YouSaid · the spoken record

Biden

lines on the record
67
first
2000-12-12
most recent
2010-12-15
sittings or episodes
2
sources
un-security-council

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  1. “I would be less than frank ifI did not say that the failure to do so may risk a reaction which could one day jeopardize the stable and progressive development of this entire Organization." While many changes have taken place between Senator Vandenberg's call for reform and my own, one thing most definitely has not changed: the United States continues to believe that United Nations stability and development will require every Member's voice to be heard and will require each of us to play his or her proper role in supporting the Organization. But the burden must be more broadly shared if the Organization is to develop and progress. As I said, members should not think that our focus on assessment issues means that the United States is walking away from the United Nations.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  2. “For more than 50 years now the United States has been by far the largest single contributor to this Organization, and though we may not always see eye to eye on every United Nations issue, this does not mean that we are about to walk away from the table. All of us are here today because we need the United Nations. The United States needs the United Nations. At the same time, we also need to be more effective, relevant and just. In 1946 Arthur Vandenberg, one of my most esteemed predecessors, came to this forum and stated, "We believe that a ceiling upon contributions for basic administrative expenditures should be placed at some reasonable point.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  3. “I have to say that when the Secretary- General visited Washington three years ago to discuss the issue with me and other members of Congress, they were made aware of our dilemma. So here we are: $100 million in payments have already been made and more than half a billion dollars more are ready for disbursement, but it will require work by all of us. This is in addition to the billion- dollar increase that the United States Congress has agreed to move on this year for the United Nations. We seek a two-way street where the United States commits to paying its arrears, while at the same time the United Nations accepts the need for major reform.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  4. “As a co- S/PV.4245 author of this legislation - and some of you know that had I been Chairman of the committee and were I in a position to get the funding from the United States and movement on the arrearages - I do not believe we should have made a connection between the reforms and the United States keeping its commitment. But, quite frankly, my view is not a majority view. What was done was done, and now we are saddled, and in a sense we have saddled you with having to focus on so-called reforms. I do not think we would ever reach an agreement and begin to pay off our arrearages had we not settled on the Helms-Biden approach within my organization, the United States Congress.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  5. “Specifically, the United States is committed to seeking a regular budget ceiling of 22 per cent this year and a reduction in our peacekeeping contribution from 30 per cent. I know Ambassador Holbrooke and other members of the United States Mission have discussed the details of our position with everyone in this forum, as well as in other committees ofthe United Nations, in some detail. The fact of the matter is that Congress has expressed it clearly and by an overwhelming vote, and I hope that it has been understood not as an American diktat, but as an effort to help fix a problem.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  6. “I know many of you have privately and personally entreated me to determine whether or not there is likely to be any change in the attitude of the United States Congress or the next Administration, with regard to Helms-Biden. The answer is no, there is not likely to be at all. The majority of the members of Congress believe in, and intend to continue to support, the objectives outlined by the President of the United States and other world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit. However, we will not be able to participate fully if the United Nations membership fails to come together and update the regular budget scales and does not adopt a more rational peacekeeping scale.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  7. “Klein has gone, I speak to one other issue which I am sure is on members' minds: the attitude of the next presidential Administration and the next Congress towards what is referred to, at least in our country, as the Helms-Biden amendments that were passed and the Helms-Biden legislation. In my 27 years of service in the United States Senate, I have been a steadfast supporter of the United Nations, and throughout my career I have worked with my fellow members of Congress to ensure a bipartisan approach to our international policy. I am confident that many of my colleagues join me in the call for a better, more active relationship between the United States and the United Nations. But have no doubt, the United States wants to be a part of the solution for strengthening the United Nations.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  8. “For SFOR or the United Nations to disengage before our goals are accomplished would only guarantee renewed violence and a much more costly re-entry in the future. We must stay the course and prevail, regardless of how long it takes. I would add that we agree fully with Mr. Klein's suggestion in his report that the events in the remainder of the region, particularly recently in Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, give us reason for much more hope. Those changes, along with the European commitment to the stability fund, as well as the genuine, I think, recognition of the need to integrate the Balkans into Europe, ultimately hold, in our View, the final key. What I had planned on doing was talking more in detail about the report, as I suggested, but it has been suggested that, in the light of the detail into which Mr.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  9. “The Secretariat was unable to respond with the resources of expertise that Mr. Kouchner needed to fill the mandate he was given. Furthermore, there were delays in getting police from donor countries and in setting up courts, banks, schools and hospitals. The United Nations must, in our View, redesign its peacekeeping structure to prevent such mishaps from recurring. I need not recommend to any of you the Brahimi report, the implementation of which we think is badly needed. The international mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an ambitious but necessary, often frustrating but eminently doable, requirement. Extending the zone of stability throughout the Balkans is of vital importance not only to the entire European continent, but also to the continued credibility of this Organization.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  10. “Never again must we witness Blue Helmets nearly freezing to death in harsh winter conditions, or any such situations around the world. Fourthly, I think the Mission will require more thorough training of personnel and must consist of several types of peacekeepers. The skills they need include many of those of normal combat troops, ones that they are not trained to have. Civilian police and judicial functions have been proving to be fundamental to peacekeeping operations, as Mr. Klein has indicated. An immediate layer between combat forces and police, such as international specialized units in Bosnia, is an important element of any operation, I would respectfully suggest, in the future. Fifthly and finally, our experience in Kosovo has revealed the inadequacy of the current peacekeeping structures.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  11. “It is a lesson I hope we have learned. But saddling them in the way we did resulted in many of the Blue Helmets being taken hostage by Bosnian Serbs and in the incredibly difficult, if not impossible, position that the Dutch were placed in Srebrenica. Guarantees of safety of civilians entrusted to them in a United Nations safe haven were not able to be fulfilled. We should not repeat that grave mistake, and we have not repeated that with SFOR or KFOR. S/PVAZAS Thirdly, when peacekeeping operations are being formed, United Nations Member States should be permitted to contribute troops only if they are able to commit to equip them adequately. Many Council members visiting Bosnia several years ago witnessed what I did, with troops literally being put in jeopardy of freezing in the winter.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  12. “I would like to suggest, though - and this is one of the lessons I hope we have learned from Bosnia and Herzegovina - that, first and foremost, every mission must have a clear, credible and achievable mandate. This was not the case with the United Nations Protection Force, and it is the case with SFOR in Bosnia and the Kosovo Force (KFOR) in Kosovo. After a clear and achievable mandate is decided upon, the military chain of command, in our opinion, should never include a United Nations civilian officer. Secondly, the peacekeeping troops have to be given rules of engagement that enable them adequately to defend themselves and that give the people they are supposed to protect confidence to believe they will be protected. UNPROFOR peacekeepers were saddled with very restrictive rules of engagement. It is no one's fault.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  13. “Shell-shocked cities like Sarajevo have come back to life, and small-scale commerce has been revived. Visitors, as I have been on a number of occasions, encounter a sense of normalcy in most areas. I repeat: this is a major achievement. Nonetheless, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains a country with many challenges to overcome. With a renewed and more vigorous engagement by the international community, and above all by SFOR, by the High Representative and by the United Nations, I am confident that each of the challenges, all of which have been laid out by Special Representative Klein, can be met. I had planned on speaking in more detail about Bosnia and Herzegovina, but Mr. Klein has done it so well I would only be repetitive.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  14. “I have witnessed firsthand the excellent cooperation between Russian and American troops in northern Bosnia, something I quite frankly, as a member of the United States Senate for over 28 years, I was not sure I would ever witness. I witnessed it, and it was heartening. We should not minimize the achievement of the SFOR peacekeepers. During the war, more than 200,000 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the vast majority of them civilians, perished. More than 2 million were made homeless, and countless numbers of all three communities - Bosniac, Serbian and Croatian - were tortured, raped and otherwise brutalized. And today, despite sporadic acts of violence under the security umbrella of 20,000 SFOR troops, most citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina no longer live in daily fear for their lives.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  15. “Klein, for his report and his leadership as head of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in particular the Mission's International Police Task Force, the IPTF, which, I might add, in the Congress in which I serve was one of the single most significant and important institutional initiatives with officers from 45 countries, that I thought had to be taken. It deserves our praise for its important work in building an integrated, multi-ethnic police force. In view of the complex situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we must begin with a strikingly positive reality. Bosnia and Herzegovina is at peace thanks to the efforts first of the Implementation Force (IFOR) and then the Stabilization Force (SFOR), both led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  16. “One of our colleagues suggested that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should come in and oversee our election process, but I can assure you that the Cubans have already made an offer, so we are in good shape. I guess I should not be so facetious before such an august body, but we Americans today are waiting with bated breath to see what our Court does, and I can assure you all that, whatever the Supreme Court of the United States decides, both political parties will accept, and accept without hesitation, and we will move forward. I should like to begin by commending the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source

  17. “It is an honour and a pleasure for me to be here today. The United Nations is held in great esteem by the American people and, notwithstanding what the Council has heard, by the vast majority of the members of the United States Congress. I, for one, hold it in the S/PV.4245 highest esteem, and that is why I deem it such a great honour to represent my Government today. One of the items that are on the minds of many Americans today is not my presence here at the Security Council but the Supreme Court of the United States. As I told the Ambassador of Malaysia earlier, we may be appealing the election to the Security Council, so I hope you are all ready to vote today. I will make a case for one of the candidates, but I will hold off on that right now.”

    2000-12-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4245 (2000) · source