Special Report
May, 2002

Programs and Funding

As a result of this post-cold war growth and the rapid acceleration since the September terrorist attacks, the U.S. now trains foreign forces through at least a dozen different types of programs spread across many different departments and agencies (see Box 1 on page 2). Some are considered “security assistance” and are designed primarily to enhance the capabilities of friendly foreign military forces. These programs are funded from the State Department’s annual foreign aid budget or paid for by the customer. Others are justified principally as “readiness training” or “engagement activities,” said to be primarily for the benefit of U.S. military forces. These military contacts are funded from the much larger and more opaque Department of Defense Operations and Maintenance budget. In addition to State and Defense, the departments of Justice, Treasury, and Transportation as well as the CIA all run programs that provide operational military/police skills training.

Though small in terms of the overall Department of Defense budget, these training programs can have a major impact in recipient countries, primarily by bolstering their military forces in relation to other segments of their governments and societies. Yet this expansion of training programs has occurred with little congressional oversight and public debate; in fact, most of the training programs are well-hidden from public and even congressional view. No executive branch or congressional office has the full picture of the scope and range of U.S. training programs.

Because many of these security forces are responsible for ongoing human rights abuses and because, as elaborated below, there is no evidence that U.S. military training serves to curb these abuses, much more public debate and congressional oversight of foreign military training is needed. Appendix 1 (pages 37-40) reviews the annual reports that the executive branch is currently required to provide to Congress on these programs. It provides an outline of the tools that, by law, are available to Congress for fulfilling its oversight responsibilities. Public access to this and other information about the specifics of U.S. training programs is critical if U.S. and local human rights defenders are to monitor the impact of the training (and the actions of the trainees) on local civilian populations.

The following sections examine the foreign military training programs listed in the FY 2003 budget that are financed primarily by the State and Defense departments. Several programs, however, are listed only partially or not at all in the budget.

State Department Programs

Table 1 (below) highlights the items in the State Department’s foreign assistance budget request for FY 2003 that include at least some funding for military training. In most cases these programs existed and were well-funded prior to September 2001, but the Bush administration is requesting substantial increases, mostly in the name of fighting terrorism. Short program descriptions follow the table to explain the various budget lines.

International Military Education and Training (IMET)

IMET has long been the most visible of all foreign training programs; until recently most members of Congress (and the public) mistakenly thought this program represented the totality—or at least the bulk—of foreign military training. Created by Congress in 1976, IMET grew out of the Vietnam-era Nixon Doctrine that aimed to avoid U.S. casualties by preparing “Asian boys to fight Asian wars.” Since the mid-1990s, funding levels for this program have been rising steadily. In FY 1999, Congress provided $50 million for IMET, which trained nearly 9,000 students (usually officers) from 124 countries. The FY 2003 request of $80 million seeks funding for 133 countries and one regional group (ECOWAS in West Africa), and it will presumably support the training of many more soldiers. Nearly every state in sub-Saharan Africa is on the list of potential recipients. This includes Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, DR Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, where there are cross-border or civil wars ongoing and/or repressive, undemocratic governments in power. Worldwide, more than 50 countries—including former Soviet Central Asian republics, the Philippines, and Turkey—listed by the State Department as having “poor” human rights records are slated to receive IMET training (for a map showing the intersection of countries receiving IMET training and cited for human rights abuse, see pp. 24-25; a chart of this information appears in Appendix 2, pages 41-45).

Most IMET training occurs in the U.S. at a network of 150 specialized military schools where foreign soldiers train alongside U.S. officers in courses primarily designed to educate U.S. forces. All five military branches train foreign troops, but the U.S. Army is responsible for training the majority. The School of the Americas (SOA) in Ft. Benning, Georgia (see Box 2, this page), has captured the lion’s share of public attention. However, with 600 to 800 foreign military and police trainees per year, the SOA constitutes a small part of a much larger system. Between 1998 and 2000, for instance, the U.S. trained some 10,000-15,000 Latin American soldiers per year.11 And, according to an interagency governmental working group, a total of 48,000 foreign soldiers and law enforcement officials from around the world came to the U.S. for some form of operational training in 2000.12

Other schools that receive large numbers of foreign trainees include the Naval Special Warfare Center at Coronado, CA, the Inter-American Air Forces Academy at Lackland Air Force Base, TX, the Air Force Special Operations Command school at Hurlburt Field, FL, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School at Ft. Huachuca, AZ, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, and the U.S. Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School at Ft. Bragg, NC. In addition, mobile training teams of U.S. forces conduct some IMET-sponsored training overseas.

Foreign Military Financing (FMF)

This program, which provides grants for foreign militaries to buy U.S. weapons, services, and training, has been expanded in the wake of the terrorist attacks. The FY 2003 request includes grants of $50 million each to Pakistan and India “for the war on terrorism and $3 million in FMF for Nepal to counter the Maoist insurgency and terrorism.” In South America, it includes $98 million to train and equip a brigade to protect a Colombian oil pipeline and $4 million to “help support Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru in sustaining and expanding the capabilities of militaries through force modernization, training, and equipment and enabling them to respond to spillover effects of the drug interdiction effort.”13

Although 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. In such cases, U.S. mobile training teams, usually made up of Special Operations Forces, are sent to the host country for up to six months.

The Economic Support Fund (ESF) and Assistance for East Europe and Former Soviet Republics

These budget lines represent cash transfer grants to foreign governments based on U.S. political and military goals rather than on poverty or development need. Although these funds are described as providing balance-of-payment support to foreign governments and are not targeted specifically for military programs, in practice, they free up national monies for military expenditures, including training. According to the State Department, most of the FY 2003 ESF funding is justified as “building up front-line states and building new relationships as the campaign against global terror widens.” The total amount requested for ESF in FY 2003 is $2.29 billion. (Table 1 on page 8 provides several examples of ESF funding levels requested for specific countries.) An additional $1.25 billion is requested in similar cash grants for Eastern European and former Soviet republics.

Anti-Terrorism Assistance

According to the State Department’s FY 2003 budget request, this program “supports the global campaign against terrorism by providing training and equipment to coalition partners.” These funds will support, for instance, increased counterterrorism training for countries in South/Central Asia and the Middle East, new courses developed with resources from the emergency response fund established just after the September attacks, a new Kidnap Intervention Training course, and an Advanced Crisis Response Team training course.

Andean Counternarcotics Initiative

The bulk of funding for this program ($439 million in FY 2003) is going to Colombia, where the U.S. is becoming more deeply involved in both the war on drugs and the civil war (see Box 3, page 11). According to the State Department, these funds will “support Colombia’s push into the former coca-growing sanctuaries in Putumayo and elsewhere by adding a second new Army air mobile counternarcotics brigade to expand the force for joint operations with the Colombian National Police’s anti-narcotics unit.” In addition to training, these funds are also earmarked for “maritime and aerial interdiction, the Colombian National Police’s aerial eradication program including additional spraying aircraft, and human rights and judicial reform in Colombia.”

Export Control Systems and Border Control

These funds provide training, equipment, and services to help countries around the world establish or enhance their infrastructure to control the movement of goods and people across their borders.

Humanitarian Demining

This program deploys U.S. Special Operations Forces to train foreign demining troops in countries around the world. In previous years, U.S. troops have conducted such training in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Mozambique, among other countries, and in March 2002 the U.S. opened a demining center in Armenia.14

Africa Regional Fund

This funding underwrites training and military equipment to the regional military forces of the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS), a group of 15 West African states, and to militaries in other African countries “committed to providing peacekeeping troops.” U.S. Special Operations Forces have previously trained, equipped, and deployed two 800-man battalions of Nigerian soldiers for peacekeeping duty in Sierra Leone as part of Operation Focus Relief, Washington’s response to the terror inflicted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) guerrillas in that country.15 Other countries in the region are receiving training under this program as well.

African Crisis Response Initiative

Under this program, begun in 1997, U.S. 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.

The FY 2003 budget request describes this program as a “peacekeeping/humanitarian relief training course tailored to recipient countries’ needs. Where possible, it will emphasize training African trainers.” The number of countries receiving common training and equipment for peacekeeping operations is being increased and, according to the State Department, it “will provide the basis for lethal peace enforcement training.” According to the State Department’s budget submission to Congress, countries likely to receive training include, but are not limited to, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, and Botswana.

Defense Department Programs

Increasingly in the past decade, foreign military training has been funded out of the much larger and more complex Pentagon budget. The September 11 attacks have accelerated this trend. For example, in March 2002 the Bush administration requested (as part of an emergency supplemental appropriation) $100 million for weapons and training “on such terms and conditions as the Secretary of Defense may determine.” The administration sought to exempt this aid from all human rights, nonproliferation, and other conditions that exist in U.S. law.16 Some of the current and potential sources for foreign military training in this budget are not known, but the requested levels for those that appear to have funded training are included in Table 2 (opposite).

The Pentagon spends untold amounts each year in deployments of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) abroad. No single report compiles budget or trainee data on these overall training deployments. However, according to March 2002 testimony by Gen. Charles Holland, the commander-in-chief of the Special Operations Command, SOF training with foreign troops occurs through the following programs:

• Combatant Commander-in-Chief (CINC) Theater Security Cooperation Plans;
• Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET);
• State Department’s African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI);
• Humanitarian programs;
• Mine action training;
• Counterdrug programs; and
• Foreign Internal Defense training.17

Table 2 (on page 14) likely includes funding for several of these programs; no detailed breakdown is available for the Pentagon’s entire range of training missions. In addition, much if not most SOF overseas activity remains classified and hidden entirely from the public. A classified budget document for FY 2001, obtained by military analyst William Arkin, listed hundreds of covert training visits with militaries, police, and intelligence agencies around the world.18

Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET)

As a result of investigative reporting, JCET is now the Special Operations Forces’ most visible training initiative. The Pentagon 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 authorized this program, passing a statute that year allowing regional unified commanders and the Special Operations Command to pay both the costs of deploying and training U.S. SOF abroad and the incremental costs incurred by the host country, if that nation is unable to pay them. But Congress apparently lost sight of this program until the Washington Post reported on it in a series of articles that highlighted training with various countries around the world—including Indonesia, which Congress had banned from receiving IMET due to human rights concerns.19

An annual report required on the JCET program disclosed that in FY 1999 the Defense Department spent $12.8 million for 118 JCET exercises in 62 different countries. More than 2,400 U.S. Special Operations Forces soldiers and 8,500 host nation soldiers took part in these exercises.20 The Pentagon budget does not delineate how much will be spent on JCET and other SOF foreign training programs in FY 2002 and FY 2003, including expenditures for the high-profile counterterrorism training missions that President Bush authorized in early 2002 for the Philippines, Yemen, and Georgia.21

In addition to these programs, the Pentagon has several other means not reflected in the budget to bring foreign military officials to the U.S. for military training. These programs include:

• up to 60 slots for foreign officers at each of the military branches’ academies22;
• one-year (or longer) reciprocal exchanges under a Personnel Exchange Program23; and
• reciprocal visits by military units.

Regional Defense Counter-Terrorism Fellowship Program

For FY 2002, Congress appropriated $17.9 million in the Pentagon budget to create this new program. It will fund foreign military officers’ attendance at U.S. military educational institutions and selected regional centers. Commanders-in-chief of the various U.S. regional military commands will nominate candidates and schools, with a joint staff review and approval by the secretary of defense.24 This program will provide training at existing facilities, including both regional security schools and professional military schools located on military bases in the United States.

Foreign Military Sales (FMS)

In addition, foreign countries can purchase training from U.S. military forces with their own money through the Department of Defense Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, which authorizes the Pentagon to negotiate sales of weapons systems. Usually the deal includes training in the operation and maintenance of the system being purchased. According to one study, done in the early 1990s, more than half of all training of foreign soldiers in the U.S. was paid for by foreign governments with their own money (as opposed to U.S. military aid).25 The requirement that all U.S.-funded foreign military trainees be vetted for human rights violations, known as the Leahy Law (see below), does not extend to training bought with a nation’s own funds.

Intelligence Training

In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, authorizing the executive branch to engage in covert military operations. Throughout the cold war, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly advised, trained, and equipped numerous foreign government, paramilitary, and guerrilla forces that were responsible for large-scale human rights abuses and repression in many countries. The CIA also sent training agents and materials to support guerrilla movements attempting to overthrow communist or leftist regimes in many countries, most notably during the 1980s as part of the Reagan administration’s efforts to roll back communist influence in Central America (Nicaragua), Southern Africa (Angola), and Central Asia (Afghanistan).

Each of these training operations sustained years and even decades of bloody combat while, in some cases, strengthening networks of terrorists. In the case of the Afghan operation, this network has turned directly against the U.S.: Osama bin Laden—the presumed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, as well as attacks on U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, a U.S. warship in port in Yemen, and two U.S. embassies in East Africa—was part of the alliance of mujahedin that the CIA funded, trained, and armed in the 1980s to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan.

Despite this and other examples of “blowback” and the CIA’s abysmal record of collusion with abusive forces, such operations continued through the 1990s.26 And in the days following the September attacks, the administration reportedly signed off on CIA antiterror operations that are either currently underway or planned in 80 countries. (The CIA’s complete failure to anticipate the attacks seemed not to have figured in the administration’s decision to assign the agency these new roles.) The new operations are said to range from propaganda to lethal actions and probably include some training.27

Covert operations are conducted with no human rights training and no background vetting of participants. In 1995, the CIA implemented a weak guideline governing the recruitment of informants who have committed human rights violations. It was created in response to the revelation that the Guatemalan military officer who tortured and murdered the husband of an American human rights lawyer was on the CIA payroll. The CIA had testified that the new guideline has not hindered agency operations.28 Yet in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress repealed even this tepid requirement.

Justice Department: FBI and DEA Training

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), whose mission is enforcement of federal law, is also involved in training foreign police and paramilitary forces. This training is justified primarily as part of its efforts to counter drug trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime. According to the FBI, “If these organized criminal enterprises with roots elsewhere in the world are allowed to grow and mitigate beyond their borders, they will inevitably invade the United States.”29

The Bureau’s international training initiatives include country evaluations and/or needs analyses and training of foreign law enforcement officials both within the U.S. and abroad. No annual report provides public information on FBI foreign training programs; however, a European criminal justice group reported that in a recent (unnamed) fiscal year, the FBI provided training to approximately 1,200 international students through 32 separate international training initiatives. Of these students, the vast majority—approximately 900—received training from FBI instructors who traveled abroad.30 The remainder came to the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia.31

Two ongoing FBI international training programs are the Pacific Rim Training Initiative and the Mexican/American Law Enforcement Training. The latter has involved training the 5,000-member Mexican Federal Preventive Police, a unit implicated by the media as perpetrating human rights abuses—including torture—in Guerrero state.

In addition, the FBI cosponsors and trains foreign troops at International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEA) in Budapest and Bangkok. The ILEA in Budapest began operations in 1995, with a curriculum modeled after that of the FBI Academy. Representatives of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union have all sent students to the facility. The school hosts 50 students during each eight-week session, with at least five sessions held each year, in addition to topical seminars and special courses. Instructors come from the ranks of the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Perhaps the most controversial international FBI program has been training of the paramilitary Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Northern Ireland. (The RUC is now renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and in November 2001 a new oversight board was created.) In 1999, Congress barred the FBI and any other federal law enforcement agency from using federal funds to provide training for or conduct exchange programs with the RUC or any successor organization until the president certified that certain requirements had been met. The ban was motivated by concerns that the FBI had trained forces that committed or condoned the murder of several defense attorneys in Northern Ireland.

In December 2001, President Bush approved the resumption of FBI training of the RUC. In doing so, he: 1) submitted a required report on training and exchange programs conducted by the FBI for the RUC or its members from 1994-99; 2) certified that any new training programs will include a significant human rights component; and 3) certified that vetting procedures were in place to ensure that resumed training or exchange programs will not include RUC members who appear to have committed or condoned violations of internationally recognized human rights.32

The FBI is also slated to play a major role in support of U.S. antiterrorism goals in Indonesia. FBI Director Robert Mueller quietly traveled to Jakarta in late March 2002 to develop training and exchange programs.33

The Drug Enforcement Agency, also part of the Justice Department, conducts international police training as well. The DEA International Training Section, located at Quantico, consists of 16 Special Agent instructors and five support personnel. From this group, three teams of instructors travel around the world, providing drug law enforcement training to foreign antinarcotics officials. Much of this counternarcotics training occurs at the ILEAs in Budapest and Bangkok. (ILEAs have been proposed in previous year counternarcotics budgets for Latin America and Africa; however, they were never established and have dropped out of the FY 2003 budget request.) Foreign counternarcotics police also go to Quantico to attend training at the DEA’s new Justice Training Center.

According to the DEA website, “since 1969 the DEA and its predecessor agencies have trained more than 40,000 foreign officers and officials. In 1998 alone, the DEA trained over 3,000.”34 The subject matter covered includes surveillance, drug field testing, intelligence collection, management, and basic law enforcement skills.

The international police training programs of the FBI and the DEA are funded at least in part out of the annual appropriation for Justice Department operations and are, therefore, technically exempt from the Leahy Law vetting requirements (which currently cover only programs funded by the foreign aid and Defense Department appropriations).