George Voinovich

Is the United Nations program any good?

So in a way, if we got involved with the Europeans, they are doing so much, you say, in terms of analyzing the data, doing an analysis of how this is permeating our society, but in terms of creating infrastructure rule of law in countries…

And they don't have much in terms of resources for multinational efforts to deal across the various countries.

So what you're seeing is that they're analyzing how this is impacting them, but that the emphasis would be...

And they don't understand that they need to go beyond that.

Well, just to emphasize what you said, for example, the sanctions we had against Serbia, what that did is put Milosevich into business.

I just think about the nation building from Bosnia, how well we're doing and how long have we been there, since----

I think we really need to do this.

Well, I would like to thank you very much for coming. I'm comforted that there seems to be a little more coordination than I anticipated, and that's good.

Well, I hope they're doing better with some of those tables and initiatives than the one that's supposed to be providing money to those people for infrastructure projects.

Well, from my perspective looking at the big picture, it seems to me if you're looking at the United States of America, first of all, we need to pump up the resources that we have dealing with these international crime operations that are…

That probably would come out of the State Department and get the Justice Department involved, get John Ashcroft involved and get Colin Powell involved.

Do you know if there is ever a meeting, given all of the things in the Justice Department and the State Department, do they ever have big meetings and look at what's going on?

Do you think it would be a good idea if someone sat down and looked at what everyone is doing and look at the resources that they have and how they are coordinating with each other, and trying to really figure out how you could put…

It's a little hard to understand because we have troops over in Afghanistan, and if the problem is greater today than it was before, what's the reason?

I was a big promoter of expansion of NATO to include Bulgaria and Romania, and we made it very clear to those folks that they needed to take action to combat corruption and promote the rule of law.

This is a side line, another area I have been working on for quite a few years, and that is the issue of human capital and resources.

I will be candid with you, and I have been briefed a couple of times confidentially about what's going on, and the fact of the matter, is it frightens me how organized these people are.

Is part of the problem the fact that more and more resources are going to deal with terrorism?

In other words, they are operating, it sounds to me like the old-time Cleveland Mafia, you know, shake downs, all the rest of that stuff that they do.

So the Ukraine, from what I understand, is a big source of human trafficking, which they start there and they just line up these folks and then they figure ways to get them into the United States.

Unless these problems are addressed at the highest levels, they will continue to threaten future progress and modernization.

In my opinion, transnational crime and corruption pose an even greater danger to many developing countries in Europe than terrorism.

I really feel that crime and corruption pose even greater dangers today in the countries that are out there than terrorism.

They significantly impeded our efforts to promote stability, security and the rule of law in Europe and elsewhere.