U.S. Aims to Present Its Envoy, Dues Check at U.N. Assembly

Amid worries that a seemingly isolationist United States won’t have an ambassador or a dues bill stamped “paid” when the U.N. General Assembly reconvenes next month, the Bush administration says it is pushing to have both.

Washington has been without a U.N. ambassador since former President Clinton’s appointee, Richard Holbrooke, stepped down in January after getting Congress to agree to pay the bulk of more than $1 billion in back dues.

His replacement has been a long time coming. President Bush named career diplomat John D. Negroponte as his choice for the post March 6 but didn’t send his name to Congress for formal confirmation until May 14. Negroponte’s confirmation was delayed further while the Senate Foreign Relations Committee waited for the CIA and the State Department to deliver classified documents about his tenure as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s.

Critics have charged that Negroponte downplayed reports of death squad activities and human rights abuses while in Honduras in order to maintain congressional funding for covert operations by the anti-Communist rebels known as the Contras. Negroponte denied in previous hearings for ambassadorial posts that he was aware of systematic abuses.

Last week, after a meeting between the Foreign Relations Committee and Negroponte, his confirmation hearing was postponed until September. Earlier, the administration and the committee had indicated that they were prepared to begin the process, but they realized that there was no guarantee that the hearing would finish before Congress recessed today for the summer.

“It’s not going to be a one- or two-hour hearing,” said Norm Kurz, an aide to Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the chairman of the committee. “We’re going to need a couple of serious sessions.”

The Bush administration opted to begin the hearing immediately after Congress reconvenes in early September. The U.N. General Assembly opens Sept. 11.

All sides agree that the sooner the U.S. has an ambassador in place to act on Washington’s behalf at the world body, the better.

“We have every interest in having a representative there,” Kurz said. “The question is whether he is the right guy.”

The U.S. lacks a permanent representative to the U.N. at a time when the administration has lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission and failed to win support for changes to sanctions against Iraq. Washington’s rejection of five international treaties in seven months has led to charges that the U.S. is becoming isolationist.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said last week that such charges made it all the more important for Negroponte to be confirmed in time for the opening of the General Assembly.

“Otherwise, the Senate will send a signal to the world that the United States is not as actively engaged as it should be at the United Nations,” he said.

If he is confirmed, one of Negroponte’s first acts may be to deliver a check for $582 million of the $1.7 billion in contributions that the United Nations says the U.S. owes. Holbrooke won the U.N.’s agreement to lower U.S. contributions in exchange for Washington’s payment of its arrears and for other U.N. reforms. The House wants to withhold a $244-million installment due next year until the U.S. regains a seat on the rights panel.

Most of the money has been allocated but not paid. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan nudged Washington this week, saying he hoped the check was in the mail.

“It doesn’t help that a country in a leadership position . . . doesn’t pay its debt,” Annan said Tuesday. “This undermines the U.S. effectiveness in the United Nations.”

If Negroponte isn’t able to deliver the money, perhaps Bush will. He’s scheduled to address the General Assembly on Sept. 24, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he is trying to make sure that the U.S. bill is paid.

“I think it would be a much more powerful statement for the president to go on Sept. 24 with the check, as opposed to without the check,” Powell said Wednesday.