Dempsey, who is due to step
down from his role later this year, said that with 60 million people displaced
from their homes globally in the past year due to violence, he worried that the
world was close to becoming immune to the problem.
"It will be a shame if
we don't realize that we may be at that point, and shake ourselves back into
the reality that we can do something about it," he said.
NEW
YORK—
The United Nations needs
rapid response forces, equipment and training to bolster peacekeeping, the
United States' top general said on Tuesday ahead of President Barack Obama's
planned summit of world leaders in September to win new commitments.
Army General Martin
Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations Samantha Power met with dozens U.N. ambassadors and military
advisors in New York at the 69th Regiment Armory.
"The U.N. requires
commitments from member nations to provide rapid response forces for emerging
crises," he said.
"The rapid deployment
of units within 30, 60, or 90 days - for a finite period - can help resolve
developing crises, prevent expanded conflict, and in the process save more
innocent lives."
Dempsey said more highly
skilled police and military were needed, and more equipment. U.N. officials
have said they need equipment ranging from intelligence and communications to
armored vehicles, attack helicopters and transport aircraft.
Obama is due to convene a
summit of world leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in
September to secure new commitments to peacekeeping. In March, Power urged
European countries to contribute more troops.
"The complex array of
threats and, let's call it geopolitical jockeying, requires all of us to
contend with an unpredictable landscape," Dempsey said, "and our
support to peacekeeping operations must keep pace with that
unpredictability."
He said troop and police
contributing countries benefit from deployments to U.N. peacekeeping missions
which "help to reinforce readiness, test battlefield mettle, hone skills,
and gain operational and, especially, leadership experience."
There are currently 16 U.N.
peacekeeping operations, more than half in Africa, made up of more than 105,000
people.
The United States pays for
more than 28 percent of the more than $7 billion U.N. peacekeeping budget.
According to the U.N. website, the United States provides 80 troops, police and
advisers to peacekeeping missions.
Comments
The UN has been consistent in its
corruption. It hires terrorists to serve
as UN Peacekeepers. All food and medical
aid going through the UN ends up under control of the terrorists. These are the same terrorists the UN
Peacekeepers are supposed to restrain.
This is one group. They create havoc and then insist that we pay them to
restrain themselves. Sounds like
extortion to me. It’s time to quit the UN, defund it and send it to Brussels.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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