I have no doubt whatsover that the US may owe the UN 1.6 or 1.8 billion$. This is worked out on a tariff system whereby the US pays, or is supposed to pay, 25 cents per dollar of UN expenditure. When it comes to UN actions the US is supposed to pay 31 cents per dollar. Now while the US may owe the UN 1.8 billion, what has happened to the 6.6 - 9 billion the US expended on UN actions in the period 1990 to 1997? At what point does that enter the equation? Or will the UN just be allowed to conveniently forget that, just as they did with the 100 million US$ paid in by Clinton in 1998 without Congressional approval.

The obstacle to clearing the 580 odd million$ that the US has agreed to pay is the US Congress (Note Congress not the current Administration) is that while a broad agreement has been reached the UN refuses to keep it's side of the bargain. The agreement reached was as follows:
- Revision of tariffs (Nothing has been done on this after the UN agreed to do so. If the US pays less it means others have to take up the slack and pay more - now we all know that that is not going to happen)
- Transparency with regard to the UN's financial dealings, i.e. UN's books open to US (GAO) audit (Nothing done on that either)
- UN debt pursued uniformly across the board.

The audit thing will probably never happen, as too many snouts would have to be ripped from the trough.