PRESS RELEASE: U.S. Balks at Need for Increase in U.N. Budget; Increase Needed for U.S. Requests

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Earlier this month the United Nations met with its top donor nations in order to fulfill a request for $1.1 billion in additional funding over the next two years, largely to meet the Bush administration’s demand for a more ambitious role for the UN around the world, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United States currently pays for 22 percent of the U.N. administrative budget and 27 percent of its peacekeeping cost.  Through its Ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalizad, the U.S. says the world body should look for savings in other programs or seek additional funding from other member states in order to fund new initiatives. According to a recent Washington Post article, Khalizad stated, "I want to have a Ferrari, but if I can't afford it I would have to take something else or defer."

“For more than 60 years the U.N. has been one of our most effective foreign policy partners,” said Citizens for Global Solutions Interim Director and Senior Fellow Raj Purohit.  “Therefore, I find it ironic that our nation’s ambassador, and the Bush administration, seems to be balking at the need for increased budget funding. After all, the need for the additional funds is mostly due to an array of duties the U.S. has asked the U.N. to undertake in recent years. After all, you can’t reasonably request the performance of a Ferrari for the price of a used car,” Purohit said.

During the past several years, the Bush administration has sought out the U.N. to take the lead in numerous peacekeeping operations – especially in the Sudan – and also to bolster U.S. foreign policy goals in Afghanistan and Iraq and establish a war crimes tribunal in Lebanon.

Overall, the U.N.'s budget is approximately $5 billion annually, while peacekeeping costs amount to about $6 billion a year.  The U. S. – as a permanent member of the Security Council and the U.N.’s largest donor -- basically possesses a veto over increases to both peacekeeping and the regular U.N. budget.

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Notes to Editors:
Citizens for Global Solutions is a non-partisan membership organization that envisions a future in which nations work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms, and solve the problems facing humanity that no one nation can solve alone.