Scott Garrett

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the 10th amendment states: ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'' These historic words, penned by our Founding Fathers, some of the most ingenious political minds the world has ever known, set forth an important principle: the Federal Government may exercise specific powers that are listed in the Constitution, and the States and the people may exercise all remaining powers. Unfortunately, as the authors of the Constitution have long since passed, so too have many of their ideals for our system of government, from an ever-expanding Federal Government that for decades has crept into many facets of once locally controlled areas, to a Federal judiciary that in many instances completely ignores the intent of federalism, all resulting in a Federal Government that has become wildly inefficient and a hemorrhaging bureaucracy. In an effort to draw attention to this nationally destructive trend, I have recently founded the Congressional States and Community Rights Caucus, which will be a forum to work to ensure that the Federal Government is operating under the intent of the 10th amendment of our Bill of Rights. I look forward to working with my like-minded colleagues who share the sentiment that the Federal Government has taken authority over too many areas from State governments and are operating them in an inefficient manner. This is not a new concept. It goes back over some last 10 years and even back further than that. Our Founders were very clear when establishing our system of government. They intended to set up a Republic of sovereign States capable of self-governing with a small central government with clearly defined, limited powers. Our Constitution must be thought of as a social contract between people and the government. We must think of the most important document as a trade where our forefathers gave up certain specific rights in exchange for limited services specified, most notably, for defense of the people and the Nation. When we refer to federalism, we refer to only powers specifically listed in the Constitution are to be administered by the Federal Government. All others are to be left to the States, local government, or to the people themselves. James Madison wrote this in Federal paper No. 45: The powers delegated to the Federal Government are few and defined, he said. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State. Of course, we know we have gone much further than this now. Throughout the last few generations especially, the intent of the 10th amendment of a limited government has been shredding away. Over the years in many areas, national crises and otherwise, many of the government's powers have grown on the Federal level, particularly in social service areas, through a centralized Federal Government. Limited government was a gift to the American people. More accurately, it was got by blood, sweat, and tears that were shed by our forefathers who sought to break away from their mother country, Great Britain, and also by subsequent generations who worked for this great experiment of personal liberty. There are those who support a big government, who have no faith in the people whatsoever to care for themselves, who feel a few should provide for the many. They believe that high taxes and high spending is the most efficient way to provide services. Of course, we know that history proves them not true. Those who support a big government might contend that those like myself are really antigovernment, but that is not true as well. Our Federal Government serves an important purpose, but our Nation is better off when that purpose is limited. Mr. Speaker, those who support federalism as I do, those who strictly adhere to the 10th amendment, know that a large, burdensome, bureaucratic government is not the most efficient way to get the services to the American people. You see, State taxpayers and Federal taxpayers are not two separate groups of people but they are individuals who are taxed twice. Think about that for a moment. Americans from all around the country send their money to Washington only for Washington to lose some of it, waste some it, and spend some of it on areas and ways that you and I might not agree with. In fact, you have taxpayers from one State who are subsidizing services for taxpayers in another State. For instance, in my State of New Jersey, I know that for every dollar that we send to Washington, we only receive back 54 cents from the Federal Government. That does not make sense to me and I know that is not fair. Our recent leaders have tried to right this position of our Federal Government back to where our Founding Fathers had it. In his first inaugural address in 1981, President Reagan said, ``It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.'' In light of the looming fiscal crisis of our Federal budget and the domestic programs that are simply not reaching their intended goals, I believe it is imperative to highlight the need to return to a system intended under the reserve clause of the Constitution. I invite and encourage my colleagues to join the caucus and help us return control to those who know what is best, to the people. All of our constituents deserve the most efficient and effective government, a government in accord with our Constitution.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, due to attendance at my daughter's school graduation on June 15, 2005, I was regrettably absent during the following votes. Please add to the official record how I would have voted on the following rollcall votes: rollcall No. 254--``nay,'' rollcall No. 255-- ``yea,'' rollcall No. 256--``nay,'' rollcall No. 257--``yea,'' rollcall No. 258--``nay.''

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today to offer another amendment, and this one is to reform the U.N. budget process. The amendment seeks to control the overall growth of the U.N.'s budget and establish priorities within the U.N. budget process and also to increase transparency and accountability in it and its subsidiaries, and it does so basically in three ways. Just to step back for a moment, the U.N.'s budget right now, the biennial budget, is around $3.6 billion; but over the last 10 years, we have seen that budget grow by almost $1 billion. That is a 39 percent increase. Now, I wonder if any of us would think to say that the U.N.'s productivity over the last 10 years has also increased by 39 percent. I would rather guess not. My amendment, first of all, would help to rein in that bloated, out- of-control bureaucracy at the U.N. by stating that it shall be the policy of the U.S. to make every effort to enforce a zero nominal growth in the regular budget of the U.N., its specialized agencies, and the funds and programs that it has. Secondly, another part of my amendment seeks to strengthen the United Nations rule 5.6. Now, this is a rule that was set up to instruct the Secretariat to identify low-priority activities in the U.N.'s budget proposal. Unfortunately, the U.N. has looked at that rule over the years and failed to designate almost any programs as low priorities under 5.6. So my amendment would indicate that every activity that the U.N. is involved in cannot simply be a top priority proposal or rule right now. So, instead, my amendment would say that the U.N. must look to the 5.6 rule and identify 15 percent of their budget request as their lower- priority activities. If they fail to do so, they will face an across- the-board reduction of such amount. Finally, the third point and the last part of my amendment is it seeks to address the lack of transparency and accountability at the U.N. My amendment seeks to ensure that the U.N. is annually publishing a list of all its subsidiary bodies and functions, their budget, and their staff as well. Now, the much talked-about Gingrich-Mitchell U.N. Task Force that went to the U.N. last year, they went to the U.N. and asked for a similar list and the U.N. simply could not provide one. Well, if we want to rein in this out-of-control bureaucracy that the U.N. is, I believe that it is essential that we know who is working for them, how much they are paying them, and exactly what is it that they are doing. Now, one example of one of these subsidiary agencies that would appear to have outlived its usefulness and is wasting some vital resources is the Economic Commission for Europe. This commission was created right after World War II, and it was designed to help Europe to know how they can grow economically and develop. Now, I, quite frankly, would argue that we have passed the point that Europe needs any more help from the U.N. and advice from the U.N. on how to grow and develop, and that this is an agency and a portion of the U.N. that can be dissolved. Mr. Chairman, I believe this amendment is an important step in making the U.N. a more transparent, accountable, and functioning world body; and I would urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today to offer an amendment addressing another and very important issue, and that is the possible expansion of the United Nations Security Council. My amendment would state that it should be the policy of the United States Government to use its voice, vote, and influence of the United States at the U.N. to oppose any proposal on expansion of the Security Council if that expansion would either diminish the influence of the United States on the Security Council, or if it included veto rights for any new members of the Security Council or, finally, and most importantly, if it would undermine the effectiveness of the Security Council. Currently, there are five permanent members and there are 10 rotating members to the Security Council. It takes a vote of nine members, that is 60 percent of all there, a majority, to advance any initiative to the Security Council. Now, the recent proposal that we have heard about expanding it says we should expand it up to 24 members. That would mean we would need 15 member countries to support any initiative to get it through the Security Council. Now, why is that a problem? Well, one blatant example of how the number of countries on the council and their competing interests have hindered the ability to move forward and get substantive and important resolutions passed, the one most important one that has been discussed on this floor of recent is the genocide that has occurred in Sudan. It has been extremely difficult for the United States to try and get any member of the Security Council to come to an agreement on this and a resolution, such as China, who has economic interests in the area, and African countries, who have their own regional difficulties and disagreements in the area as well. If we increase the size of the Security Council, we would have an even harder time moving important missions through the Security Council such as this. Now, for those who believe that the United States should play an active role in the Security Council, you should support this amendment. The more that the United States' influence is lessened in the council, the more the United States will have to act unilaterally to deal with international crises. The expansion of the U.N. Security Council could undermine the effectiveness and its ability to respond to threats to international peace and security. So I think it is important that Congress send a message to the administration and the U.N. that we do not want to diminish the influence of the United States on the Security Council. My amendment would do just that, and I ask my colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just very briefly, to respond, any increase in the members where they have the veto power in the Security Council will possibly have the effect of diminishing the U.S. role there, because that means that that additional member would be able to block what is in the interests of the United States and the interests of the American taxpayers and citizens of this Nation. Likewise, any proposal to increase the size, even without the ability to veto, would diminish the ability of the United States to get important initiatives through, just as I stated before, because even if they are other democratic nations, they may have competing interests with those of the United States, and, therefore, compete with what we are trying to do in the Security Council.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before I begin, let me just use this opportunity to extend my appreciation to the chairman for his work in so many different areas important and vital to the people of this country, but right now, at the issue at hand before us, an area that is of utmost importance to the constituents in my district, as well as the citizens of this Nation and the world community as well. So I thank the chairman for his steadfast dedication to addressing these problems. Also, let me take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the chairman's staff as well for their efficiency in bringing these matters to the floor and their cooperation in working with our offices in order to proceed along on these matters. I rise today, Mr. Chairman, to offer an amendment regarding possible contract abuses by high-ranking U.N. officials and to hopefully make the U.N. a more accountable and transparent body. This amendment will ask the Office of the Comptroller General to submit a report to Congress detailing the costs associated with the renovation of two U.N. buildings in Geneva, Switzerland. Let my give my colleagues a little background. Michael Wilson, a friend of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who has referred to the Secretary General as his ``uncle,'' is being investigated by a Swiss judge of possibly bribing a top U.N. official for a $50 million renovating contract at the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is alleged that Mr. Wilson paid $270,000 to a top official at the intellectual property agency named Khamis Suedi. In return, the construction company Mr. Wilson represented was to be awarded the construction contract for this renovation work. Here is the interesting connection. Mr. Wilson has also been a close business partner with the Secretary General's son Kojo Annan. In fact, Mr. Wilson helped get Kojo a job at Cotecna, a Swiss-based inspection firm. Not long after hiring him, Cotecna was awarded a lucrative contract to inspect goods going to Iraq with the newly implemented Oil- for-Food program that we have heard talked about on this floor earlier. Kofi Annan has continuously denied ever meeting with or supporting the Cotecna contract proposal. In fact, the Volcker Commission, appointed by Kofi Annan to investigate the Oil-for-Food scandal, in their second interim report that came out this spring came out and stated, ``There is no evidence that the selection of Cotecna in 1998 was subject to any affirmative or improper influence of the Secretary General in the bidding or selection process.'' However, just this week, a memo obtained from Mr. Wilson around the time that the Oil-for-Food inspection contract was being decided, stated: ``We had brief discussions with the Secretary-General. We could count on their support.'' Now, the Volcker Commission only now is hastily reevaluating its initial findings in light of this new evidence; and Kofi Annan, as suspected, is dodging questions and hiding now behind the commission. I believe that the Volcker Commission has proven to be too cozy to the Secretary-General to adequately assess the true depth of corruption. In order to provide a full accounting of any illicit dealings to the American taxpayer, the United States must continue its aggressive investigation, and my amendment will further that goal. Even real estate magnet Donald Trump states, in speaking about the proposal in New York City about their planned expansion of their headquarters, ``The United Nations is a mess and they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily on this project.'' If Donald Trump says they are wasting millions of dollars, I can only imagine what the average American taxpayer's view must be on the U.N. Investigations of the U.N. financial dealings under Kofi Annan resemble the peeling back of an onion. The more that is cut away, the greater the stench. This amendment is a bold step, I believe, in slicing away one more slice of the onion, another layer, to reveal the full account of any illicit dealings at the U.N. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I just want to say that I appreciate both gentlemen's comments and the information that they conveyed. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds, the balance of my time, to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I received it from different locations, actually. It began, if I may, it began with newspaper reports.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, the budget of the United Nations currently stands at $3.7 billion. The contribution from the United States, or actually the contribution from the United States taxpayers, is almost a quarter of that, $439 million. The amendment that is before us deals with just less than 1/10 of 1 percent of that entire U.N. budget. Mr. Chairman, my amendment seeks to simply take that .6 percent of the U.N. budget from the U.S. assessments towards the U.N. and put those funds into a program that we have talked about earlier, the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Grant Program. As we have talked previously on this floor, this is a law enforcement assistance grant program that works in partnership with Federal, State, and local governments with the objective of creating a safer community for all of us. It does that by awarding grants to States and local communities and counties and local governments to help improve their functioning of their criminal justice systems, and it does it with an emphasis on violent crime and serious offenders. What can this money be used for? It can go to provide for personnel, equipment, training, technical assistance, and information systems for more widespread apprehension, prosecution, adjudication, detention, and rehab of offenders who violate both State and local laws. Since September 11 this grant program has been a significant program for law enforcement. As the chairman knows, I represent the Fifth District of New Jersey, an area just outside of Ground Zero in New York City, an area that is all too aware of the need to have increased law enforcement and to deal with the prospects of terrorist attack. How much money are we talking about? The total sum of this transfer is a little under $22 million. And as I said before, the entire United Nations budget is $3.7 billion. So we are talking about .6 percent, a little less than 1 percent, of the overall U.N. budget to do this. But with that little tiny bit of money, it will translate into a 6.3 percent increase for this purpose, not enough for every law enforcement need throughout the country, but enough to meet the numerous needs that are not being met right now. Mr. Chairman, later in this week we will be dealing with U.N. reform and pointing out that the U.N. has not lived up to its original charter. That charter sets out that the U.N.'s job is preventing war and maintaining world peace. There have been over 300 wars since 1945, when the U.N. was created. Twenty-two million people have died. Obviously, it is not living up to its full potential. In part it is because of its bloated bureaucracy, its inefficiency, and its bad management in so many different ways, an untold amount of wasted dollars at the U.N. The United Nations cannot even come up with the definition of what terrorism is. But let me tell the Members, Mr. Chairman, after September 11, local law enforcement agents in my district in New Jersey can tell us what terrorism is because they have seen it firsthand. So I offer this amendment today to make sure that they have all the tools necessary to keep our citizens safe at home.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

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. 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. 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.

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. 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. Well, now we know why. They wanted the Oil-For-Food program to continue 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.