifested in the policy of the United
Nations.
The big flaw is that many of those people that sit there are either
dictators themselves or mouthpieces for dictators, people that would
cut the tongues out of their own constituents if they were to stand up
and speak like a free people as we do here in this country. So,
therefore, the voice of the world is not heard in the United Nations.
It is often the voice of the rulers, the despots.
In fact, as we listened to the United Nations and the loudest voices
in the United Nations prior to our engagement and liberation of Iraq,
we heard a loud noise come from France, and they were organizing
intensively to oppose the United States' potential operations in Iraq?
That same noise came from Germany, and it came from Russia, and it came
from China, where we remember those days two-and-a-half, 3 years ago.
I said at the time that the decibels of resistance to a potential
liberation of Iraq that came from those countries and others in
addition to that can be indexed almost directly in proportion to their
oil interests in Iraq and in the Middle East. In fact, at the time I
did not know how prophetic that was, because we were not aware at the
time of the Oil-for-Food Program. Now when you add that at least $10.1
billion worth of fraud that came with Oil-for-Food, the $5.7 billion in
oil smuggling, the $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges, we know now it
is bigger than that.
We know the names of some of the players? We know that those players
were in places where their voices were echoed in opposition to the
liberation of the Iraqi people. One can only suspect their interest was
to continue raking the gravy off of the Oil-for-Food Program and pocket
the money themselves. So they had what is called a vested interest. In
fact, if I remember the words of Barber Conable, it was, Hell hath no
fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle. Well,
their moral principle was actually an immoral principle, a principle of
profit. That is part of the corruption of the United Nations.
There is a sex scandal within the administration that brought
actually sometimes more media than the Oil-for-Food scandal did. And
then we have those things.
We need to keep encouraging the investigation into the Oil-for-Food
Program, and then we have the operations of peacekeeping in Africa
where we have peacekeepers perpetuating sexual violence on innocent
citizens, innocent people.
An organization like this that does not have a legitimate oversight
program truly needs a U.N. Reform Act? I am 100 percent supportive of
this U.N. Reform Act. A number of the components in here are essential.
I think it is essential that the United States looks at holding back
and reserving some of its dues to the United Nations until we get a
bright light that shines on the United Nations, until we have a United
Nations that functions as truly the voice of the people of the world
and has the accountability like we have here in the United States.
So, with that, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for his comments. I
thank him for his work.
I know that the American public agrees with you when you say that we
should be withholding funding to an organization such as this where
there is no accountability and there is no transparency of what has
been going on all of these many years and this failing mission. So I
thank you for your work.
At this time, I see we are joined by the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Garrett) for yielding and his leadership in underscoring the lengthy,
loathsome and lewd history that the United Nations possesses, a history
of the deception and dishonesty and duplicity.
As a former judge in Houston, Texas, for over 20 years, I believe in
consequences for bad conduct. When improper behavior takes place, I do
not believe that we should say to the perpetrator, the person
responsible, try to do a little better. Normally, we look to the head
of the organization when the organization is floundering, especially in
corruption.
In order for the U.N. to regain credibility, Kofi Annan must step
down. Under his watch, the world's largest financial and human rights
scandal has occurred. The U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal makes the Enron
scandal in Houston, Texas, look like theft of a toothbrush. This U.N.
scandal resulted in millions of lives languishing in Iraq. In the
ongoing investigation, it appears as though Kofi Annan and his top
staff may have obstructed justice, may have destroyed piles of files
that many suspect reveal how he knew what was going on all along.
There should be consequences, and my question is, what is the United
Nation's position on the consequences in its own body for improper
corrupt conduct? Why cannot the United Nations enforce basic civil
rules for conduct?
Let us revisit just briefly some of the accusations against the
United Nations in addition to the Oil-for-Food disgrace. How about the
150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. civilian staff and soldiers in
the Congo? Accusations which include prostitution, rape, pedophilia. Or
what about the numerous cases of abuse among peacekeepers in the
northeastern town of Bunia? This does not include previous reports of
peacekeeping abuses in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Bosnia, and Somalia, and the
list goes on and on.
How about the tragic tales of defenseless North Korean defectors who
faced deprivation or worse at the hands of U.N.-operated refugee camps?
Or the investigations into the involvement of U.N. affiliates in
trafficking prostitution in Kosovo? Not to mention, Mr. Speaker, some
of the internal misconduct we have heard about like the allegations of
sexual harassment, abuse of power, unwanted physical conduct within at
least one U.N. administrative office. And let us not forget the
indications that Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, may have engaged in corruption
by way of the Swiss company for which he worked that inspected items
going to Iraq on behalf of the Oil-for-Food program.
Whether or not we ever substantiate claims that the UN's Oil-for-Food
initiative has ties to international terrorism, one thing is certain:
Outlaws within the ranks of the United Nations have instigated terror
in the lives of people across the globe. Rather than weeping for joy at
the arrival of United Nation relief, many of those people run in panic
at thought of such a sordid savior touching the ground in their own
country.
Whatever happened to the United Nations' charter promise that
advances
[[Page H4336]]
justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties and the
dignity and the worth of the human person?
In fact, in raising the United Nations' duty to promoting dignity and
humanity, how ironic it has become that countries like Sudan, Zimbabwe,
Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and even China now comprise the membership in the
United Nations' Commission on Human Rights.
This body must act. It must act now. And it must start with demanding
that Kofi Annan step down. He is responsible for the conduct of the
United Nation, because in our society we look to the head of any
organization. Then let us try to aid congressional investigators in
their efforts to unravel the deception and gluttony and the corruption
perpetrated for years by the United Nations.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to make those comments; and
I hope that we as a body can make a statement that the United Nations
is going to be held accountable for its conduct.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Poe) for his comments. I thank you for bringing so many of
points to the public's attention.
You raise a point of whatever happened to the U.N. charter. That is
something we have been discussing tonight extensively. Whatever did
happen to the charter and the role that the U.N. was set up for back in
1945?
You also used the expression, I noticed a couple of times as you went
through, a litany, a litany of abuses by the U.N., whether it was the
150 human rights abuses or the forced prostitution and on and on. Each
time I noticed that you mentioned the words, you said ``not to mention
this,'' as a phrase. Well, it is good thing. I appreciate the fact that
you are here tonight. I appreciate the fact that you are mentioning
these points, because, as you know, most of these points are not being
mentioned in the mainstream media. Most of these points are not being
driven home back at home, throughout our communities and the rest of
the world as well.
So I applaud you for mentioning them and making sure that these are
at the front of people's attention so that this body can do just as you
said, hold this institution accountable. I thank the gentleman for his
work.
{time} 1530
The gentleman has raised so many important points that we need to go
to in more detail. And as we begin to look at the reform next week,
legislation, I hope that we will have the opportunity to explore each
and every one of these in more detail so that the public can have a
better understanding of just the number of abuses. We just touched on a
little bit of detail about the Oil-for-Food scandal and abuses of the
U.N. as far as that scandal and as far as the cover up that seems to be
going on.
I join with the gentleman in saying that we should be asking for the
head of the U.N. to step down now so that he can be replaced with
someone that we all have confidence in in the interim period of time
until, if ever, reform is made at the U.N. so that American taxpayers
can look and say with pride, this is where our tax dollars are going,
as opposed to the abuses where it is going on right now; the abuses
that are, as I said before, just a litany. The gentleman mentioned the
150 alleged human rights abuses by the U.N., by the very peacekeepers
who are going into these countries that are trying to make these
countries safe, such as in the Congo. Instead, they bring tragedy to
the very people who become victims of the U.N. as opposed to the
warring factions that are over there.
The gentleman made reference also to the idea of forced prostitution.
This is forced prostitution by little tiny kids. 10-year-old girls have
been allegedly used and compelled into prostitution, a tragedy that is
happening under the auspices of the U.N. body that we are funding.
These young women, these young girls that are being compelled to be
involved in this, the phrase used now just as we had the Oil-for-Food
scandal, now we have the sex-for-food scandal as well.
We are talking about impoverished countries over there where food is
hard to come by and people are starving in parts of Africa. And they
are being, well, forced under these conditions to sell themselves for a
jug of milk or a bit of food or for a dollar. For that reason now the
phrase sex-for-food is here. They have also been phrased ``the dollar
girls'' in these areas as well, again, under the watchful noses and
willing acquiescence by the U.N. because it is the very people that the
U.N. has engaged over there that have allowed this conduct to go on.
I believe we have significantly more issues to address, but we have
only touched the tip of the iceberg as far as the need of reform or the
drastic changes as far as the relationship between the United States
and the U.N. I thank the Speaker for this opportunity to bring it to
the American public.
____________________