State Department presses for Darfur peacekeeping funds

With time and money running short, the State Department has issued an urgent plea to Congress to provide up to $75 million to pay for peacekeeping operations in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Noting an uptick in violent incidents in the troubled region in the last two months, department officials said Tuesday that the U.S. contribution to the African Union's peacekeeping mission is running about $8 million a month, and there is only enough funding to last through the end of this month.

"Congress is deeply concerned about the escalation of violence in the past two months," a high-ranking State Department official said in an interview, referring to pending legislation that would beef up sanctions against those responsible for the atrocities.

"But there already are a lot of sanctions in place with respect to Sudan," the official said. "The most constructive thing Congress can do right now is find the money for the African Union peace mission. It's on the ground there now and is the only thing standing between the [marauders and the victims]."

The bipartisan sanctions legislation, sponsored by House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and ranking member Tom Lantos, D-Calif., accuses elements of the Sudanese government of genocide in the killing or forced relocation of thousands of people in the vast region.

It would require blocking the assets and denying entry into the United States of any person "who the president determines is responsible, either by commission or omission, for acts of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity in Sudan."

As a policy bill, however, there is no money appropriated for its purposes.

"We understand the desire [in Congress] to take a whack at the bad guys with more legislation," said another State Department official, "but they [lawmakers] could be most helpful right now if they provided money for the peacekeeping efforts."

Department officials believe the most likely opportunity for providing the money is the fiscal 2006 Defense appropriations bill.

Already ticketed for the bill is additional funding for Hurricane Katrina cleanup and an avian flu prevention and treatment program. "If we don't get the money on that bill," an official said, "we will run out."

House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., said he and Senate State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have signed off on a reprogramming of $13 million from other State Department programs for the African Union mission.

"That would be enough for about two months," Kolbe said, adding that the department has not submitted a formal request for the remaining $50 million or so that would be needed to carry the mission through fiscal 2006.

"We've offered to support the full $50 million in an emergency supplemental [spending bill]," Kolbe added, "but I don't know where the Senate stands on this. One thing they [State] have to do is tell us what the money is for specifically. They don't seem to have a strategy for how they intend to use the money: air operations, ground operations, protection of refugees, whatever."

Although some members of Congress are said to be enthusiastic about providing the funding, the State Department officials said, others appear to be wary of adding any more emergency funding to the burgeoning deficit.

"Some appropriators are asking why we didn't put this money in our original fiscal '06 request to Congress [early this year]," said one official. "The answer is that we prepared our budget late last year before there even was an African Union operation on the ground there."

Some appropriators, he added, have been pressing the administration for how high a priority this is. "I can tell you, it's a very high priority," he said.

Secretary of State Rice, according to congressional sources, is reportedly making phone calls to key lawmakers to free up the money.