Congress Watch: A week of U.N. battering
This will not be a good week for the United Nations on Capitol Hill. On both sides of the Capitol, the world body is likely to take a beating on everything from its selection of who serves on its human rights panels to the way it spends (and, to many in Congress, wastes) money. First, the GOP majority will try again to secure the confirmation of John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, opening up again the debate on the respective roles of the U.N. and the United States in the world. Opposed by Democrats who think him too undiplomatic, ideological, and vindictive for the high diplomatic post, Bolton, according to his Republican backers, is exactly what is needed to reform a dysfunctional United Nations. As Democrats continue to stall the nomination, expect that debate to grow more heated, especially in light of a set of new bipartisan recommendations out today that outline the failings not just of the U.N. but of member states as well.
Worse though, for Secretary General Kofi Annan's troops in New York and Geneva, is a bill by House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois that seeks to force a series of changes on the U.N. via the threat of serious financial sanctions. That bill is expected to pass the House late in the week. Failure to adopt proposals in the Hyde bill could mean as much as a 50 percent reduction in U.S. dues to the world body. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, praising the legislation, says that the U.N. has become a "preposterously irresponsible organization" that is now "self-serving and insular. "The Hyde proposal also would introduce a scheme of weighted voting at the U.N., giving larger donors more clout than lesser ones.
"The times are too important for the U.N. to be as weak as it has become," says DeLay.
Opponents argue that the GOP efforts only serve to make it weaker.
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