-Caveat Lector- http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/11/02/peace.keeping.study.ap/index.html Investigators say government hiding papers on U.N. peace missions November 2, 2000 Web posted at: 6:39 PM EST (2339 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration is withholding information from investigators on how the United States decided to get involved in four of the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping operations, the General Accounting Office says. "This is clearly inappropriate and unacceptable," said Henry L. Hinton Jr., assistant comptroller of the GAO, Congress' investigative arm. Investigators say the lack of cooperation by the State Department, Defense Department and National Security Council since March is holding up a probe into whether the administration followed guidelines on approving U.S. support for peacekeeping missions in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Congo and East Timor. The House International Relations Committee asked for the study to see if the administration follows its own 1994 guidelines for considering things such as the cost of the mission and number of troops involved, whether it meets the objective and if there is a deadline or exit strategy. Peacekeeping missions have been an issue in Congress, where some lawmakers fear the United States is getting involved in too many and providing too large a share of their costs. They also have become an issue in the U.S. presidential election with Republican candidate Texas Gov. George W. Bush advocating a diminished U.S. peacekeeping role in Europe and Democratic nominee Vice President Al Gore countering that such a position demonstrates a "lack of judgment and a complete misunderstanding of history." In pursuing its investigation of the four missions, the GAO said Wednesday that unless investigators get the information they need for their probe within a week it will issue a rarely used "formal demand letter" to the three government entities, roughly the agency's equivalent to a legal subpoena. Investigators say the State Department and NSC have failed to hand over some documents related to the investigation and handed over others that were so heavily edited they "provided little useful information," Hinton said in a letter Wednesday to the House International Relations Committee. "One 20-page unclassified document had a note on its cover page that ... it could be shared with U.S. allies and the United Nations, yet the remainder of the document was completely redacted, its pages completely blacked out," he said. The GAO says the Pentagon waited to see how the State Department was going to handle GAO access to records and didn't agree to begin searching for its own until mid-September -- six months after the probe began in March. Pentagon officials say they plan to have the search done by Nov. 6 but don't know when GAO can have access to the records. "We're doing the best we can," said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. George Rhynedance. "We're a large organization and we're trying to do a comprehensive search." The Clinton administration said it has offered to give the GAO a private briefing on the matter but doesn't want to release the documents because of the fear such an action would discourage others from offering frank advice. Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, R-New York, who chairs the House International Relations Committee, introduced a resolution in the House expressing "concern at the administration's lack of cooperation." The United Nations is currently involved in 15 peacekeeping operations involving nearly 38,000 civilian and military staff. The United States has pressed the United Nations to keep a zero-growth budget for the past several years as part of its demand for a reformed and streamlined organization. But the United States has also been at the forefront of demands for an enlarged and more efficient peacekeeping department to cope with the new peacekeeping challenges in, among other places, Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone. Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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