ACCESSION NUMBER:294730
FILE ID:POL304
DATE:07/14/93
TITLE:COLLECTIVE MEANS OF PEACEKEEPING ESSENTIAL TO U.S. (07/14/93)
TEXT:*93071404.POL
COLLECTIVE MEANS OF PEACEKEEPING ESSENTIAL TO U.S.
(Wisner, Inderfurth testify at Senate hearing) (710)
By Wendy S. Ross
USIA Congressional Affairs Writer
Washington -- The Clinton administration is reviewing ways to help the
United Nations strengthen its capacity to plan and conduct peacekeeping and
peace enforcement operations, say two top administration officials.
Frank Wisner, undersecretary of defense for policy, and Karl Inderfurth,
U.S. alternate representative to the United Nations for special political
affairs, testified July 14 before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on
Coalition Defense and Reinforcing Forces.
They told the panel that the National Security Council has assembled an
inter agency task force to review U.S. participation in multilateral
peacekeeping and enforcement operations, including U.N. financing and
budget management reforms. That review, begun in February, is nearing
completion, they said.
"If we do not want America to be the world's policeman, we must find new
collective means of preserving peace, and the best arsenal available to us
1s the arsenal of peacekeeping" and of collective security, Wisner said.
He said the United States "is the central element" in this process, and "is
truly unique" in the skills it can bring to the peacemaking process.
It is clearly in the interest of the United States to assist in the training
and equipping of U.N. peacekeeping and peacemaking forces and in providing
them intelligence, logistics and lift capacity, he said.
The United States is also prepared, he said, on a case-by-case basis, to
join with other nations in providing combat units. "We have now done so in
Somalia and Macedonia," he pointed out, but he made clear that "the central
authority over United States troops will be retained by the leadership" of
the United States.
"We have to tread a fine line," he said, "making certain the United Nations
has effective military control" while at the same time ensuring that
ultimate authority lies with the president and secretary of defense.
The importance of U.N. peace operations to this nation's foreign and defense
policies cannot be overstated, Inderfurth said. "Getting peacekeeping
right is one of the most challenging and critical tasks" facing the United
States in the post-Cold War world.
"We know the peacekeeping system is in need of major reform," he said, "but
we also are confident that with American leadership and the dedicated
participation of other governments, the means to create a viable
peacekeeping system can be found."
But he said the United States is not supporting the creation of a permanent
or standing U.N. army. "All troop contributions to U.N. peacekeeping
operations," he said, "are and will remain at the discretion of each
government."
Inderfurth said Somalia and Cambodia are examples of successful U.N.
peacekeeping actions.
If a poll were taken in Somalia, he predicted, the majority of the people
would show support for a continued U.N. presence there despite the ongoing
fighting in Mogadishu.
Wisner reminded the senators that without the U.N. humanitarian action, tens
of thousands of Somalis would have starved.
"The new multilateral security system is on trial. It has had a fairly good
record in the gulf war, in Cambodia and Somalia, but a miserable one in
Yugoslavia," said retired Ambassador Jonathan Dean, who now is the arms
control adviser for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private non-profit
organization which advocates stronger measures to control weapons
proliferation.
"Today in hindsight," he said, "it is widely agreed that if NATO or the U.N.
had intervened at the outset of the fighting in Slovenia, early in the
Croat-Serb conflict in Croatia, and early in the Bosnia conflict, that
these interventions could have blocked further fighting."
The United States and other industrialized nations, he said, "must be
willing to lead, to frame the issues for their publics, and to place their
armed forces in harm's way in order to prevent or stop organized killing."
Subcommittee chair Senator Carl Levin said a lot of issues remain to be
worked out on the peacekeeping issue. He said his subcommittee wants to
take a lead role in meeting this challenge. "We want to work with the
administration to make it possible to move multinationally" when possible
"to avoid broader wars," he said.
1NNN
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
