Howard Berman: “I cannot believe what I am hearing. I ask my colleagues to read the text of this amendment and understand what would…”

“I cannot believe what I am hearing. I ask my colleagues to read the text of this amendment and understand what would have happened if this had been in effect 3 years ago. First, understand this. We can try and dissociate ourselves all we want from U.N. peacekeeping operations, but the fact is there is not one peacekeeping operation going on now that the United States could not have killed at its inception by exercising its power of veto. The Security Council is the only body empowered to have the United Nations authorize any peacekeeping operations. We can veto anything at the Security Council. Secondly, if this had been in effect 3 years ago, when we chose to undertake Desert Shield and then Desert Storm, and we sought the U.N. endorsement of that proposition and received the U.N. endorsement, with a lot of great and excellent diplomatic work by the previous administration, and we spent, what, $50, $60, $70 billion, much of which was reimbursed, and there is no reference, by the way, to the fact that reimbursements come off of the credit, but whatever we spent there, billions of dollars in direct and indirect U.S. costs in this operation, if this resolution had been in effect at that time, for 25 years in the future we would never pay one dollar into any approved U.N. peacekeeping operation.”