U.S. Urged to Pay Up or Risk Losing U.N. Seat

The days when Richard Holbrooke doesn’t show up for U.N. Security Council votes are the times that he thinks he is doing his job best.

The U.S. ambassador to the world body spends those days--one or two a week--in Washington, trying to persuade members of Congress to put the United States’ money where its mouth is. The U.S. will lose its seat in the 188-member General Assembly if it doesn’t begin to pay its mounting debt to the world body by the end of the year.

The issue will climax in the next week or two as President Clinton and Congress continue negotiations over the U.S. budget. Holbrooke argues that the price of the arrears--which the U.N. maintains has mounted to $1.7 billion, though the U.S. puts the figure at about $1 billion--is a bargain that would protect U.S. interests around the world.

“This is not some wasted money for bureaucratic fat cats,” Holbrooke said recently with fresh indignation--though it is perhaps the 60th time that he has said those words in the past month of intense lobbying. “This is money to protect our vital security interests. . . . By one degree of separation, our troops in Kosovo could be in danger if we underfund the programs we helped create.”

Holbrooke has a reputation for getting what he wants and going great distances--literally--to obtain it. A master of shuttle diplomacy as special envoy to the Balkans, he bounced between Washington and Eastern Europe in 1995, at times visiting four countries in a day, to craft the peace agreement that eventually stopped the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

These days, his job still comes down to resolving conflicts on the fly. And though the egos and issues are just as large, at least the distances are shorter.

“Now shuttle diplomacy has been reduced to the [New York-to-Washington] Shuttle itself,” he jokes.

It’s easy to imagine him lobbying a fellow passenger strapped in beside him on the flight: Holbrooke will carry out diplomacy wherever he can, collaring members of Congress on subways, in hallways and--relentlessly--by phone. (He has two cellular phones in his car.) His message is simple: To protect its national security, the U.S. must back up its rhetoric with resources.

The U.S. stopped paying its dues during the 1980s to pressure the U.N. to streamline its bureaucracy. But dues are only part of the annual tab, and the U.S. has continued to pay a portion of its other assessments--contributing $2 billion last year--to cover peacekeeping operations and U.N. agencies.

According to U.N. rules that the U.S. helped write, any nation whose arrears are greater than two years’ worth of its total assessments will lose its vote in the General Assembly. However, the U.S. would retain its permanent seat on the powerful Security Council.

Washington must pay a substantial portion of its debt by the end of the year to keep its assembly vote--and its influence. Two years ago, the Senate approved $926 million to be paid, but Clinton vetoed that authorization bill and another last week, for the most part because of an unrelated antiabortion rider attached to each.

Holbrooke became ambassador Aug. 5 and has witnessed firsthand how unrelated political matters can affect U.S. participation in the U.N. His own confirmation was held up for 14 months, partly for an ethics investigation but also because a few Republican senators blocked his appointment to make their own political points.

For all of Holbrooke’s crusading, even his staunchest supporters question how much he can do to persuade Congress to pay up, and in the process save the prestige of the United States--and his own good name--at the United Nations.

“I think the U.S. has already lost influence in the United Nations,” said Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the world body. “Its voice has been muffled and its reputation stained. I believe that people can’t quite take it that the world’s richest country is the U.N.’s biggest debtor.”

Unlike in Dayton, Ohio--where Holbrooke gathered Balkan leaders on an Air Force compound in 1995 and over a three-week period cajoled, threatened and manipulated his way to a consensus on peace in Bosnia--the ambassador’s power in Washington is limited.

“He has been extremely helpful, keeping the issue on the radar screen,” said Phyllis Cuttino, executive director of the Better World Campaign, a group funded by media mogul Ted Turner to promote the U.N. “But there’s only so much he can do by himself.”

A bill authorizing the funds is snagged on an antiabortion initiative drafted by conservative Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.). The rider would ban U.S. funding for family planning groups that lobby other nations to legalize abortions.

Smith’s team concedes that funding for U.N. dues is not related to the antiabortion issue: The money would go to general operations and peacekeeping activities and not to family planning agencies. But piggybacking the initiative on the appropriations bill may be the team’s best chance of getting it passed.

“The president has signed antiabortion legislation before when it was attached to something he really, really wanted,” said a congressional aide close to the negotiations. “And the president really, really wants this.”

Although Holbrooke has a hunger for a challenge, he clearly has little patience for the politics holding up the U.N. funding.

“Family planning has nothing to do with national security,” he said. “All we are asking is to de-link this most difficult social issue from important national security issues.”

What the veteran diplomat can do to pressure Smith is work with a key wedge group--House members who are viewed as antiabortion but pro-U.N., such as Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas).

“I don’t think compromise is possible,” said Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-Pa.), an antiabortion leader who nevertheless has worked closely with Holbrooke to win the U.N. funding. “You’re not going to have the president and Chris Smith shaking hands on a deal. The only way to do it is to marginalize Chris Smith.”

The most frustrating part for Holbrooke is that the money has been almost within reach since a bipartisan bill sponsored by conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and moderate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) passed the Senate 97-1 two years ago, though it carried several conditions and the bill it was attached to was vetoed by Clinton.

Holbrooke already has done most of the hard work at the U.N. to satisfy Congress’ demands for reform: Through a bit of arm-twisting, the U.S. recovered its lost seat on the key U.N. budget committee so it can influence spending at the world body. Last month, the U.N. announced a zero-growth budget in real terms for 2000. Next week, Holbrooke will demand--with no lack of chutzpah--that the United Nations reduce the U.S. share of annual assessments for members from 25% to 22%, an ongoing U.S. demand.

But despite having met face to face with 60 members of Congress and spoken to about 30 more in groups, Holbrooke admits that the solution is up to Clinton in the next few weeks of budget talks.

“There will be lots of trading at the end between the leadership and the president,” he said.