Hal Rogers

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me thank my colleagues from the Committee on Government Reform for bringing their concerns to our attention, and for their appreciation for the difficult choices we faced in putting together this bill. We have done our best to make sure the 2000 Census had every dime that it needed. As a result, we have not been able to fund other ongoing or new programs at the levels requested in the President's budget, but I appreciate the importance of many of these programs, and will be happy to work with our colleagues as we move through the bill to resolve some of their concerns that they have expressed about the funding levels in the bill.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida. (Mr. MILLER of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for the purpose of engaging in a colloquy. (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 102, line 14 be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, let me congratulate the gentleman who is a very hard-working member of our subcommittee and has put many hours into its work, but especially on this particular part of the bill. I want to thank the gentleman for offering the amendment on behalf of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Talent), the chairman of the Committee on Small Business. It is a worthy amendment and one that we wholeheartedly support.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings). (Mr. HASTINGS of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it provides an appropriation for an unauthorized program and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. ROGERS. There would be a reprogramming request the administration would send to us. We would review it and the monies, if approved, would come out of this account that we are speaking of today, the $500 million.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure I understood the question of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, to respond to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), if the U.N. Security Council votes for a peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia, which they have not done as yet, as the gentleman knows, but if there is, in fact, a peace accord there and the parties are withdrawing, so that a peace exists and an agreement to be enforced is in place, and the U.N. votes for a peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia, the procedure would be that the administration would notify the Congress 15 days in advance of that vote up there for a peacekeeping mission, and they would seek to reprogram into that account monies from this $500 million kitty, if you will, for that purpose. That reprogramming would come to our subcommittee; and if it meets the criteria that all the others have met that we have voted for, then it would be reprogrammed for that purpose.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I am glad the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is entering this debate because the gentleman serves as the ranking member of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROGERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, as I explained before, the way this rather unique account is operating, the way we operate it, we appropriate, or the Congress does, an annual sum of money for peacekeeping contributions to the U.N., in this case $500 million. During the year, the administration, when they propose another peacekeeping mission at the U.N., they are required by law to notify the Congress 15 days in advance of that vote at the Security Council, a notification that they plan to vote for a new mission; and, two, a reprogramming request from this account, or some other peacekeeping mission that is not quite ready yet for monies to go into that particular new peacekeeping mission. That is the way that has been operating for a long time. Sometimes each peacekeeping mission has different spend-out rates. Some spend quicker than others. There is always money in that account to be changed from one to the other or drawn from the general account. What the bill proposes is $500 million, the same as the current year, for the peacekeeping account, which is a 120 percent increase over the figure we gave similarly in 1999. So we have kept them at the elevated 120 percent increase over 1999 in this current bill. There should be sufficient monies for them to do the peacekeeping missions where the mission is ready for monies to be spent. It is not ready in Sierra Leone nor in the Congo. It probably will soon be in Ethiopia.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. ROGERS. Well, reclaiming my time, I have already said to the gentleman that we may yet approve a peacekeeping expenditure for Ethiopia. There has been an accord signed since we marked the bill up. That will be forthcoming. We could reprogram money from this account for a peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia. The same is true for Sierra Leone, when there is peace to be kept. But the peacekeepers of the U.N. sent to Sierra Leone are not equipped to fight. They are equipped to keep the peace. We should arm Nigeria to the point that Nigeria can go in and take care of Sankoh and the other rebels that are causing so much havoc in that poor country. But we have to have a military capable force, and Nigeria has it. The U.N. does not want it, nor do we want them to have a war-fighting capability. So Nigeria, I think, is the solution to the Sierra Leone lack of peace. And Nigeria cannot do that unless we equip the Nigerian military force with the power capable to make that happen.

Mr. ROGERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will look at a table of the nations that contribute to U.N. peacekeeping, the gentleman will find that five nations pay better than 90 percent of the total peacekeeping costs. Most of the countries of the world, the countries the gentleman has mentioned, pay a fraction of 1 percent. China now pays, I think, less than 1 percent. Japan pays around 10 or 11 percent. They are beginning to pull their fair share. Britain pays a good fair share. Germany needs to be increased, and others. The poorer nations of the world will not suffer if the rate of contributions of the other industrialized nations come up to where they are now, not the GDP they had in 1945 when the U.N. was formed. That is not the question in this debate, however, the U.N. contribution rate of the U.S. We will take that up in another setting, perhaps. The point I want to make to the gentleman in relation to the amendment that has been offered is that we will fund our share of peacekeeping costs of the U.N. where there is a peace to be kept. And in Sierra Leone I hope to God that a peace can be established there by Nigeria or some regional power for us to be able to keep. The same is true in the Congo, in Ethiopia and East Timor.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me try to dispel some misunderstandings about peacekeeping and what we fund in this bill. For example, we did not fund in this bill the NATO mission in Kosovo. We fund the peacekeeping portion of the effort in Kosovo, after the peace was won. We did not fund the war-stopping measures in East Timor. Australia did that. They established peace, and then we fund the peacekeeping U.N. contributions. This bill does not fund the effort to establish order in Haiti. We approved the funding for the peacekeeping in Haiti after the peace was established. And the same will be true of Sierra Leone, Congo, Ethiopia, anywhere else in the world that the U.N. is the appropriate vehicle to keep a peace. The U.N. cannot make peace. The U.N. can keep, hopefully, a peace. That is where we are now. Mr. Chairman, let me correct another misconception, that we do not provide adequate resources for U.N. peacekeeping. This bill contains $500 million for our share of U.N. peacekeeping. And I would point out, our share, the U.S. share, up until recently, was 30 percent and the rest of the world paid the balance. But we paid by far the biggest share and still do. Our share now is 25 percent, not only of peacekeeping but of the regular U.N. dues. But we provide $500 million in this bill for peacekeeping operations of the United Nations. We are pulling our fair share. Let no one dispute that. If there is disagreement about the appropriate numbers of dollars in the U.N. peacekeeping missions, go talk to our friends in England and Japan and Greece and the rest of the world, China, about paying a better share of the costs of U.N. peacekeeping. Do not tell me that the United States is not a big-time partner in peacekeeping around the world. We pay a fourth of the costs, not counting what we contribute militarily, which does not count in this budget, for transporting troops all over the world in our planes, our fuel, our ships, our troops, in transporting people all around the world for peacekeeping missions. Now, in the year 2000, this current year, we gave the U.N. a 120 percent increase in the number of peacekeeping dollars that we contributed. It went from $231 million in fiscal 1999, we increased that to $498 million in this current year. Now, what the administration is requesting is an increase of that figure by $241 million. We do not provide that additional increase because these missions are not quite ready yet. Earlier on, we thought Sierra Leone was ready. There was a peace agreement. The U.N. voted for a peacekeeping mission to keep the peace in Sierra Leone. We approved the reprogramming monies and we sent $42 million to the U.N. for the peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone, so we have approved that. Now they want more for Sierra Leone. But by everyone's account, Sierra Leone has now descended back into warfare for which the United Nations is not equipped. We all know that. Secretary General Annan says that. Now, there is a misconception about how peacekeeping monies are spent and how they are doled out. Every year, the Congress approves a sum of money for U.N. peacekeeping assessments. That money stays in the peacekeeping account. When our Ambassador to the U.N. is preparing to vote for another peacekeeping mission, they are required by law to notify the Congress, this subcommittee, and the Congress in general, of their intent to vote for another peacekeeping mission at the U.N. Security Council, along with a reprogramming request of us to take from the $500 million account and apply so much to that peacekeeping mission. They did so with Sierra Leone back in February and, pronto, the Congress approved. We reprogrammed $42 million from the general account for peacekeeping for that particular mission. And as we all know since that time, Sankoh and the rebels have gone back on the attack and Sierra Leone is no longer working under a peace agreement for which the U.N. could keep the peace. It has descended back into warfare and we are withholding the reprogramming of further Sierra Leone peacekeeping missions until order can be restored. Now, how does that take place? How can order be restored in Sierra Leone so that the U.N. can keep a peace? The same way we did in Kosovo. In Kosovo, the regional power went in with military force, led by NATO, the U.S. being a big portion, of course, and restored a peace. Now we are funding a peacekeeping mission through the U.N. in Kosovo. What happened in East Timor? We relied upon Australia, the regional power, to go in militarily. Not with U.N. peacekeeping dollars, but other money. Military aid to establish the peace in East Timor. Now we have sent U.N. peacekeepers to East Timor because there is a peace to be kept. It happened that way in Haiti. The U.S. was the regional power. It can happen that way in Sierra Leone. How? By equipping militarily Nigeria, the regional power, with U.S. dollars. It is not peacekeeping monies. It would come out of the Defense Department or from foreign military assistance in the foreign aid bill, not this one, to directly militarily assist Nigeria to go into Sierra Leone and establish a peace which can be kept by the U.N. Mr. Chairman, we are discussing that with the administration. Ambassador Holbrooke is working night and day for that very objective. We are conferring with him almost daily in that respect. Do not expect the U.N. peacekeeping mission to be able to go in and fight a war. They cannot do that. We learned that in Somalia. We have learned it all around the world. Let us not relearn a lesson that has cost American lives as in Somalia and other nations, military personnel, peacekeeping personnel, as we have learned, unfortunately, only recently. Last November, Secretary General Kofi Annan was quoted as saying, Peacekeeping and warfighting are distinct activities which should not be mixed. Peacekeepers must never again be deployed into an environment in which there is no cease-fire or peace agreement. I agree with that entirely. But the U.N. apparently is not following its own advice. Right now the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world is in Sierra Leone, a country where there is now open warfare. U.N. peacekeepers kidnapped, some 500 of them, by Sankoh and the rebels. The U.N. has demonstrated absolutely no capability to restore and enforce peace there. And we did not expect them, frankly, when they were sent there earlier on, to get into an open warfare situation. Nineteen peacekeepers are still captive. Another 230 surrounded and detained. They are not trained for warfare. We all know that. The British came in and prevented a total collapse by the U.N., but now the British are withdrawing and the U.N. is likely to be challenged again. The U.N. commander in Sierra Leone recently tried to explain why his troops surrendered without a fight and were taken hostage last month. He said they were taken hostage because they were, quote, ``using the weapon we know best: Negotiation. We did not want to use force. We did not come here for war.'' End of quote. The commander of the U.N. in Sierra Leone. If the task at hand is negotiation, peacekeeping, obviously the U.N. should take the lead. When the task at hand is to fight a war, the U.N. is the wrong tool for the job. Do not expect them to be able to fight a war. They are not equipped for that. They are not trained for that. So what is the U.N.'s response so far to renewed fighting in Sierra Leone? More personnel. More potential hostages or worse, casualties. More chaos and violence for the citizens of Sierra Leone. The U.N. expanded the force to 11,000, then to 13,000, soon to 16,500, yet that force is not equipped. It still has poor logistics and poor communication. Even reports of direct insubordination within the command. They ran when the rebels attacked and then surrendered. I believe it is a recipe for disaster. Mr. Chairman, we have urged the administration to pursue other policy options to bring peace first to Sierra Leone, if that is indeed possible. And the only way to do that, unless it is direct U.S. military personnel, is to equip and arm Nigeria and allow them to establish a peace to be kept in Sierra Leone. If my colleagues agree with the U.N.'s undisciplined, uncontrolled approach to peacekeeping, then they should support the gentleman's amendment and the administration's funding request, a second consecutive annual increase of over $200 million. This approach led to disaster in the past and it will again. The bill in front of us today holds U.N. peacekeeping at the elevated level that we gave them in the year 2000, a 120 percent increase over fiscal 1999. It will help the administration to argue against the wishful thinking of those at the U.N. who believe that placing U.N. personnel into combat zones will magically bring peace. As we so tragically now know, that does not take place. We have to make difficult choices in this bill to live within the allocation we were handed. We have not targeted peacekeeping money for reduction. We have simply held it at the current elevated level of last year the current year, which we have had to do in so many other accounts in this bill. We do not prohibit peacekeeping missions anywhere in the world. That is just not in this bill. No offset is proposed in the gentleman's amendment. This is the exact same amendment that we rejected in the full committee 2 weeks ago, and were it not to be the subject of a point of order, I am confident that that would be the case in this body. Mr. Chairman, let me say this in conclusion. I hope that the administration will equip the Nigerians with whatever military capabilities are needed to establish a peace in Sierra Leone. In that case, monies will be approved for a peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone by the U.N., as it should be. The same, frankly, will be true in the Congo when there is a peace to be kept, as there is not today. The same will be true in Ethiopia/Eritrea. In fact, since the bill was marked up, there has now come about a peace agreement in Ethiopia and I am sure we will receive soon a request for peacekeeping reprogramming funds from the general account to a peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia to keep the peace established by that accord. There is a peace apparently to be kept in Ethiopia and it will be funded in due course of time. But I plead with my colleagues, understand the limitations that the U.N. has in bringing about peace. They can negotiate, they can keep a peace once it is established, they just do not have the capability to wage war. They are not a war-fighting organization. They are a peacekeeping organization. We fund peacekeeping in this bill. They fund war-fighting in other bills. So I would hope that my colleagues will understand the position that this chairman and this subcommittee take. We support peacekeeping when there is a peace to be kept. We understand the U.N. cannot fight wars. Only a militarily capable entity, such as NATO or such as a regional military power, like Australia, Britain, the U.S., others, Nigeria in Sierra Leone's case, establish a peace to be kept. I say to my colleagues that once that peace is established, and there is a peace to be kept and the United Nations asks the U.S. to share in the cost of the peacekeeping mission to the tune of 25 percent, this subcommittee will reprogram funds from this account to fund that peacekeeping mission, wherever it is, Sierra Leone, the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, East Timor, Western Sahara, and others. There are many of them going on at this moment.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is the ranking member of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee of Appropriations, as well as being a ranking member of the full committee.