Washington - The Bush administration was defied, defeated and disobeyed. The House passed a bill on Friday allowing a cut by half the dues paid by the United States to the United Nations provided certain conditions are not complied.

The House approved the bill 221 to 184, with Republicans voting in large numbers for it despite White House opposition. The vote reflected House Republicans' new challenge to the administration's wishes and created tensions as the Senate prepares to vote on the nomination of John R. Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations on Monday.

The House bill would allow only half the United States' dues starting in 2007 if the United Nations failed to meet the set requirements, about 46 conditions.  These include greater financial transparency, independent oversight and the creation of an office of ethics.

The bill shall not affect the funds from United Nations agencies like the World Food Program or Unicef, which receive voluntary contributions from donor countries.

According to New York Times, the House bill is unlikely to survive in its current form, in that Senate leaders have already voiced their opposition to any measure that would mandate cuts in dues. The United States has withheld dues in the past - over complaints that the organization was corrupt and over its support for abortion programs.

Most notably, during the Clinton administration in the 1990's, the United States piled up so much debt that its voting rights in the General Assembly were jeopardized.

Critics of the House bill said it was even more essential now, given recent diplomatic strains, for the United States to remain current with its payments, as it has for several years.

The United States contributed $438 million to the United Nations' 2005 budget of more than $1.8 billion, making it the largest donor.

Representative Henry J. Hyde, the Illinois Republican who sponsored the bill and weathered fierce resistance to get it passed, said the only effective step Congress could take with the United Nations was to tell it that "if you don't reform, we're not going to pay."

"There is a mind-set in the upper realms of diplomacy that worships at the theater of the U.N., and couldn't possibly bring itself to withholding dues," Mr. Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said during the floor debate. "I don't think it will work, and implore you to put some teeth in the sanctions."

Reacting cautiously, a spokesman for the White House said that the administration's opposition was unchanged, but that it was too soon to tell how the Senate might act. "We have a bicameral legislative body and we don't necessarily have a law yet," said the spokesman, Frederick L. Jones, who works for the National Security Council. President Bush has not threatened to veto the measure.

The House voted 216 to 190 to defeat an alternative measure, offered by Representatives Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, and Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, that would have granted the secretary of state the discretion to withhold the dues if changes were not made.

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