Support for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

Released by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations

Thank you, Mr. President. Since this is the last time you’ll be with us, I want to say that we appreciate the skill and effectiveness with which you and your colleagues have led our work this month, and wish you well in your new responsibilities in Geneva.

I can be brief, I think, because I agree with much of what has been said this morning and don’t want to repeat it. I want to focus on a couple points only.

The first is that, as some colleagues have noted, perhaps the most important factor as we look to the future is that peace operations are becoming more complex in a number of ways. We in the Security Council and those who are conducting peace operations are experimenting and learning as we go and by in large we’re improving. One lesson to be drawn, I think, is the importance in many cases of regional, political and military support for peace efforts and sometimes indirect involvement in a peacekeeping or peace operation.

The United States has encouraged other countries to develop their capacities for peace operations and in some cases is providing direct assistance. Our African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Program, formerly known as the African Crisis Reaction Initiative, has provided field and command/staff training as well as critical equipment to 12,000 soldiers in nine sub-Saharan African countries since 1997. Since 1998, under the Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities Initiative, we have also trained approximately 200 officers a year both at the Center for Civil-Military Relations in Monterey, California, and through military training programs.

We are encouraging regional organizations and sub-regional organizations to assume greater responsibilities for peace operations and believe also that there is real value to exploring how the more demanding operations can be undertaken by multinational coalitions under the direction of a strong regional leader. As a particular example, we have now for some time been supporting ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States] in its efforts in western Africa, supporting them politically, financially, and militarily.

The second point I wanted to address is that every conflict is unique. Not all threats to international peace and security are amenable to UN peace operations. As we have said before, each conflict is unique and the same applies to the peacekeeping operations that follow, including the structure of their specific mandates and rules of engagement and organization.

We believe that there is a role for different types of peacekeeping – UN peacekeeping operations, regional peacekeeping missions, and multinational coalitions. All conflicts should be evaluated by integrated planning teams, consisting of military, police, humanitarian, and other agencies.

There are no fixed formulas for peacekeeping, nor are fixed formulas desirable, especially in such matters as the national origin of peacekeeping contingents or coalition leadership. Each case is unique and driven by realities on the ground as well as by the other commitments of potential troop contributors. Each case merits close examination based on the needs and possibilities presented by the specific situation and can be addressed through flexible mechanisms.

The third point I wanted to raise, and the last, is that of the overall security of United Nations’ missions and their personnel. We’ve been reminded tragically of the importance of this issue and of the difficult circumstances in which this Council, the United Nations, and both military and civilian personnel operate. We welcome the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1502, which moved beyond previous measures by focusing the Security Council’s attention on prevention of attacks on humanitarian, United Nations, and associated personnel and on the accountability of those who commit such acts.

Clearly, in the wake of last week’s barbaric attack in Baghdad, we all – member states and the Secretariat – need to review how security is provided for UN personnel, both humanitarian and peacekeeping, to counter the threat of additional terrorist attacks. That effort has already begun and richly deserves the support and active participation of Council members. Thank you, Mr. President.