Give peace a $100 million chance, senator says

In what could have been a scene out of a Middle East bazaar, some serious haggling took place in the waning moments of Wednesday's chaotic conference meeting on the $87.5 billion fiscal 2004 Iraq supplemental appropriations bill.

The melee ensued when Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, insisted on inserting $100 million into the bill for the United States Institute of Peace. House conferees, led by Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., were incredulous, arguing the earmark would increase the agency's annual budget tenfold with little return.

"I don't know what it's for," Kolbe said. After some give and take, House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., made a lowball counteroffer. "Let's make it $10 million," he said.

Stevens, all the while leafing through a glossy booklet distributed by the Institute titled "Cycles of Conflict-They Can Be Broken," countered with $20 million.

"OK, $20 million with $10 million in matching funds, so it'll be $10 million because no one will match it," Kolbe offered. He later said he doubted the Institute would have much effect on bitter conflicts such as the one between Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions in Iraq. "Good luck on that," he said.

Conferees settled on $10 million, buried under the $18.65 billion Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund section, earmarked "for activities to support peace enforcement, peacekeeping and post-conflict peace building." The extra money would bring the Institute's fiscal 2004 budget-funded through the massive Labor-HHS appropriations bill-up to $27.2 million, marking an increase of $11 million over last year's enacted total.

"On-the-ground activities are extremely expensive," said Harriet Hentges, the group's executive vice president.

The Institute was envisioned by President Eisenhower-who appointed Stevens chief counsel at the Interior Department in 1960, among Stevens' first jobs in Washington-but was not formally authorized until 1984.

Among the authors of the 1984 United States Institute of Peace Act was Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who also pushed for the funding. The report accompanying the Senate version recommends "that organizations with experience in post-conflict governance matters-such as the United States Institute of Peace-be utilized in reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan," earmarking $2 million for such organizations. The House version contained no funds for the Institute.

Stevens said they are effective in training people to handle crisis situations. "We never funded it. If we had, we wouldn't have some of these problems," he said.

An aide involved in the negotiations said Secretary of State Colin Powell personally weighed in with Stevens on the Institute's behalf.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the presidential candidate who famously proposed a "Department of Peace," was nonetheless unimpressed with the supplemental. "The bad far outweighs the good," a spokesman said.