Victory at the U.N.

December 24, 2007
The Wall Street Jouranl
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119846324985348235.html

Moral victories at the United Nations are few and far between, but the U.S. won a small one over the weekend when it stood alone in refusing to approve the global organization's budget. The vote, after an all-night session, was 142-1.

The U.S. objection centered on the inclusion of financing for a reprise of the World Conference Against Racism. Remember that U.N. classic, held in Durban, South Africa? In one of his finer moments, Secretary of State Colin Powell pulled the U.S. delegation out of the confab after it degenerated into an anti-Semitic hate fest. That was early September 2001. Post 9/11, the last thing the world needs is a Durban do-over. Oh, and at the U.N.'s August preparatory committee meeting for Durban II in Geneva, Libya was elected chairman and Cuba and Iran were among the vice chairs.

The entire U.N. budget process is also something of a sham. The two-year budget was presented as $4.17 billion, representing a 15% increase over the last biennium. But the U.N. budget is released piece by piece, and the final figure -- after add-ons that everyone knows are coming -- will end up being closer to $5.2 billion, a 25% increase. The U.S. is the U.N.'s largest donor, and the American taxpayer is on the hook for about one-quarter of all this.

On a more positive note, the final budget approved Saturday includes full financing for an antifraud office that the initial budget had proposed shutting down. It is one of those routine U.N. scandals that the U.S. had to fight to keep the Office of Internal Oversight Services open even though it has already exposed hundreds of millions of dollars in tainted U.N. contracts and is investigating suspicious contracts worth an additional $1 billion. This is another time we can be grateful for Bush Administration unilateralism.”