James A. Leach: “let me say I may consider the Lantos-Shays alternative imperfect, but it represents a credible political balancing and…”

“let me say I may consider the Lantos-Shays alternative imperfect, but it represents a credible political balancing and is clearly preferable to the underlying bill. But listening to the debate over the past 2 days, I sense a lack of perspective not only for treaty obligations but for the U.N. itself. Corruption exists in all societies. It is rife, indeed endemic, in some. At the U.N., it is isolated; it is not endemic. I have known hundreds and hundreds of people who have worked for the U.N. itself or U.N. agencies. They are honorable, decent people doing a decent job. It is true that a few thousand dollars here and a few thousand dollars there pretty soon adds up to a loss of confidence in institutions of governance, and we have that problem at the U.N. Hence, we cannot ignore scandal, but scandal does not define the United Nations; it defines a problem that must be dealt with there and elsewhere. We should do this, but we should do this with the understanding that the world would be a far worse place without the U.N. and that the activities and actions of its various organizations and agencies have made this a better world society. So improvement, not destruction, is the goal.”