Contributing Expert, Former U.N. Insider, Issues Wake-Up Call

The U.S. government should not spend one more dime on the United Nations without listening to Victor Comras. Yesterday, before the U.S. House terrorism subcommittee chaired by Rep. Ed Royce, he recounted the poor performance of the United Nations in stopping terrorism since he left the independent Al Qaeda-Taliban Monitoring Group last year. As Douglas Farah has discussed here, the Monitoring Group on which Victor served for two years produced valid and critical reports that "named and shamed" those countries which did not chase down the terrorists as mandated under U.N. resolutions. But the Group's reports were too much for the mushy-headed U.N. bureaucrats who couldn't take the heat from those states - they disbanded the Monitoring Group, with our State Department's consent, and replaced it with more pliant group under their thumb and with no desire or mechanism for enforcement. As Victor testified yesterday, "This has permitted many designated al Qaeda financial facilitators, such as Youssef Nada, Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, and Yassin al Qadi, to carry on their worldwide business activities." Congress should consider implementing Victor's recommendations for a revitalized U.N. in the war against terrorism before further appropriating taxpayers' funds.