The United States wants to take over the large U.N. peacekeeping operation from France when South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon becomes U.N. secretary-general next year, a senior U.S. official said. "We're trying," the senior U.S. official told Reuters. The U.S. lobbying has been confirmed by two Security Council ambassadors. Ban is currently making the rounds of the five permanent Security Council members with veto power. He is in France on Friday and heading for London next week. With the United States instrumental in Ban's election, the Bush administration believes it has a chance to get the peacekeeping department, now headed by Frenchman Jean-Marie Guehenno. The United States for years has led the U.N. management department, which includes financing, and it is held for another week by Christopher Burnham, who assumed his post in June 2005. Burnham resigned recently to take a job in the private sector. U.S. officials argue that Washington pays more than 26 percent of the peacekeeping bill, now estimated at close to $5 billion a year. But there are no Americans troops on the ground in U.N. missions. The United States has some 239 U.N. civilian police officers in Kosovo and 48 police in Haiti plus a scattering of civilians in various operations. In contrast, France has some 1,500 soldiers in Lebanon and has 4,000 troops in the Ivory Coast as a separate unit working with U.N. peacekeepers. Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations, said the small American contribution to peacekeeping would make the United State "an unpopular choice" to head the department. But he said the post would be helpful to cement American support for the United Nations.
