US wants to head UN peacekeeping under Ban Ki-Moon
03 Nov 2006 18:16:04 GMT Source: Reuters
By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The United States wants to take over the large U.N. peacekeeping operation from France when South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon becomes U.N. secretary-general next year, a senior U.S. official said. "We're trying," the senior U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The U.S. lobbying has been confirmed by two Security Council ambassadors. Ban is currently making the rounds of the five permanent Security Council members with veto power. He is in France on Friday and heading for London next week. With the United States instrumental in Ban's election, the Bush administration believes it has a chance to get the peacekeeping department, now headed by Frenchman Jean-Marie Guehenno. But the move has been quietly greeted with dismay by some key ambassadors, who fear the change would tie the world body, at least in spirit, to the American military and the particularly the Bush administration's intervention in Iraq. The United States for years has led the U.N. management department, which includes financing, and it is held for another week by Christopher Burnham, who assumed his post in June 2005. Burnham resigned recently to take a job in the private sector. U.S. officials argue that Washington pays more than 26 percent of the peacekeeping bill, now estimated at close to $5 billion a year. But there are no Americans troops on the ground in U.N. missions. The United States has some 239 U.N. civilian police officers in Kosovo and 48 police in Haiti plus a scattering of civilians in various operations. In contrast, France has some 1,500 soldiers in Lebanon and has 4,000 troops in the Ivory Coast as a separate unit working with U.N. peacekeepers. Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations, said the small American contribution to peacekeeping would make the United State "an unpopular choice" to head the department. But he said the post would be helpful to cement American support for the United Nations. "The United States is often critical of U.N. peacekeeping operations," Feinstein said. "If putting an American in charge would lead to improvements as well as a better understanding of the challenges peacekeeping faces, it would be a good thing." Noting that the U.S. in the past has focused on budget and reform issues, "it is significant that the administration is attaching so much to peacekeeping, which is experiencing an unprecedented surge and operating in places of concern to Washington," Feinstein said. The peacekeeping budget from mid-2006 to mid-2007 mushroomed to $4.75 billion and is estimated to climb to $6 billion. The largest current operation is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with some 21,000 personnel, followed by Ethiopia-Eritrea with 17,000. Some have speculated that the Bush administration wants to internationalize its Iraq venture. But putting troops under U.N. command might be controversial because of Washington's reasons for invading Iraq, without Security Council approval. Feinstein said the Bush administration three years ago saw a U.N. role in Iraq as "something to be avoided, not courted." He noted that bringing in international support in Iraq could mean many things, including civilian support. In other posts, Britain, diplomats said, is lobbying to regain the political affairs department, which it had to give up to Ibrahim Gambari of Nigeria when two other Britons were appointed to senior U.N. posts in the past few years. And China wants the economic and social affairs department it once held, the envoys said, while Russia wants to keep control of the U.N.'s European operation in Geneva.
