The Original Mission Of The United Nations

THE ORIGINAL MISSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS -- (House of Representatives - July 20, 2006)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. I appreciate your inviting me to be with you all today. It is a real treat to listen to you and Congressman McCotter. The things you have said I agree with wholeheartedly. I am not nearly as eloquent as the two of you. I am a much more plain-spoken person, I think, a product of having grown up in the mountains of North Carolina, and I think that in many ways you are being very kind about the United Nations.

I agree with you that the United Nations was born in a spirit of optimism and that people had hoped very much that the United Nations could provide peace and stability in the world. And we all want that. We all want that to happen.

But I will tell you, as I talk to my constituents and as they talk to me about the United Nations, even the average American, you don't have to serve in Congress, the average American knows that the United Nations has failed miserably in its role as a peacekeeper in this world. All we have to do is look at what is happening right now in Lebanon, what is happening in Israel, to know that it has failed miserably. We would not be having the problems that we are having in the Middle East if the United Nations were doing its job. I think that it is high time for the Congress and the administration to demand a great deal more from the United Nations.

I think that our Secretary of State is doing a fabulous job in her job, and I think that it was a sad day when we could not get Ambassador Bolton confirmed by the Senate to his job, and I think that the President was right to appoint him on an interim appointment and that he is speaking for the majority of the American people and saying the kinds of things that need to be said.

I want to quote HENRY HYDE. Again, there are very few people in this House who are as eloquent as Chairman Hyde, and I think that it is entirely appropriate that the bill that he introduced, the United Nations Reform Act, was named for him. I want to just quote one quote from him relating to that bill and relating to the United Nations:

``No observer, be they passionate supporter or dismissive critic, can pretend that the current structure and operations of the U.N. represent an acceptable standard. Republican and Democrat administrations alike have long called for a more focused and accountable United Nations. Members on both sides of the aisle agree that the time has come for far-reaching reforms.''

I think that the comments, again, that have been made here by my esteemed colleagues have set the stage for some of the things that we ought to be talking about. The United Nations charter has laudable goals, but, as I said, I am a much more plain-spoken person than some others. But when the rubber meets the road, the U.N. has failed miserably to put these ideals into practice, especially in recent years. And we have a duty here in the Congress and as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, the United States, we have a duty to insist on a higher standard. We have a duty to ensure accountability of each and every American taxpayer dollar that goes to the United Nations.

I know my colleague is going to point out some of the problems with the U.N. ``supervised'' Oil-for-Food Program. But I want to say that from that program, to the lack of action with respect to genocide in Darfur, Sudan, to the tremendous human rights abuses by the U.N. peacekeeping staff during their mission to Congo, the U.N. is absolutely rife with fraud and abuse and needs reform.

We could list these things, and there is a long list, and I am going to talk a little bit about the history of scandals in the United Nations: the Oil-for-Food Program, we will talk a little bit more about; the peacekeeping operations; the Center for Human Settlement or Habitat; Settlement Rehabilitation Program in Northern Iraq; UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund; the Conference on Trade and Development; the Development Program; the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Program; we all know UNESCO; the Electoral Assistance Division, meaning electing people, not electricity; High Commission for Refugees; the Office of Drugs and Crime; the Claims Commission; the Population Fund; and the Environmental Fund. Every one of these programs has had a scandal attached to it.

The American people are much more familiar with the U.N. Oil-for-Food dollars because, fortunately, the popular press and the popular media picked up a little bit on that program and have talked about it. But all of these programs have had scandals associated with them, and I think that just by highlighting this one program, we can give an example of what some of the others are.

I would like to come back in a few minutes and talk about some other issues that have been touched upon by Congressman Wamp, but I am going to turn it back over to him so that he can explain in some detail some of what went wrong with the Oil-for-Food dollars.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Wamp. I appreciate that very much. I would go even farther than you have gone in terms of talking about the amount of money that we have put into the United Nations.

I think that we should lower completely, to a very low amount, what we give to the United Nations. And if we cannot get other nations to increase the amount of money that they give, then I think that we should seriously think about withdrawing from the United Nations altogether.

It is such a corrupt organization. It does so little for what it should be doing, that I think that it is something that we definitely should give some thought to.

I want to go back. You mentioned the Malloch Brown speech. I really want to talk just a little bit about that, because I think that Malloch Brown's speech and the comments that he made are an indication of the fact that the members of the United Nations, people at the United Nations, are totally out of touch with the world.

You described the little spot of ground that the United Nations sits on. I have been there too, went there last year for the second time in my life. I went there as a young person to visit the United Nations, you know, thinking again idealistically about what the United Nations did.

I went there and took my grandchildren to show them the United Nations and get them to get a little bit of sense of what it is. But those people who come here from other countries I think really, really are out of touch. I want to make a couple more comments about what Malloch Brown said. I find it so ironic that he would come in and criticize the American people.

We are the only superpower in world. We are undoubtedly the most successful country in the world. And yet we are criticized by the Malloch Browns of the world, by almost everybody in the United Nations, for what we do. I find it so ironic that we provide so much of the money for the United Nations.

When you look around, you see that we are the most successful country in the world, and how these people can come in and criticize us for what we do. I want to say, our Ambassador Bolton said, it was a criticism of the American people. I think that that is absolutely true.

He criticized our people. I think that that is such an affront to us, and I think the American people understood that as an affront. And he chastised the Bush administration because we had not constructively engaged the American people in what good things the United Nations was doing. He is telling us we are too inadequate to explain that.

Well, the American people are very smart people. We are the smartest people in the world too, I think. They understand, rightfully, if the United Nations was doing what it was supposed to be doing, its work would stand for itself. That is the kind of thing that we Americans understand.

I think that it is, aside from the fact that he was injecting himself into the political life of this country which he has absolutely no business doing, he really insulted the American people. And he insulted us.

I want to say that my recommendation would be on the United Nations, they are going to come to us and say they need a lot of money to renovate that old building up there. My recommendation is that they take the United Nations to the Sudan. They build a building in the Sudan, and they move the entire United Nations to Africa.

Then I would like to see how many of those people who are currently serving in the United Nations would like to move there and use their expertise to help Africa get out of the poverty that it suffers. I do not think you are going to see many of those people want to go there. They come here and they like to live the life that they live in the United States, but they do not want to respect what we do in the United States and how we have gotten to where we have gotten.

I want to thank Congressman Wamp for bringing this Special Order here tonight. I think you are right. We need to talk about this. What is going on in the Middle East right now is because of the failure of the United Nations, not the failure of the United States, not the failure of the Bush administration, not the failure of President Bush. It is the failure of the United Nations to keep peace in this world.

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to keep the pressure on them to reform the way they do things, and if they do not, I think we need to get out.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov/