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US Taxpayer Funds

MONITOR THE FLOW: ENSURE FUNDS DON'T SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

US taxpayers now support the training of militaries from around the globe through more than a dozen differentprograms spread across several US government departments and agencies. The graphic at right shows nine ofthese programs. In addition to receiving training through US taxpayer-funded channels, foreign governmentspurchase a significant amount of training with their own funds; purchased training is not subject to US governmentoversight nor to Congressionally-mandated human rights conditions.

Some of these programs are considered "security assistance" and are designed primarily to enhance the capabilities of "friendly" military forces. They are funded from the Department of State's annual foreign aid budget. Others are justified principally as "readiness training" or "engagement activities," said to be primarily for the benefit of US military forces. These latter military contacts are funded from the Department of Defense Operations and Maintenance budget. Some human rights conditions apply-at least in theory-to assistance funded by the Department of State budget, but no such conditions apply to the aid coming through the Department of Defense and other budgets.

Moreover, while small in terms of the overall Department of Defense budget, these training programs can havea major impact in recipient countries, primarily by bolstering their military forces in relation to other segmentsof their governments and societies. Yet the expansion of training programs has occurred with little congressionaloversight and public debate; in fact, most of the training programs are well hidden from public, and even congressional,view. No one government office or congressional committee has the full picture of the scope andrange of US training programs.

The US government must improve oversight, transparency, and accountability of US training of foreign forces.

International Military Education and Training (IMET) This has long been the most visible of all US foreign training programs, and until recently most Members of Congress mistakenly thought this program represented the totality of foreign military training. Created by Congress in 1976, IMET grew out of the Vietnamera Nixon Doctrine that aimed to avoid US casualties by preparing "Asian boys to fight Asian wars." Since the mid-1990s, funding levels for this program have been rising steadily. In 1999, Congress provided $50 million for IMET, which trained nearly 9,000 students (usually officers) from 124 countries. For 2003, the Administration requested $80 million to fund training for 133 countries.

Foreign Military Financing (FMF) This program provides grants for foreign militaries to buy US weapons, services, and training and has been expanded in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks-to $4.1 billion for 2003. Israel and Egypt are by far the leading recipients of this aid. The 2003 request also included grants of $50 million each to Pakistan and India, $3 million for Nepal, and $98 million for Colombia to train and equip a brigade to protect an oil pipeline. While the majority of these funds are used to buy weapons, mobile training teams are often deployed as a facet of weapons sales packages to train the foreign country's forces in the operation and maintenance of the weapon system(s). In other cases, aid recipients use this money to buy training for their soldiers in specific skill areas.

Anti-Terror Assistance The Department of State's 2003 budget requested $64 million for this program to "support the global campaign against terrorism by providing training and equipment to coalition partners." These funds would provide training for countries in South/Central Asia and the Middle East, which have poor human rights records. In addition, the Department of Defense recently requested and Congress appropriated $17.9 million to create a Regional Defense Counter-Terrorism Fellowship Program. It will support foreign military officers' attendance at US military educational institutions and selected regional centers. This fund was largely viewed as a means of circumventing congressional restrictions on military training with Indonesia and Pakistan.

Aid for "War on Drugs" The US "war on drugs" is funded out of the Departments of Defense, State and Justice (where the Drug Enforcement Agency is based). For 2003 the Department of State is seeking $731 million for the Andean Counterdrug Initiative. The bulk of this taxpayer money- $439 million-is slated for Colombia, where the US is becoming more deeply involved in both the war on drugs and the civil war. At the same time, the Department of Defense budget requested $850 million in public money to underwrite its part in the war on drugs- including a good deal of training.

Africa Regional Fund US funding has underwritten US Special Operations Forces (SOF) training, equipping, and deploying two 800-man battalions of Nigerian soldiers for peacekeeping duty in Sierra Leone. In a related program, begun in 1997, US Special Operations Forces from the 3rd and 5th Army Special Forces groups conduct in-country basic training of the armed forces of several African states for the stated purpose of preparing them for regional and UN peacekeeping missions. In conjunction with private military companies contracted to help, SOF have trained more than 8,000 troops in Senegal, Uganda, Malawi, Ghana, Mali, and Cote d'Ivoire. According to the Department of State's budget submission to Congress for 2003, countries likely to receive training include Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, and Botswana.

Joint Combined Exercise and Training (JCET) The Department of Defense created this program in 1991 for the stated purpose of allowing SOF to practice their language skills and gain familiarity with foreign militaries and overseas terrain. Congress passed a statute authorizing the program that same year, which allows regional unified commanders and the Special Operations Command to pay the costs of deploying and training US SOF abroad and the costs incurred by the host country. But Congress apparently lost sight of this program until The Washington Post reported on it in a series of articles in 1998 that highlighted training with various countries around the world that Congress had banned from receiving IMET due to human rights concerns. An annual report required on the JCET program disclosed that in FY 1999 the Department of Defense spent $12.8 million for 118 JCET exercises in 62 different countries. More than 2,400 US Special Operations Force soldiers and 8,500 host nation soldiers took part in these exercises.

Combatant Commander-in-Chief (CINC) discretionary projects Each of the Commanders in Chief of joint regional commands (like Southern Command, which has an area of operation in Latin America and the Caribbean, or Central Command, in the Middle East and Persian Gulf) has a fund at the CINC's sole discretion that can be used for training, joint exercises and other "getting to know you'' events with foreign militaries. There is no public information about these activities, although occasional investigative reporting has shed some light on them.

Military personnel exchanges The Arms Export Control Act allows the military departments to provide training and related support in the United States to military and civilian defense personnel of a friendly foreign country, with reciprocity required for US troops. This program is generally known as "unit exchanges." According to a 1990 report by the General Accounting Office, a Special Forces unit from Peru trained with US Special Forces at Ft. Bragg under this program. And according to the Foreign Military Training Report, in 1998 ten Israeli Defense Force officers trained in intelligence at the Army Intelligence Center at Ft. Huachuca under this exchange program. Several similar programs can and have been used to bring foreign military officials to the United States for military education or training.

CIA training programs In the National Security Act of 1947 Congress authorized the executive branch of the US government to engage in covert or semi-covert military operations. Throughout the cold war the Central Intelligence Agency advised, trained, and equipped government forces and insurgents responsible for large-scale human rights abuses in many countries. The National Security Act requires practically no congressional oversight of covert intelligence agency operations, and there is no requirement for reporting on these operations to the public. In the past many operations have been exposed through the media, court documents, foreign governmental records and-eventually- through declassification of US government documents. The Human Rights Information Act, a bill first proposed during the 106th Congress, would order the expedited declassification of human rights information related to US intelligence activities in Honduras and Guatemala, and establish the same process for future human rights information requests.

Sources:

US Department of State, FY 2003 International Affairs (Function 150) Budget Request (Washington, DC: February 2002). See section on "Account Tables," available at: http://www.state.gov/m/rm/rls/iab/2003/7809.htm

Lora Lumpe and Jeff Donarski, The Arms Trade Revealed: A Guide for Investigators and Activists (Washington, DC: Federation of American Scientists, 1998).