UN Reform

NYT reported A Congressionally mandated panel will report this week that the United Nations suffers from poor management, "dismal" staff morale and lack of accountability and professional ethics but will acknowledge the broad changes proposed for the organization by Secretary General Kofi Annan and urge the United States to support them.

We certainly should support changes at the UN, and Kofi is one of the first things that needs to be changed.

Among its recommendations, the panel says the United Nations should put in place corporate style oversight bodies and personnel standards to improve performance. It also calls on the United Nations to create a rapid reaction capability from its member states' armed forces to prevent genocide, mass killing and sustained major human rights violations before they occur.

And any rapid reaction capability should not include rape of the people being protected, or even use of food or other needed supplies to buy sexual gratification of the UN personnel dispatched

Newt Gingrich, a Republican former speaker of the House of Representatives, and George J. Mitchell, a Democratic former majority Senate leader, are co-chairmen of the bipartisan task force. It includes former diplomats, military and intelligence officials and leaders of conservative and liberal political institutes. It was created by Congress in December to suggest measures to make the United Nations more effective and ways in which the United States can spur needed changes. The United States is the biggest donor to the United Nations, contributing 22 percent of the regular operating budget and nearly 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

One of the most important reforms needed is getting Bolton confirmed and in place to see what else we need, and as discussed earlier, both Congress and the Executive Branch need the ability to withhold US payment of dues until such reforms are in place.