WASHINGTON (AP) -- Efforts to improve security at U.S. embassies around the world stand to gain from the $4.5 billion authorized over five years in the budget package nearing final congressional approval.
The Clinton administration had requested $3 billion for fortifying American diplomatic posts in the aftermath of the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.The Senate approved that level, while the House-passed bill authorized $1.4 billion.
But attacks have continued against U.S. installations, including incidents in Moscow and Beijing; the latest came last week when rockets were fired at U.S. and U.N. missions in Islamabad, Pakistan.
As a result, foreign policy negotiators were able to get $4.5 billion into the end-of-session spending legislation; $900 million is intended for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
The legislation also would require 100-foot setbacks from the street for new and rebuilt embassies, as recommend by a commission headed by retired Adm. William Crowe. His panel had proposed a 10-year, $14 billion program to enhance embassy security.
The spending package, which passed the House late Thursday and now is before the Senate, includes a variety of foreign aid and State Department measures, including repayment of nearly $1 billion in U.S. dues owed to the United Nations.
White House and congressional bargainers earlier this week agreed to a deal in which lawmakers authorized payment of the back dues over three years while the administration accepted conservative demands for limits on some U.S.-subsidized abortion activities overseas.
But Congress has set some conditions. The bill declares that the United States owes only $926 million, not the $1.5 billion that the U.N. claims. It also insists that the U.S. share of U.N. costs be permanently reduced from 25 percent to 22 percent, and the peacekeeping share be cut from 31 percent to 25 percent. The bill also seeks to freeze the U.N. budget for at least two years.
Sens. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Joseph Biden, D-Del., the co-sponsors of those conditions, said Thursday they hoped the United Nations would accept the "reforms," although they conceded it would not be easy.
"It is my sincere hope that our friends in New York will not choose a path of stubborn resistance," said Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The legislation permits the Clinton administration to waive the conditions under certain circumstances.
Biden, the senior Democrat on the committee, said that with some creative accounting a $350 million installment could be paid before Dec. 31 -- so the United States does not lose its General Assembly vote -- without running afoul of the conditions.
Still, he said "there will be a lot of gnashing of teeth up there" at U.N. headquarters.
The budget package would establish in the State Department a new position of assistant secretary of state for arms control and nonproliferation issues. It also would extend for 10 more years the Radio Free Asia program, which broadcasts to China and other non-Democratic states in Asia.
Congressional negotiators removed from the final package a Senate-passed provision that would have recognized Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv as Israel's capital. The administration had threatened a veto if that provision was included, contending such a move would upset the Middle East peace process.