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Iraq war spending = budget cuts in U.S. peacekeeping

On the heels of yesterday’s report that increased international interventions have sped the resolution of bloody civil wars, we have this report from UN Dispatch:

On the eve of the president’s trip to Africa last march, Justin Rood of ABC News was the only mainstream reporter to pick up on the fact that the president’s just-released budget severely underfunded peacekeeping missions in Africa. At the time, Rood’s sources told him that the backlog was temporary, and that the requisite funds for peacekeeping missions in places like Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Cote D’Ivoire would be added in the emergency supplemental.

Well, the supplemental came out recently, and sure enough it provides no additional funds for UN Peacekeeping missions in Africa. Rood, once again, is on the story:

“It’s a very tight budget year,” conceded Kristen Silverberg, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, acknowledging that neither she nor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thought the funding request made for “an ideal situation.”

The administration released its proposed peacekeeping cuts days before President Bush was scheduled to make what one paper termed his “victory lap” through the African continent. White House officials talked up the trip and Bush’s commitment to the continent, telling reporters how the president “really cares about Africa.”

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