The Bush administration moved on Wednesday to confront the Republican leadership in the House by opposing a bill that would withhold half the American dues to the United Nations unless it enacted several budget and management changes.In a separate development, the administration signalled a shift in its opposition to a broad expansion of the UN Security Council, saying it was willing to add two permanent members to the council, one of them Japan. An administration official indicated that the other should come from the developing world.State Department officials formally conveyed the administration’s opposition to withholding dues to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, one day ahead of a scheduled House vote on the measure, which is popular among conservatives. The bill, backed by the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, is considered likely to pass but its prospects are less certain in the Senate in light of outright administration opposition.The administration had previously indicated only its uneasiness with the bill’s position on withholding dues, which total about $400 million a year, hoping to get the provision quietly deleted.In an interview, R Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said: “We are the founder of the UN. We’re the host country of the UN. We’re the leading contributor to the UN. We don’t want to put ourselves in a position where the United States is withholding 50 percent of the American contributions to the UN system.”Republican Henry J Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said that he was not surprised by the administration’s opposition but that he was not persuaded. “The Constitution gives to Congress the power of the purse, and we intend to exercise it in pursuit of meaningful UN reform,” a spokesman quoted him as saying.State Department officials say they fear that the provision, if it becomes law, will return the United States to the position it was in when dues were withheld in the 1990s and Washington lost considerable credibility among its UN allies.The administration argues that cutting off dues would jeopardise its chances of winning changes like streamlining the budget, improving accountability to avoid a repeat of scandals like the one involving the oil-for-food programme for Iraq, and preventing human rights abusers from sitting on the UN Human Rights Commission.Aides to Hastert and Republican leaders say that on the contrary, the provision is the only way to force needed changes and that passing the bill would strengthen the hand of advocates of reform.The confrontation between the administration and Republican conservatives comes as debate about change at the United Nations is heating up. Much attention is focused on a bid by Japan, India, Germany and Brazil to become permanent members of the Security Council.The United States has declined Germany’s repeated requests to support its bid, and the new administration position of adding only two permanent members, one from Japan and the other from the Third World, deals Germany a major setback. An administration official said the United States would support a small number of additional rotating memberships on the council.State Department officials emphasised that the council’s expansion had to be considered only in the context of broader change. —NYT
