and Russia, maintained that Resolution 1441 did not authorize the use of force without passage of a further Resolution. French President Jacques Chirac stated "My position is that, whatever the circumstances, France will vote 'no' because this evening it considers that it is not necessary to make war to achieve the stated goal of the disarmament of Iraq". Rightly or wrongly the "this evening" qualification was ignored, perhaps because the implications of its English translation are ambiguous. The statement was widely interpreted in the English-speaking world as meaning that France would exercise its right as a Permanent Member of the Security Council to veto any resolution at any time ("whatever the circumstances") to use force against Iraq. Following the overthrow of the former Iraqi government, the Iraq Survey Group led an exhaustive search of Iraq for WMD. Ultimately, while over 500 "degraded" chemical warheads were found, no deployable WMD of any kind were found and all WMD production facilities had been found to be inactive since 1991. Reform of the United Nations The United States Congress has shown particular concern with reforms related to UN effectiveness and efficiency. In November 2004, the bill H.R. 4818 mandated the creation of a bipartisan Task Force to report to Congress on how to make the UN more effective in realizing the goals of its Charter. The Task Force came into being in January 2005, co-chaired by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader, George J. Mitchell. In June 2005, the task force released "American Interests and UN Reform: Report of the Task Force on the United Nations," with numerous recommendations on how to improve the UN. On June 17, 2005, the United States House of Representatives passed the United Nations Reform Act of 2005 to slash funds to the UN in half by 2008 if it does not meet certain criteria. This reflects years of complaints about anti-American and anti-Israeli bias in the UN, particularly the exclusion of Israel from many decision-making organizations. The U.S. is estimated to contribute about 27.89% of the UN's yearly budget due to the UN's ability-to-pay scale, making this bill potentially devastating to the United Nations. The Bush administration and several former U.S. ambassadors to the UN have warned that this may only strengthen anti-American sentiment around the world and serve to hurt current UN reform movements. The bill passed the House in June 2005,