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resources--amounted to $1.5 billion."27

The context in which those remarks were made, to a pro-UN audience, suggests

that Ward was trying to make the case that the administration was supporting the United

Nations despite congressional opposition. In effect, the administration decided to

transform the Department of Defense into a military arm of the United Nations. That had

the effect of frustrating the will of Congress, which had decided to withhold money to the

United Nations to spark UN reform. Indeed, the administration's approach could help

explain why that pro-reform strategy ultimately failed. From the UN's point of view, why

should the world body reform as long as the administration was providing the financial

resources supposedly denied by Congress?

Another effect of the administration's policy of diverting funds was, as Kirkpatrick

suggested, to undermine the military readiness of U.S. forces. One of the most recent of

the many reports on the subject was the January 19, 1998, cover story in U.S. News &

World Report. The article cited evidence that increasing U.S. involvement in peacekeep-

ing activities had contributed to a "general deterioration" in the capabilities of U.S. Army

units. "Instead of preparing largely for territorial defense, U.S. troops must safeguard

vaguely defined American and 'global' interests in an increasing number of far-flung

places."28 A December 11, 1997, memorandum from a defense analyst at the Senate

Budget Committee, cited in the U.S. News article, said that the deployment of troops to

peacekeeping missions had specifically undermined readiness by causing serious shortages

in personnel for Army combat units.

Congressional Concerns about the Diversion of Funds

Despite the obvious requirements of the Constitution, Congress has been slow to

react to the practice of raiding the Pentagon budget to finance UN operations. One of the

first members of Congress to focus public attention on the matter was then-majority leader

Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kans.), who, in congressional testimony in 1995, charged that

U.S. funding of UN peacekeeping is out of control. The U.S. Ambassador

to the United Nations routinely votes to establish, extend and expand

operations long after congressional appropriations have been exhausted.

In most other government programs, this would be illegal. At the

least, it is unwise. And billions of dollars of costs in direct and indirect

support of UN peacekeeping have been accumulated. Yet the adminis-

tration refuses to even seek credit toward the U.S. assessment.29

Billions of American Tax Dollars for UN Missions

It was Senator Dole who requested the GAO report, cited earlier, that provided