supported the establishment of u.n. women. we supported its growth and development. the challenge now is for it to become a presence in the field and provide tangible support to women on the ground. our resources, our 7.9 in the request, is meant for the core budget to do just that, to help it establish programs in the field. we think that's the most important step that we can take in this early time. it doesn't include money for the violence against women trust fund, although we recognize that that's an issue of importance to this committee in congress and a goal we very much share. we've been leading on a whole panoply of women's issues at the united nations and it's been an honor to do so. we just passed a resolution with huge support on maternal mortality at the commission on the status of women. we championed in the general assembly last fall a resolution on women's political participation. i could go on and on. but let me just say that what we have been able to do to support women at the united nations has been a source of great pride for

secretary clinton and for me as well. thank you. >> thank you. mr. dent. >> thank you, madam ambassador, just a couple quick things. you mentioned the north korean situation. three weeks ago secretary clinton came before this subcommittee and discussed the fact that the north koreans were going to implement this moratorium on future launches and other nuclear related issues. and of course we said we're going to judge them by their actions and not by their words. and of course last week the north koreans announced their intentions to conduct another missile launch which i guess the state department said directly violates various u.n. security council resolutions, 17/18 and 18/74. so i guess the real question is what action should the u.n. and other organizations take if north korea goes forward and launches a missile just as they have promised in the next few

weeks? >> in our view if north korea in violation of its existing obligations under the two resolutions you cited, in violation of its commitment made in the february 29th agreement, goes ahead with this satellite launch, it would be a very grave situation. a very grave profession. and we would aim for and expect a very strong response from the security council. >> thank you, madam chairman. madam ambassador, dr. rice, again, thank you for standing up so strongly for the united states' interests at the i.n. your leadership has been outstanding. you are here, after all, to ask for the president's budget for the u.n. what in your view are the major issues that relate to u.s. national security interests that are served by our membership at the u.n. and the funding that

you seek, and what -- i know the administration, the obama administration's been involved in u.n. reform efforts. so those two aspects. what are the national security interests of the u.s.'s continued involvement at the u.n., and what reforms are still needed? >> thank you very much. there are so many ways in which the dollars we spend and the programs they support at the united nations advance u.s. national security interests. let's begin with one of the largest elements of our request, which is funds for international peacekeeping operations. the u.n. is president in some 14 countries and engaged in important life-saving missions to protect civilians in places like darfur and the democratic republic of congo to build -- help build the capacity of fragile states in which we have an interest in their success in place like south sudan and haiti

and liberia. it is keeping the peace in fragile places from the golan to cote d'ivoire. these are places we have an interest in stability and security, in protection of civilians, in helping to foment and stabilize fragile democracy. if the united states were to try to support this on our own rather than at a relatively better deal, a burden sharing of 27%, the cost to us would be enormous. or were we to leave these situations to fester without the benefit of international peacekeeping presence, we would be suffering the longer-term consequences as these places unravel. and we have seen what that looks like in various parts of the

world. for example, at different times over history in haiti. so it is a cost-effective way to share the burden of peace and security in a manner that serves our interests. we talked a lot about sanctions this morning. iran and north korea are among the many sanctions regimes which the u.n. supports, but they don't just vote the resolutions. they actually monitor their implementation and build the capacity of member states to enforce their sanctions. and that is another thing that our money goes to. in afghanistan and iraq where the united nations has important political missions as opposed to peacekeeping missions, they're building democratic capacity. they're assistion the governments. they are coordinating donor assistance. they're helping refugees. they're doing a wide range of functions that support our military missions now in afghanistan, formerly in iraq, and help ease the transition as our personnel withdraw. the humanitarian work of unicef,

of the world food program, the development work of undp, the health surveillance work of the u.n. health organization, the iaea, which is crucial in monitoring the nuclear program in iran, all of these are critical programs that manifestly serve u.s. interests. i could go on all morning but i won't. you get the point. with respect to u.n. reform, we have made very important progress over the last few years in terms of improving transparency. i've talked briefly in my testimony, and my written testimony is longer, about increasing access to audits, bolstering the u.n.'s investigative arm and its oversight arm, the oios. we have actually, as i mentioned, succeed in garnering savings when that historically has been all but impossible. usually, u.n. budgets go up 5% a year. we managed in december to get it to go down 5% over the previous

bienium, which is arguably 10% over what we would have otherwise ended up with. so we're working on efficiency. we're working on effectiveness. we're working on transparency. and we're also working to promote the principle that countries that by their behavior are reprehensible as we've seen in instances on the human rights council and elsewhere don't deserve to be in positions of leadership and responsibility. and it's been our efforts that have yielded success, for example, behind the scenes we were able to work to ensure that iran was not elected as it was supposed to be to the board of u.n. women in u.n. women's first year. they were going to get on there simply through a clean slate of a regional subgrouping of the u.n. so we are working in ways that you might not even read about to try to ensure that excellence

and integrity is part of not just the u.n.'s founding values but the way it acts on a daily basis. obviously, there's a long way to go. >> thank you very much. mr. austria. excuse me. mr. austria. >> thank you, madam. madam ambassador, let me if i could follow up on the sanctions. a lot has been said. but in particular on iran you talked about enforcing the sanctions and how important that is. it's been more than 20 months since the passage of u.n. security council resolution 19/29. and for those 20 months iran has continued to ignore the demands of the security council and the iaea. earlier you mentioned that we've increased pressure on iran successfully and that they're feeling this pressure. and you also mentioned that the security council i think tomorrow is going to assess -- >> quarterly review. >> quarterly review. we're hearing reports that the security council may be divided on, you know, additional sanctions against iran. you know, what's your thoughts

on that? and what are you doing, if anything, or what can be done if anything at the u.n. to raise pressure on iran? or you mentioned taking the next step as far as putting more pressure on iran. can you help the committee understand what you mean by that? >> well, in the wake of the passage of 19/29, which raised substantially the baseline of global sanctions against iran, we, the united states, our european partners, and a number of other countries, japan, south korea, some of the gulf countries, canada, australia, and others implemented additional sanctions using 19/29 as a legal foundation but raising the national bar for each of these countries even higher. the cumulative effective of those decisions as well as what we have seen most recently with respect to the central bank of iran sanctions, the e.u. decision to embargo oil, what we were discussing earlier with respect to swift, has been that

the global pressure on iran is mounting enormously. do i see an immediate prospect in the security council for a new round of sanctions on iran? i think frankly the answer to that is not immediately, no. i think that many countries are rightly focusing on what they can do within their national and regional authorities to step up the pressure. and it's indeed the major trading partners of iran that have the most impact and leverage, and they're the ones on which our efforts have been most focused and where we're seeing positive results. in the meantime in the u.n. context we are working to increase the pressure by maximizing the effectiveness of enforcement of existing measures, building capacity in countries to do that enforcement. and at the same time not just leaving it to what the security council can do with sanctions to increase the pressure on iran but using other elements of the

u.n. system so that the united nations general assembly last fall passed a resolution condemning iran's human rights abuses by the largest margin in history. similarly, as i've mentioned earlier, we used the human rights council to put together a special rahporteur for the first time in the human rights council's history on any country that was against iran. we were able to get the general assemble to condemn the plot to assassinate the saudi ambassador by the iranians. so in every venue at every turn we're trying to ratchet up the pressure on iran with success. >> and i appreciate that. let me jump over to a question i asked earlier and we ran out of time. that was referring to security council resolution 1701 with hezbollah. and rearming there. and what is being done to help stop hezbollah's rearming. or can you brief the committee on the latest regarding that security resolution 1701? >> yes. 1701 is of course a resolution that established a renewed

mandate for uniphil on the border of southern lebanon with israel. its mandate is to prevent the flow of personnel and weapons into a zone adjoining the israeli border. it has been relatively effective in doing that. it is a mandate under chapter 6 of the u.n. charter, rather than chapter 7, which would have been our preference, being the more robust enforcement chapter of the united nations charter. it wasn't possible to obtain that because it didn't have the consent of the lebanese authorities. but i just was meet iing yestery with the israeli chief of defense staff, general gantz. we talked about the role that unifil is playing. and his view was, and i was gratified to hear that it matched ours, that on balance what unifil is contributing is important and valuable. it's not airtight. it's not foolproof.

there are continued weapons flows indeed to hezbollah from elsewhere. but that is in a fashion a different challenge than the one 1701 with its presence on the border was designed to deal with. but our view on unifil is it's doing a solid job. it's limited by the confines of its mandate. and it's not all they hope it would be. unfortunately, i don't think it's politically viable, much as we would like it. >> thank you very much. mr. diaz-balart. >> thank you, madam chairwoman. you know, madam ambassador, regardless of our differences i have to tell you that i recognize it's a very difficult place you're dealing with and probably one of the most difficult places. and one of the frustrations i think that we all have and i'm sure you have as well is the fact that after all is said and done with the u.n. there's usually very few actual concrete

results. you were mentioning some of those results being, for example, the fact that now there's a recognition of violation of human rights in syria or libya. i mean, you know, i'm glad. but i guess next they'll recognize that, i don't know, the pacific ocean has lots of water and we should be really excited about that. but let me go into some areas where i think we can agree. going back to mr. dent's question about north korea. and he asked you about if they do launch their missile what our attitude, the united states' attitude would be in the u.n., and you mentioned that -- i just want to clarify that. you would not be recommending if they do move forward on that launch for the u.s., us, our position, to backtrack on our position regarding north korea, right? >> no. i mean, let's be clear. he asked about the security council and what our posture would be. such a launch would be a clear-cut violation of resolutions 1874 and 1718. there's no difference of view among the members of the council on that assessment of it being a

violation. >> right. so you would not -- >> our view is we would seek a strong council response. >> good. again so, the attitude would not be the same one with unesco. it would be -- it would be to continue our position -- >> we do not agree on how you characterize our position on unesco. so i'm not going to buy into that. >> i understand that. but i think it's pretty clear. now, again, another thing that i think we may be able to agree is the following. some nations such as china and russia have been pushing to reverse this consensus of -- the internet, which basically has not been regulated internationally. so now china and russia are trying to give the international telecommunications union regulatory jurisdiction over internet governance. the itu is a treaty-based organization under the auspices of the united nations. putin, prime minister putin, said last june that the goal of this effort is to establish "international control over the internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of

the itu." has the administration taken a position on that, or will the administration come out in opposition now to protect the internet from global control? >> i'm happy to take that question and get back to you. >> great. because i think that's one hopefully that we can agree on. third, another one that i think we might be able to agree on is an issue dealing with the former -- well, the residents of camp ashraf. they're moved to camp liberty. they're under constant surveillance. they have newly installed cameras and listening devices installed i believe by the iraqi government. you know, that's supposed to be a home, not a prison. is there anything that you can do to ensure that the cameras are removed, pressure to see if those cameras can be removed? what pressure is being placed on the iraqi government to guarantee the security of those iranian dissidents who live there? and also, what can we do and what is being done by this

administration or by the u.n. to make sure that these residents are not forcibly removed to iran, where obviously they would suffer pretty serious consequences. >> well, let me address the role that the united nations has played and the role we've played in support of that process. first of all, the arrangements that were negotiated between the iraqis on the one hand and the residents of camp ashraf on the other were the product of we think some very important and impressive and successful diplomacy by the united nations special representative martin kobler who has with great sensitivity negotiated arrangements and overseen this -- the beginning of this transition of residents from ashraf to liberty. the united nations is in there monitoring the sidioroviding ao

and ears to ensure that the residents are treated in a manner that is acceptable and up to international standards. the unhcr, the high commissioner for human rights, is beginning may wish to move on and is doing that also in accordance with international standards of the sort that we respect and apply around the world. so this is an instance, sir, where a difficult problem we think has begun to be addressed and mitigated by the constructive involvement of the united nations. >> great. thank you. and i think my time is almost up, but i'll, you know, respectfully again -- and you and i have obviously agreed to disagree on the unesco thing. i for one thing we need to show a lot more firmness, not only to unesco because of their attitude but also the member states need to understand that there are serious consequences. but again, we'll agree to disagree respectfully. thank you for your service. thank you, madam chairman.

>> [ inaudible ]. >> mike. >> -- questions for the record. the subcommittee on state, foreign operations related program stands adjourned. >> thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> in a few moments on cspan 3. the surgeon general and her report on youth smoking. and fraud and the food stamp program. after that, a discussion on the effect of negative political ads. later a hearing on the 2013 budget for the u.s. agency for international development. marc

televising the u.s. house of representatives to households nationwide to the day our content of politics and public affairs, nonfiction books and american history is a available on tv, radio and online. >> we sell the american public short when we think you have to spoon-feed them and kid them and say you can have all these things. they know better than that. they don't trust you if you try to flimflam them. you ought to say to them, sure, tax and spend. that's right. it's more honorable than borrow and spend. >> c-span created by america's cable companies as a public service. >> two live congressional hearings wednesday morning on c-span 3 to tell you about. at 9:30 a.m. eastern the house oversight committee looks at the european debt crisis. federal reserve chairman ben bernanke and secretary tim

geithner testify. when the hearing wraps up, live coverage of the house budget committee, as the it begins consideration of the budget proposal, the house budget markup at 12:30 p.m. eastern. a new report from the surgeon general found that one in four high school seniors smokes cigarettes. and 80% of them will go on to smoke as adults. the surgeon general and health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius spoke about the report earlier this month for about a half-hour. >> what a well-behaved group. good morning, everybody. thank you for joining us here today. i am delighted to be here to kick off the announcement of the

2012 surgeon general's report on tobacco use among youth and young adults. i want to start by acknowledging some of my terrific colleagues, dr. regina benjamin, the surgeon general you will hear from, dr. david sacher, former surgeon general involved in this effort for a long time. [ applause ] dr. howard koh, my assistant secretary for health, who you will also hear from. we have key members of the office of the assistant secretary of health staff leadership, wonderful team here from cdc, dr. perry who is the author of this report, who comes from texas to be with tuesday, and lots of you who have been involved in this effort for a long time. since the first surgeon

general's report on tobacco was published in 1964, the good news is we have seen a percentage of americans who smoke steadily decline. in 1965, over 42% of americans smoked. by 2004, it had fallen to just under 21%. and that's very good news. but, for all the progress we have made tobacco use remains the biggest single threat to american's health. it kills an estimated 433,000 every year, 433,000. and every tobacco related death is replaced by two new smokers under the age of 25. today's report brings more troubling news. it's the first of its kind to explore the causes and consequences of tobacco use among youth and young adults. and it shows us just what we are up against.

today, all over america, there are middle schoolers developing deadly tobacco addictions before they can even drive a car. and the younger a child is when they try cigarettes the more likely they are to get and stay addicted ed ted to nicotine. one child picking up a tobacco product is one too many. but the fact that each and every day across america, more than 3,800 kids under 18 smoke their first cigarette is completely unacceptable. but this report also underscores the importance of the historic efforts the obama administration has taken to stop youth from using tobacco products and to help adults quit smoking. since the numbers weren't changing fast enough, we had to change the way we rid our communities of tobacco. so that's exactly what we are doing. we pushed wide ranging legislation that among other things makes it harder for tobacco companies to market to

our children. it also restricts companies from using terms like light, or mild, on products. and in marketing. and it bans certain candy and fruit flavored cigarettes. all of those techniques aimed at people, often younger than 18. that legislation had been debated for years and years in this country. we finally got it done. we are also supporting local program to help people quit smoking and stop people from starting in the first place. as the part of last year's health care law, we gave americans better access to counseling, to help them quit smoking before they get sick. around the country -- we have great partners. we have seen states join this fight with 28 states and washington, d.c. passing smoke-free laws to improve health. over the last three years we have made great strides in our fight against tobacco and our efforts are paying off. but today's report is an important reminder that we have a lot more work to do.

to make tobacco death and disease a part of our past and not a part of our future. again, thank you for being here today for this important announcement. and i would like to turn this over to our assistant dr. howard koh. >> thank you so much, madam secretary. thank you so much for being here everyone. the sequester tercretary has an commitment and has to leave but we want to thank for her leadership and dead kadicatioed. i too am delighted to see so many wonderful colleagues and friend here. let me thank dr. benjamin you will be hearing from in a minute, great colleagues at the department of health and human services, fda, cdc, office of assistant secretary and so many others. want to thank dr. perry, senior science editor of this report

and colleagues who helped edit and write this very important product. and most important, we want to thank each and every one of you for being here to support this very, very important effort in this great day. we are here today to bring heightened urgency to the tremendous public health burden that tobacco continues to impose on our youth. a burden that is completely avoidable and completely preventible. too many of our children are addicted. too many cannot quit. and too many go on to die far too young. in fact, as you heard from our secretary, each day, more than 1,200 people die due to smoking and each death replaced by two new smokers under age 26. i have personally witnessed the cycle of dependence and despair as a physician who has cared for patients over 30 years. i can tell you it is

heartbreaking when our patients tell us that they want to stop smoking but they haven't yet been able to do so. and it is tragic when our lung cancer patients tell us, that they started smoking as kids, years ago, to be cool and to impress the other kids next door. today, we understand even more clearly that youth smoking is not an accident. it doesn't just happen. each year the tobacco industry spend $10 billion on marketing and promotion of tobacco products. this exceeds $1 million an hour over $27 million a day in the u.s. alone. the tobacco industry says that their intent is only to promote brand choices among adult smokers. but there is a ditch rens between stated intent and documented impact. because regardless of intent, the impact of tob