The diplomats were grappling over money–specifically, how much each of the U.N.’s 189 members should pay in dues. On a deeper level, the debate was over Washington’s relationship with the world body it wants to lead but loves to hate. The U.S. Congress has insisted that it won’t pay hundreds of millions of dollars in delinquent dues until the U.N. reduces Washington’s share of operating and peacekeeping costs. Holbrooke has spent much of his 16-month stint as U.N. ambassador trying to strike a deal that both Congress and the United Nations could accept. In the end, Washington finally prevailed on some two dozen countries to increase their contributions; Holbrooke even got tycoon-philanthropist Ted Turner to donate $34 million to meet a one-time shortfall in next year’s budget. The U.N. measures adopted on Dec. 23 fell just shy of congressional demands. “Was it historic?” asks Holbrooke. “Absolutely yes, if the Congress now releases $582 million [of its arrears].”
One potential obstacle comes in the person of Jesse Helms. The conservative senator from North Carolina, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could still block the release of American funds. According to the new U.N. budget plan, U.S. contributions to the operating budget will drop from 25 percent to 22 percent, as Congress demands. But American contributions to peacekeeping will be reduced from 31 percent to about 27 percent by 2003, instead of being cut to 25 percent as stipulated in a bill cosponsored by Helms and Sen. Joseph Biden. Holbrooke remains hopeful, partly because Helms offered him compliments for his hard work on the deal.
Biden told NEWSWEEK last week that he believes the legislation will now be amended to jibe with the compromise reached by the United Nations. He thought the incoming Bush administration would be glad to resolve a dispute that has caused a lot of ill will toward Washington. “I can’t imagine that the Bush administration won’t want this off its plate,” Biden said. But even that wouldn’t be the end of U.N. budget battles. Next on the agenda: hundreds of millions of dollars in disputed American arrears.
