By Ralph Dannheisser
Washington File Congressional Correspondent

Washington -- The House of Representatives has approved a measure that clears the way for payment of $582 million in back dues to the United Nations -- the second of three payments that the United States has pledged to make to clear up its acknowledged debt.

The legislation passed by voice vote after only about 10 minutes of discussion.

The Senate had approved the payment by a 99-0 vote back in February, so House action sends the measure to President Bush to sign into law.

Members said the easy House passage September 24, after months of delay, reflected two new realities: the determination by legislators to avoid partisan infighting in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington earlier in the month, and the desire to remove an irritant to the international community at a time when the president is seeking to forge a broad antiterrorist coalition.

Representative Christopher Shays (Republican, Connecticut) termed the vote "one of the most important foreign policy decisions Congress will make this year."

Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the third-ranking Republican in the House, had successfully blocked House action till now. He and conservative colleagues sought to make release of the funds contingent on approval of an unrelated amendment that would have exempted U.S. soldiers from the jurisdiction of an international war crimes court and withheld military aid from countries ratifying the treaty to set up the court.

DeLay has now agreed to consider such legislation separately.

Swift payment of the back debt to the U.N. was strongly supported in floor statements by both House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (Republican, Illinois) and Representative Tom Lantos of California, the senior Democrat on the committee.

Hyde said enactment of the measure would ensure that "we can pay the second installment of our arrearages to the United Nations in return for continued progress in lowering our assessment ceilings for the U.N. regular budget and for U.N. peacekeeping operations."

His reference was to an agreement worked out last December by then-U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, under which the United States would pay some $926 million in three stages, while the United Nations would cut the future U.S. share of its operating fund from 25 to 22 percent, and gradually reduce the U.S. share of the separate peacekeeping fund from more than 31 percent to 25 percent by 2006.

In addition, the United Nations agreed to a range of financial and management reforms sought by the United States.

Hyde called action on the repayment measure "all the more important in light of the events of September 11.

"Meeting our financial obligations to the United Nations will help to ensure that our policymakers can keep the focus on broad policies that unite the members of the Security Council in the fight against global terrorism," he said.

Urging passage, Lantos told House members that "we cannot ask the United Nations to bring freedom to difficulties-possessed people, battle terrorism, resolve international conflicts and conduct extensive peacekeeping operations, and yet fail to pay our dues....

"The American people passionately support the common goal, punishment of those who conducted the September 11 attacks, and an end to global terrorism. The United Nations can help achieve that goal if we meet our commitments," he declared.

Lantos observed that he does not consider the House bound by what he termed "a side agreement between the White House and the House Republican leadership" on the issue of the International Criminal Court.