-Caveat Lector-
"President Clinton allowed the Balkan conflict to worsen while using US
Security Council power to LIMIT the power of U.N. peacekeepers,"
Boutros-Ghali writes.
U.N. Failures Said Fault of D.C.
By NICOLE WINFIELD
.c The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Former U.N. chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali lashes back at
the United States in his memoirs, accusing Washington of using and abusing
the United Nations and denying him a second term for the sake of ensuring
President Clinton's re-election.
In ``Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga,'' Boutros-Ghali turns the tables on the
Clinton administration, which had blamed the United Nations for the failed
U.N. peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda. He says Washington
was largely responsible for the failures.
Boutros-Ghali asserts that the United Nations was powerless to save thousands
of lives in those conflicts because its most powerful member was unwilling to
authorize it to do so.
While his argument may be oversimplified, American lawmakers and
administration officials in the years following the end of the Cold War had
indeed soured on intervening in foreign conflicts where there was little
direct U.S. interest.
Much of that sentiment can be traced to the slayings of 18 American soldiers
in Somalia in 1993 and Washington's belief that European countries should
take care of conflicts in their own backyards.
Singled out for special wrath in the book is Madeleine Albright, then in her
first diplomatic post as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Boutros-Ghali describes her as an inept and ill-informed messenger of
Clinton's flip-flopping foreign policy whose personal goal was to remove him
from office after his first term -- despite backing from other U.N. members.
U.S.-U.N. relations sank to their lowest level during Boutros-Ghali's
1992-1996 tenure, and so it comes as no surprise that his recollections focus
on the seeming daily battles with the Clinton administration, many over the
$1 billion Washington owed the organization.
The book is nevertheless enlightening on the level of rancor behind the
closed doors of the Security Council chamber and in private meetings in
Washington and New York.
``It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees
little need for diplomacy,'' Boutros-Ghali writes of the U.S.-U.N.
relationship. ``Power is enough.''
Most significantly, Boutros-Ghali blames the bitter presidential campaign
between Clinton and former Sen. Bob Dole for making him the first U.N. chief
to be denied a second term.
Dole had made U.N.-bashing a popular sport during the campaign, so much so
that Clinton began adopting the tactic as well, Boutros-Ghali writes.
Albright, desperate to be named secretary of state in Clinton's second term,
couldn't allow him to remain in power after being so discredited, the
Egyptian diplomat says.
She cast the lone veto that kicked him out of office.
Boutros-Ghali seems particularly galled by the U.S. effort, because it showed
how Washington had single-handedly rejected the wishes of most U.N. member
states for the sake of domestic politics.
State Department James P. Rubin -- who was Albright's spokesman at the United
Nations -- said Albright enjoyed working with Boutros-Ghali but thought it
was important that the U.N. chief be ``in synch'' with the United States.
``Unfortunately, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali was not able to do that,''
he said.
Boutros-Ghali describes several instances in which the United States and
United Nations clearly disagreed, and lives were lost as a result.
Weary after the Gulf War and convinced there was little public support for
U.S. ground troops in Bosnia, the Clinton administration allowed the Balkan
conflict to worsen while using its Security Council power to hem in the power
of U.N. peacekeepers, Boutros-Ghali writes.
In Somalia, Boutros-Ghali reminds readers that the 18 American soldiers
killed during a 1993 raid in Mogadishu were part of an operation launched by
the United States without the knowledge of the United Nations.
That debacle led to stringent new U.S. conditions for future U.N.
peacekeeping operations and a general unwillingness in Washington to
intervene in Africa. That in turn was responsible for the lack of action to
stop the genocide in Rwanda, Boutros-Ghali says.
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