The groups, which include the National Council of Churches USA, Citizens for Global Solutions and Oxfam America, said Washington will be close to 850 million dollars short its obligations to U.N. peacekeeping through the end of the current fiscal year, Sep. 30, and 1.3 billion dollars by the end of fiscal 2008, unless it increases its contributions.

"Not only are we endangering our reputation, we are compromising the hard work of the tens of thousands of individuals involved in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions worldwide," said Deborah Derrick, director of the U.N. Foundation/Better World Campaign, which circulated the letter.

The letter also urged Congress to increase proposed funding in upcoming appropriations bills for many of the 44 U.N. and other multilateral agencies the U.S. is required to support by treaty.

Failure to do so would mean that Washington will likely fall some 130 million dollars short of its treaty obligations to such key agencies as the World Health Organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and NATO by the end of fiscal 2008, they said.

The letter, which was also signed by CARE-USA, the International Crisis Group and Refugees International, comes as Congress begins its consideration of the administration's proposed FY 2008 foreign aid bill, which has already come under fire by many of the same groups for reductions in development assistance and child and maternal health programmes.

Those programmes, which include rural development, education, family planning and environmental projects, is slated to shrink by a third over the current year's level to just over one billion dollars in 2008, even as funding for global anti-AIDS efforts is set to rise to more than four billion dollars.

The United States is obliged to provide 26 percent of the official assessments of peacekeeping operations approved by the U.N. Security Council, although Congress set a cap of 25 percent during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

But U.S. contributions have not kept pace with the actual costs incurred by key peacekeeping missions, many of which, notably those in Haiti, Liberia, Lebanon and Sudan, have been strongly promoted by the Bush administration.

Congress has already budgeted nearly 1.09 billion dollars for some 16 U.N. peacekeeping operations in fiscal 2007, and the Bush administration has requested 200 million dollars more in its '07 supplemental appropriations bill. For 2008, it has requested only 1.07 billion dollars for the same account.

But those figures fall far short of what most experts believe will be Washington's required share of the actual costs of the same operations. One group of experts, the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping (PEP), has estimated the costs of the 16 operations for the '06-07 period at 5.7 billion dollars and for the '07-'08 period at 6.4 billion dollars.

Unless Washington increases its share, its shortfalls for each year will run at 453 million dollars and 659 million dollars, respectively, according to PEP.

Democrats have already complained about the administration's failure to ask for more. After the 2007 supplemental and 2008 requests were presented to Congress last month, the chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Tom Lantos, called the situation "absurd".

"The administration is budgeting for massive new arrears to the United Nations at a time when we need the organisation to help us in Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Haiti and a host of other global hot spots," he said.

"We're digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole," said Scott Powelll, a Citizens for Global Solutions analyst, noting that two recent U.S. studies, including one by Congress' Government Accountability Office and another by the Rand Corporation, found that U.N. peacekeepers have generally served as the most effective force in bringing stability and peace to nations in conflict in recent years.

"These are missions the U.S. votes for in the Security Council and for which the U.S. would spend substantially more in lives and treasure to deal with," he said, adding that the administration has consistently produced over-optimistic projections about the success or necessary size of U.N. missions.

For the peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, for example, the administration projected total costs for fiscal 2008 at 618 million dollars, but PEP believes costs will likely come to around one billion dollars. For the U.N.'s most expensive mission, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the administration estimates total costs next year at 623 million dollars, when PEP believes that one billion dollars is a more realistic figure.

The administration also estimates that the costs of the U.N. mission in Haiti will decline next year by about 100 million dollars -- from more than 45 million dollars this year to 350 million dollars in fiscal 2008. PEP estimates costs next year at roughly the same as in 2007.

"The U.S. is increasingly reliant on international partnerships and allies to help us fight terrorism, prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, stabilize war-torn societies, and promote democracy around the world," the letter stated. "U.S. leadership in these partnerships requires meeting our international obligations and providing sufficient resources to meet these challenges."

Among other groups that signed the letter were Americans for Democratic Action, CARE-USA, the Centre for American Progress, Church World Service, International Rescue Committee, the Open Society Policy Centre, Physicians for Human Rights, and the United Nations Associations of the United States of America.

Source: IPS - Inter Press Service News Agency