Patrick Leahy: “regarding this debate on Miguel Estrada, we do have a lot of other issues that seem to be ignored. I am back home almost…”

“regarding this debate on Miguel Estrada, we do have a lot of other issues that seem to be ignored. I am back home almost every week in Vermont and I don't find anybody talking to me about Miguel Estrada. Even when the White House has sent people up and various special interest groups to attack me, nobody seems to care--``either the press, the people in my State,'' or anybody else. But what they do care very much about is the economy and Iraq. More than a half century ago in the aftermath of two catastrophic world wars, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. It was dedicated to the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflict. The U.N. was largely a creation of the United States, with the support of the other great world powers. The U.N. has had a difficult history. With the notable exception of the Korean war, the Soviet Union and the United States each worked throughout the Cold War to ensure that the U.N. Security Council remained little more than a toothless forum for debating and passing resolutions of little or no effect. Even in recent years, the United Nations has had a string of failures. It was unable to prevent the slaughter of half a million people in Rwanda. It failed to prevent the destruction of the former Yugoslavia, which was ultimately stopped only by NATO's intervention. United Nations resolutions seeking to resolve the Israeli--Palestinian conflict have been routinely ignored.”