Security Chief Blasts Congress for Withholding Funds to U.N., IMF

In a high-profile speech, National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger on Friday accused Congress of risking the United States’ global leadership and the nation’s economic well-being by refusing to authorize U.S. payments to the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.

“Our nation faces a profoundly important choice,” Berger said. “We can continue . . . working with others to seize the opportunities of the global era . . . or we can seek refuge in an illusory withdrawal. We can seek to steer change to our advantage or be engulfed by it.”

Billed by the White House as a major policy statement, Berger’s comments to a gathering at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, represent the administration’s first major counterattack to controversial Republican-led votes earlier in the week.

On Tuesday, the Senate put a major obstacle in the way of Clinton’s plan to pay just under $1 billion in back dues that the United States owes the U.N.

Continued nonpayment of the dues could endanger U.S. voting rights in the world organization.

Two days later, Congress passed a $6-billion emergency spending bill but conspicuously omitted money to help replenish loan funds available to the IMF, the global lending agency that most recently has organized efforts to rescue troubled Asian economies.

Both votes were led by conservative Republicans. As with other important issues affecting the United States’ role in the world, the votes appeared to be anchored primarily in domestic politics and the ongoing struggle between an inward-looking Republican-led Congress and a Democratic president struggling to fend off the effects of scandal.

Legislation authorizing payment of the delinquent U.N. dues, for example, was passed only after House Republicans added an unrelated provision that Clinton has already vetoed once and vowed to veto again.

The provision, which would prevent U.S. aid to any private organization that advocates abortion as an element of its family planning program, in effect forces Clinton to choose between Washington’s voice in the U.N. and the domestic political support of those who believe that abortion is a fundamental choice for women.

One reason cited for the House Republicans’ refusal to include any new money for the IMF was said to be public sentiment against using U.S. funds to bail out corruption-ridden governments such as Indonesia.

But here too Republicans apparently calculated that the president’s ability to fight back has been hampered by campaign fund-raising scandals linking Democrats to illegal foreign contributions and Clinton himself to one of Indonesia’s richest families, the Riadys.

On the issue of U.N. dues, congressional sources argue that it is up to Clinton to choose.

“If Bill Clinton cares as much about foreign policy as he claims, he has to find a way to come to terms with this because until the next election, the Republicans have control,” one Senate staffer said.

There were reports Friday that Clinton was being pressured by the U.N. and some within Congress to reconsider his veto pledge, although the White House said it was unaware of any such development.

Berger placed the burden of choice squarely with Congress, saying: “In the weeks ahead, Congress faces a choice. . . . By acting now to support the IMF and pay our dues to the United Nations, Congress can reassert its determination to preserve Americans’ leadership in the world.”

He said refusal to pay back dues at the U.N. had eroded U.S. credibility, hobbled the country’s diplomats and undermined a central message of American policy: that nations must live up to their commitments.

“We should pay the U.N. what we owe,” he said.

Berger also implied that the decision not to replenish the IMF could eventually affect some of the 12 million American jobs now supported by exports.

California, with major trade and investment links with Asia, would be disproportionately affected by such a development.

“An economic downturn among our trading partners can have serious consequences for our workers, our farmers, our businesses, our stockholders,” Berger added.