Hal Rogers: “Mr. Chairman, let me try to dispel some misunderstandings about peacekeeping and what we fund in this bill. For example…”

“Mr. Chairman, let me try to dispel some misunderstandings about peacekeeping and what we fund in this bill. For example, we did not fund in this bill the NATO mission in Kosovo. We fund the peacekeeping portion of the effort in Kosovo, after the peace was won. We did not fund the war-stopping measures in East Timor. Australia did that. They established peace, and then we fund the peacekeeping U.N. contributions. This bill does not fund the effort to establish order in Haiti. We approved the funding for the peacekeeping in Haiti after the peace was established. And the same will be true of Sierra Leone, Congo, Ethiopia, anywhere else in the world that the U.N. is the appropriate vehicle to keep a peace. The U.N. cannot make peace. The U.N. can keep, hopefully, a peace. That is where we are now. Mr. Chairman, let me correct another misconception, that we do not provide adequate resources for U.N. peacekeeping. This bill contains $500 million for our share of U.N. peacekeeping.”