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The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

Ros-Lehtinen: I’m not trying to bash the United Nations

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), during her press conference to push her U.N. reform bill, pledged that she is not trying to "bash" the United Nations by calling for withholding U.S. funds from the organization. "This bill is about reforming the U.N.; it’s not about bashing the U.N.; it’s not about taking ...

By Josh Rogin

September 13, 2011, 2:03 PM

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), during her press conference to push her U.N. reform bill, pledged that she is not trying to "bash" the United Nations by calling for withholding U.S. funds from the organization.

"This bill is about reforming the U.N.; it’s not about bashing the U.N.; it’s not about taking the U.S. out of the U.N.," Ros-Lehtinen said at the Tuesday morning press conference as she stood in front of poster-sized photos of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon shaking hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and posters of deposed Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi at the U.N. speaker’s podium.

"Some call our bill backwards, but I don’t think it’s backwards to demand transparency, accountability, and reform. But I do think the adjective ‘backwards’ too often applies to what we’re paying for at the U.N.," she said.

The bill would shift U.S. contributions to the United Nations to a "voluntary basis," rather than have them follow the compulsory-assessed fees system that is in place now. If the United Nations doesn’t receive 80 percent of its funding from voluntary contributions, the bill would then require the United State to cut its contribution by 50 percent.

The bill would also halt new U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions until reforms are implemented and institute a new regime of reporting requirements and auditing powers for U.S. contributions to the United Nations.

A summary of the legislation prepared by Ros-Lehtinen’s staff says that the bill, "[o]pposes efforts by the Palestinian leadership to evade a negotiated settlement with Israel" by seeking recognition at the United Nations and "[w]ithholds U.S. contributions from any UN agency or program that upgrades the status of the PLO/Palestinian observer mission."

"The U.N. General Assembly has one permanent agenda item every year, and it is to condemn Israel," Ros-Lehtinen said.

She also responded to her ranking member Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), who told The Cable that Ros-Lehtinen’s bill was ill-advised and probably dead on arrival. "I cannot see this legislation becoming law. I think there are some radical proposals here," he said.

"Most of what we’re doing in the House has very little chance of becoming law, no matter what it is. Does that mean we should stop doing things? Whether the Senate is going to pass it does not mean that we should not propose a bill that will put a marker down," she said.

"I hope it becomes a bipartisan bill — I would like that. And I hope the administration would join us. I am in the business of hope."

She also said Barack Obama‘s administration is doing a poor job of managing the Palestinian drive to seek member-state status at the United Nations later this month.

"It speaks to the lack of leadership of the Obama administration that, all these months, there has been a leadership vacuum at the White House," Ros-Lehtinen said, adding that even an elevated observer status for the Palestinians at the United Nations would be unwise.

"That should not be the consolation prize, which is what more or less it has become," she said.

Ros-Lehtinen was joined by 10 other GOP lawmakers, all of whom gave statements expressing criticism of the United Nations, but none of whom stuck around to field questions from the assembled reporters in the room.

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), a freshman member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC), criticized U.N. support for China’s "one child left behind" policy, apparently mixing China’s one-child policy and America’s "No Child Left Behind" education policy.

Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), chair of HFAC’s Middle East subcommittee declared, "If there’s any organization that’s in greater need of reform than the U.N., I don’t know what it would be … except perhaps the United States Congress."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice addressed Ros-Lehtinen’s bill this week, saying, "Legislation that would withhold funding for the United Nations is fundamentally flawed in concept and practice, sets us back, is self-defeating, and doesn’t work."

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin