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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired August 27, 2004 - 21:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Processing a diplomatic nomination often requires weeks and sometimes months from the time the president announces it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diplomats are supposed to help stop fights, not create fights. I mean, jeez.

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RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: A couple of weeks ago my producer and I attended a dinner hosted by the Austrian ambassador to the United Nations. The dinner was in honor of the deputy United States ambassador who was leaving his post to assume a position representing his government in Vienna. With talk of Weiner schnitzels and skiing and predictions of future reunions in Austria, a good time was had by all.

One problem: the honored guest, the American, has now been blocked from assuming his post.

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

The nomination of James Cunningham has been put on hold by members of the U.S. Senate who must approve all ambassadorial assignments. It's just the latest of frustrating episodes involving U.S. diplomats eager to take up new, important positions but stopped for reasons that sometimes have nothing to do with their qualifications.

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(voice-over): Among those put on hold, Richard Holbrooke, delayed for months in becoming U.S. ambassador at the United Nations. The diplomat who filled in for Holbrooke, Peter Burleigh, permanent blocked from moving on to the Philippines. John Negroponte avoided a long hold because of 9/11 and became U.S. ambassador in New York, but now Negroponte's deputy, James Cunningham, bags packed for Austria and nowhere to go.

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Cunningham is not doing any interviews while he simmers in the summer here, but joining us is someone who has been in Cunningham's shoes and the U.S. chair at the United Nations, a former deputy himself, Peter Burleigh, who never did get to Manila, is no longer on hold, living in Florida after a senator blocked him from becoming U.S. ambassador to the Philippines.

Also with us is a former United States senator from the state of Minnesota, Rod Grams. The senator has placed his own share of holds on nominations and can explain that side of the story. He is currently a consultant, lobbyist, in government relations work and owns three radio stations in the Land of A Thousand Lakes, in Minnesota.

And from Washington, Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has called these holds by their real monikers, he says, Senate chokeholds.

Peter Burleigh, let's start with you. Describe what you felt when you learned you were on hold, something James Cunningham may be going through now, as the situation then dragged on.

PETER BURLEIGH, FMR. U.N. DEPUTY AMBASSADOR: Well, I was surprised to be put on hold because my nomination had been approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sent to the floor of the Senate, which is also the case with Jim Cunningham, as I understand it.

In other words, the Committee of the Senate responsible for oversight of such nominations had approved.

And then when I tried to meet with the senator who was holding -- had put the hold on my nomination -- I was never able to do that. He sent messages back that I should not take it personally and that the hold had nothing to do with my qualifications. And I gather that something very similar to that is happening with Jim Cunningham as well.

ROTH: How bitter were you and are you now?

BURLEIGH: Well, I was very disappointed at the time. I was held for 13 months, until I decided to retire, since I couldn't get any movement on the hold and there was nothing I could do that I was aware of. No questions were ever posed to me. No one ever challenged my qualifications for the job.

And, again, I think this is the same thing happening with Jim, and it's happened with others.

So my bottom line about this, Richard, is that I think it's a dysfunctional system and I think there need to be some reforms in the way the administration and the Senate deal with ambassadorial nominations and I'd make one other point before the others pitch in. It seems to me that the whole strategy doesn't usually work, or in my case -- to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't ever work.

In other words, the senator may have an issue with the administration at the time of the nomination and so he puts a hold on an ambassadorial nomination. To the best of my knowledge, the senator who does that has not been able to get the administration to change its position on an issue and so -- and no one really gains from this process.

ROTH: Senator Grams, I don't want to cut off that filibuster there from Peter Burleigh, but what do you think? Why did you put holds on people? And did you accomplish anything? Peter Burleigh says no.

ROD GRAMS, FMR. U.S. SENATOR: Well, in many cases I think we did, and as Ambassador Burleigh mentioned, sometimes it has nothing to do with the candidate or their qualifications, and sometimes it does. Sometimes you just oppose a person because of whatever the reason might be.

But in many cases, it is where there is a question or a concern about an issue or a policy and it -- the hold is usually put on in order to provoke debate, to get somebody to come and talk to you, to sit down and try to iron out whatever the differences are.

When Mr. Burleigh said that, you know, they should be done away with, I've had support for the holds, and I don't think there's probably a senator in Washington today, or who has been there, that hasn't used it in some way in order to try to get that attention or try to get that debate or the discussion going.

But I do agree, in some cases where -- you know, anything can be abused and in some cases the hold is abused, but.

ROTH: Norm, what do you think? You've said these holds have become a amorphous monsters.

NORM ORNSTEIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISES INST.: This has careened out of control, to tell you the truth, Richard.

You know, this is -- there is nothing in the rules that mentions the term hold. It's an informal practice begun a century ago as a courtesy so that if something were scheduled to be brought up on the floor, a bill or a nomination, and a senator couldn't be there because of a scheduling conflict or wanted a little more time to muster arguments against, you'd get a couple of weeks leeway.

Now it's become a permanent process and it's morphed out of control, because basically Rod Grams is right, every senator uses it. In effect, it's 100 prima donnas who prefer to have the leverage that's brought about here, but the damage it causes in getting and keeping good people serving and blocking other things from taking place, often when it has nothing to do with the individuals. It's just a hostage taking process now. It's ridiculous.

ROTH: And James Cunningham is supposedly not in Austria now because Senator Kyl, of Arizona, or Imhoff (ph), that they are upset about the nuclear treaties and that they have problems with the U.N. organizations in Austria. Cunningham isn't even in Vienna yet and they're taking it out on him. Is this fair -- Senator Grams?

GRAMS: I think so, because, you know, how else are you going to get your questions and your concerns answered.

ROTH: But why can't you just go to the State Department before even the Cunningham hearing. Why do you need to.

GRAMS: This has been going on for well over a year, under my understanding, so somebody is not communicating with somebody else.

I think there should be ways that this process could be speeded up, or some ways of resolving the issue ahead of time, but right now it seems like everybody is just sitting on the sidelines and evidently it's.

ROTH: Well, Peter Burleigh is sitting in Florida when he could have been in Manila, and everybody generally has praised his work for the United States. Isn't that a sad state of affairs.

GRAMS: It is.

BURLEIGH: But, Richard, let me make a point about Jim Cunningham's nomination to the IAEA, that's the U.N. nuclear agency. This is a time when there are critical national security issues in front of the IAEA that affect the United States. I'm talking particularly about the Iranian nuclear program and the North Korean nuclear program.

We don't have an ambassador there now because of these holds, and I don't see how this can be described as something that serves the national interest.

Quite apart from Jim Cunningham's qualifications, which I think haven't been challenged by anyone to the best of my knowledge, it just strikes me as really odd that members of the Senate would feel that it was appropriate to use this nuclear issue, that our man, our point man on nuclear proliferation issues, isn't there and we don't have an ambassador representing us there.

ROTH: Senator Grams?

GRAMS: Well, there can be somebody there, and I think even Energy Secretary Spence Abraham can be there if we don't have an ambassador by that time.

But, again, these are some very important issues, and some senators feel very strongly about them, and they need to have the time or the recognition to have their issues looked at, debated or at least resolved in some manner. But if the administration or others just want to ignore it, then the senator, I think, if he has that deep a feeling about it, has to have some.

ROTH: Won't it be hard for Spencer Abraham to be there? I mean, these are negotiations, Iran and North Korea, these are issues that are going to go on through the fall.

Norm Ornstein, do you sense any change in the Senate as a Washington observer there?

ORNSTEIN: Very little, and of course it's terrible that we don't have permanent representation when these delicate issues are going on.

John Kyl is a senior Republican facing a Republican administration. He's got lots of ways of having his influence known or felt. And if he can't succeed, there are other places that he can turn instead of keeping an individual basically twisting in the wind for months or a year.

Poor Ambassador Cunningham, he's -- he doesn't have his place in Washington. He has to give up his place in New York. He doesn't know where to put his kids in school. There is a human cost as well as a policy cost.

The people, though, who are responsible here are the leaders of the Senate. There are ways in which you can say you want to hold somebody for a couple of weeks or a month, OK, then we're going to have a vote for somebody that is not controversial and where we have a strong policy interest.

But no senator is willing to step up to the plate and bring about a reasonable change in this process. Exercise your leverage, but this is out of control.

ROTH: In one of your articles, you said why don't these senators pull a "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" and prove their case standing in the well of the Senate in a filibuster, but they don't.

KYL: Well, in affect, what you have with the hold, the way it's operating now, that it is effectively the threat of a filibuster, and what happens now is that nobody is willing to take on that threat and say fine, you want to take to the floor and go around the clock, go ahead and do it.

ROTH: We had a case a few months -- a few years ago. James Hormel (ph), a gay man who there was a strong move in the Senate by Republicans to not have him be the ambassador to Luxemburg. President Clinton used the route of recess appointment, which allowed him to go there. Cunningham seems unwilling to do that.

Senator Grams, again, why -- what is the value of the holds going on for so long, though?

GRAMS: And that's probably the big question, because you don't want them to go on that long, and I know when I was in the Senate, I didn't want a hold to go on for long periods of time, and I agree, a lot of these nominees are kind of held in limbo for a long period of time, like Ambassador Burleigh for 13 months. That is really too long. There has to be some movement in between this.

But at the same time, I think the senators are using this as one of the tools, one of the rules of the Senate. The House has similar type things with their discharge petitions and other things, that there are ways and there are means that the Senate uses, and I don't see anything wrong with it, but again I go back and say things sometimes get abused, but most of the people I know didn't want to go in there to abuse something, to hold somebody up, but if the other side is refusing to acknowledge or talk or debate or resolve the issue, a lot of times the senator, once he's placed the hold, has really got to sit there and give up entirely or just continue to hold one.

ROTH: Do you think that the senator should be named when they put a hold on? Right now it's a rather secret procedure.

GRAMS: It is a secret procedure, but I never put a hold on where I wasn't public about it, becaues I thought if it was important enough, I wasn't trying to hide or stand behind anything. I wanted the recognition because I wanted the chance to talk about the issue.

Senator Kyl is not backing away from this. He is out there and it is public who this is.

ROTH: Peter Burleigh, do you -- is there a way you can sue? What is left for a diplomat who was left out high and dry?

BURLEIGH: Nothing. Take another assignment that doesn't require Senate confirmation or retire. Not when you're at that level.

ROTH: Norm Ornstein, quick rap up. Your final view.

ORNSTEIN: Well, we need to bring some changes about here, and it should be upon the shoulders of Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Tom Daschle to say to their colleagues, stop acting like spoiled children, there are limits to this process.

It has gone on for many, many years and it is not going to be changed unless it is changed from the inside.

ROTH: We did a program on it in 2001 with Peter Burleigh there, and even in 1999.

Got to leave it there. I'm going to put all of you on hold due to time purposes.

On the left there, not politically speaking, just camera position, Peter Burleigh, former U.S. deputy ambassador, in our Miami bureau in the United States. In the middle, in the middle of the country, in Minnesota, former Senator Rod Grams, now the owner of several radio stations. He's always welcome back on the TV airwaves. And on the right, resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute, Norm Ornstein.

Thank you very much for appearing on DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.

Cunningham was called a diplomat's diplomat by one of his former U.N. colleagues. He was a man of few words when in the public spotlight at the United Nations, but was well-liked by other countries. The poker face manner he displayed after countless Security Council meetings may sum up hopes on breaking the deadlock over his nomination.

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JAMES CUNNINGHAM, U.S. DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: We had a good discussion and we're just going to leave it at that. It will be continuing. It will be an ongoing, rolling discussion.

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ROTH: That's actor Danny Glover among those arrested outside the Sudan embassy in Washington. They were shouting, "Go tell the U.N. we shall not be moved." Police did move the protestors, though, who are angry about the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan.

The embassy later said it was closing because a bank in the D.C. area shut down its account. The State Department says it's trying to find a new bank. Sudan says the United States is not helping at all.

Welcome back to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.

The United Nations man for Sudan, Jan Pronk, was on the move this week, touring the conflict region. Pronk is gathering information for a September 2 briefing to the United Nations Security Council next week in New York. Pronk's report essential to whether the Security Council is prepared to act on its threat of sanctions against Sudan if the nation fails to control the Janjaweed militias.

Several assessment missions are in progress in Sudan. Pronk visited camps accompanied by Sudan's foreign minister. He listened to refugees describe abuses by the militias. Refugees are worried about repercussions to follow after speaking out.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there a reason to be afraid for the police and do you have evidence, have ever people who made statements later been arrested becaues they made statements?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said yes, they have evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have evidence?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. He says somebody (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and now they took him to Khartoum.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Dawally (ph) present? Where is Dawally (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I ask you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you guarantee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: . that all these people making statements here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: . will not be arrested because of the fact that they are making statements?

Dawally (ph) is making this statement now in front of the world press. They hear you and they have seen on TV your faces, so they know if something would happen.

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ROTH: It's not likely the Security Council will vote for sanctions after Pronk's report. Differences remain inside the chamber. Some countries have reported progress by Sudan while Human Rights Watch claims the militias still control refugee camps.

The Red Cross says more aid is getting through now to Darfur after months of government obstruction.

How open are world governments when it comes to disabled persons? At the United Nations this week work continued on the drafting of a global treaty to protect the rights of the disabled.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is probably the most important piece of international work towards drafting an international law for the protection of rights for people with disabilities and for the 600 million with disabilities around the world, where 2/3 of those live in developing or underdeveloped countries, it is vitally important that they have some protection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About 10 percent of the world's population have disabilities, and of those 2/3 live in developing countries and are exposed to various levels of discrimination that far exceed the level of discrimination that "ordinary," quote/unquote, people encounter on a day to day policy.

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ROTH: Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica and the United States received high marks for protection of the rights of the disabled in a report on North and South American nations.

The United States would have gotten higher marks, but Washington favors each country devising its own laws instead of a worldwide treaty. Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay among those criticized for treatment of the disabled. Economics and culture playing a role, according to the report, in country performance.

A former U.N. ambassador has died. Abdullah Saleh al Ashtal (ph) of Yemen played a role in world history. November 1990, the Security Council authorizes use of force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Al Ashtal (ph), representing his country, was opposed.

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ABDULLAH SALEH AL ASHTAL (ph), FMR. U.N. AMBASSADOR: United Nations action would deprive humanity of a historic opportunity to make a smooth transition to a new world order.

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ROTH: Al Ashtal's (ph) wife was Iraqi. Then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, also chairing the meeting, later called it the most expensive vote Yemen would ever cast. The United States cutoff $70 million in foreign aid to Yemen.

12 countries approved the resolution to use force on Iraq but among those voting no was Cuba, whose ambassador you'll see putting his hand in the air on the right side of your screen in a packed Council meeting. Along with Cuba's representative voting no, Ambassador al Ashtal (ph) of Yemen, who served at the United Nations for 30 years, deemed the dean of the United Nations Ambassador Corps, dying of cancer this week at the age of 66.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: It may not be worth screaming about, but the United Nations has a painting back. This week in Norway, armed robbers stole the famous painting called "The Scream."

A few months ago, France's ambassador returned a painting called (UNINTELLIGIBLE). The 1913 work was a gift from France to the United Nations in 1965, but was shipped back to Paris for an exhibit of the artist Albert Marque (ph). Now it's back and hanging on Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office wall.

Well, now is the time for you viewers to scream. E-mails based on programs you've watched.

On our show with films from the Human Rights Film Festival, one about Liberia the other on detentions of Muslims, our first e-mailer writes:

"I am sure Bush and his gang are not too happy that CNN aired such things, especially "Persons of Interest,"" which was one of the films. "Thank you for standing up to the group think which seems to have infected the entire U.S. news industry, Fox News only being the most extreme."

That's from Charles Kaptan (ph).

A couple of viewers said why is the world and media now suddenly alert to problems in Liberia and Sudan. Regarding Sudan, one viewer said, "The U.S. is now making an issue out of the situation, as if the conflict only started last week, overnight. The real deal is a genuine fear that the Muslim north and seat of present government would overrun the whole country, thereby being victorious in battle, and the resulting possibility of a government sympathetic to fundamentalists or radical islam emerging." Michael Cador (ph).

A proposal from our next e-mailer. "Why can't the civilized world and the United Nations cut the country (Sudan) into two separate countries and make the Africans live in peace."

Two viewers were outraged about our program and guest, writer Anne Bayefsky, on the way Israel is treated at the United Nations and whether it's due to anti-Semitism.

"I believe it is a pity that Mrs. Bayefsky failed to recognize that the decisions of the International Court of Justice need to be based on international law. The Court had to take this decision because the states of the world never recognized any international laws that would have permitted self defense in case a country is attacked by terrorist attacks." Dirk Vanlu (ph) in the Netherlands.

"As a CNN viewer," another one writes, "I would be heartened if Mr. Roth might do a show on, say, why is it that Israel, unlike other nations, can get away with its continued disregard to U.N. resolutions and the will of the international community. As an Arab, I would definitely not want to take part in a panel with Mr. Roth as mediator given the hostility he visibly demonstrated against Mr. Taya (ph). I thought moderators had to maintain at least the veneer of impartiality. Kudos to the latter for his eloquence and poise throughout." Samir Kurdi (ph) of Amman, Jordan.

Well, we have had many guest before who have taken on Israel. I don't believe I displayed hostility.

And, finally, someone out there actually likes me. "I would vote Richard Roth for the president." Luciano Pontigia (ph).

Well, we welcome your comments, even if I am not running for president unless drafted. I will advise for free though on all coup attempts, no matter which nation you reside in.

Send us your e-mails. Here is the computer world address. Diplomatic.License@CNN.com. Again, that's Diplomatic.License@CNN.com.

I'm Richard Roth in New York. Thanks for watching.

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