Shahram Vahdany - How much of the UN's expenses are paid by the US?

John Gershman - Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20–25 % of expenses. Part of that depends on how you count peacekeeping expenditures and so forth, but the US pays around a fifth of the overall UN budget.

Shahram Vahdany - Has this been paid off, or does it still owe?

John Gershman - The US, with the exception of some peace keeping expenditures, largely paid up its dues. It had gone into arrears in the 1990s and that was largely because the US congress and in particular Senator Jesse Helms had held back payments of US dues to the UN. In the aftermath of 911, the Bush Administration fairly rapidly caught up the arrears in the US dues to the UN. But now there's some new legislation that so far has not passed but has attempted to pursue the same kind of strategy that the republicans did in the 1990s which is to hold US dues hostage to pressure the UN.  This hasn't been passed or approved but the sentiment is still there and the congress can make it difficult for the Administration to maintain being current. And I think John Bolton has close ties to members of Congress who have pursued this strategy. I think one of the tests of his ability as UN Ambassador will be whether he can convince those members of Congress to not pursue that strategy, If has not able to do that or is unwilling to do that then I think well see that has pursuing the kind of strategy we would expect which is to weaken the UN.

Shahram Vahdany - Rice has objected to this, am I correct?

John Gershman - Absolutely. She objected to both this US legislation and seems to have convinced Bush that this is bad legislation. And that's where I think one of the real significant differences is, and whyit's a little unclear exactly how Bolton will act as UN Ambassador because Rice's approach to the UN is different to that of John Bolton . It will be interesting to see who really gets to call the shots.

Shahram Vahdany - We thank you for your time and hope to speak with you soon.

 'The interview was conducted on July 28, 2005, by phone '

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