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Bartlett's Counterattack

On the same day that Clinton delivered his state of the union address, however,

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) held a Capitol Hill news conference at which he declared

flatly that "there is no United States debt to the UN," because the United States has never

received "proper credit" for past peacekeeping assistance. Bartlett distributed copies of a

Congressional Research Service report finding that the United States spent more than $11

billion on international peacekeeping efforts between 1992 and 1997.9 Although the

report did not specify how much of that amount had been counted against U.S. "dues" to

the United Nations, Bartlett said the figure could be as low as $1.8 billion, leaving $9

billion worth of "voluntary" (uncredited) international peacekeeping assistance.

The Revealing GAO Report

The $1.8 billion figure was itself taken from a 1996 General Accounting Office

report on U.S. costs in support of UN-authorized "peace operations" in Haiti, the former

Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Rwanda during fiscal years 1992-95.10 The $1.8 billion figure

represented the State Department's costs for the operations in question. That is the

budget from which the U.S. share of UN peacekeeping operations has traditionally been

funded. Overall, the GAO found that the costs reported by U.S. government agencies for

support of UN operations in those areas of the world were over $6.6 billion and that the

United Nations had reimbursed the United States only $79.4 million "for some of these

costs."

It was the GAO report that originally prompted Bartlett to introduce his United

Nations Erroneous Debt Act in 1997. Citing the report, the bill said that, during the years

in question, an improper "gift" of $4,720,600,000 had in effect been provided to the

United Nations by the United States. That would, of course, more than wipe out any U.S.

"debt" to the United Nations.

Congressional Maneuvers

The Bartlett bill, which attracted 60 cosponsors, would have prohibited any "debt"

payments to the world organization until the $4.7 billion was reimbursed or credited to the

United States. The bill never came to a vote and was not given the benefit of hearings by

the Committee on International Relations, headed by Gilman. However, using language

similar to that in his bill, Bartlett subsequently offered an amendment to delete $100

million in "arrears" funding from a State Department appropriations bill. That effort

received 165 votes, including those of House Republican leaders Dick Armey (Texas),

Tom DeLay (Texas), Gerald Solomon (New York), and Dan Burton (Indiana). Indeed,

the Bartlett amendment received the support of 75 percent of House Republicans as well

as eight Democrats.