US Special Operations forces are not required to examine past human rights abuses by foreign militaries they equip and train as substitutes, new documents revealed to see.
While the loopholes in the rules governing the testing of counterterrorism programs have was previously reported Based on anonymous sources, the documents provide official confirmation. Under this program, US commandos are paid, trained, and equipped with foreign partner forces, and then sent them to participate in kill or capture operations.
The documents, including two sets of directives obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, also show that a similar flaw exists in Another Pentagon Alternative Force Program for so-called irregular warfare. It aims to disrupt national adversaries through activities that do not lead to full-fledged armed conflict — including sabotage, cyberattacks, and information campaigns such as propaganda or covert efforts to identify mental figure.
While the Pentagon is more open to security cooperation, in which it helps allies and partners expand their own capabilities, it rarely discusses the use of surrogates or foreign troops. outside which Special Operations forces cooperate to pursue specific American goals. Documents open a window on how programs work and the rules that govern them.
Proxies are an increasingly important part of American foreign policy. Over the past decade, the US has increasingly relied on supporting or appointing local partner forces in places like Niger and Somalia, away from deploying large numbers of US troops as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan. .
Even if that change of strategy was aimed at reducing the risk of American casualties and counter-attacks from being seen as occupiers, the training and arming of local forces would create other dangers.
Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, argued that the disclosures underscore the need for stricter regulations for proxies. “We need to make sure we don’t train abusers to become more dangerous and fuel the conflict and violence we are aiming to address,” she said. “And that starts with a global human rights check.”
Last year, she and Senator Chris Van HollenMaryland Democratic Party, funding amendments to the defense bill Requests for human rights checks on alternative forces passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate. She said she plans to introduce a more comprehensive bill to tighten such rules.
A senior Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said that all members of the proxy force had been thoroughly screened to ensure that they will not attack or spy on US forces. The official insists that the check is enough to weed out the bad guys.
Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Santiago-Santini, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said in a statement to The Times that the department had found “no serious verifiable violations of human rights” by the participants in one of two proxy force programs.
Katherine Yon Ebrighta counselor with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school, who has write review About both programssays Pentagon officials have sent mixed signals about whether representative forces should be reviewed for past human rights abuses, with current and former officials sometimes when contradicting each other.
“It is very helpful now to have these internal policies at hand that make it clear that human rights checks are unnecessary,” Ms. Ebright said. “It’s frustrating, the more you know about this, because of those mixed messages and the obscurity.”
The Pentagon keeps much of the secret about the activities of its proxies.
In February, the Government Accountability Office complete a report titled “Special Operations: The Overarching Guide Needed to Monitor and Evaluate the Use of Alternative Forces to Combat Terrorism,” but everything about it beyond its title is classified. (The Times is seeking a declassified review under the Freedom of Information Act.)
The Pentagon will also not disclose the full list of partner forces and the countries in which it operates. The Defense Department official said the list was classified primarily because of its sensitivity to partners, citing situations in which foreign governments had agreed but wanted to remain silent for primary reasons. domestic treatment.
Documents obtained by The Times include directives for two programs named after the law that authorizes them. The Section 127e program, commonly known as “127 Echo,” can spend up to $100 million a year on counterterrorism commissions. The Section 1202 program is authorized to spend up to $15 million a year on surrogates for irregular warfare.
The rules set out the process by which executives specifically proposed developing a new partnership force, which ultimately rests with the secretary of defense. The head of the State Department’s mission to the affected country — if any — must also agree, but the rules do not require consultation with the secretary of state in Washington. Programs cannot be used for covert operations.
The laws creating the two programs do not provide the authority to operate independently, the documents said. They do not detail the scope and limits that programs can target.
For the counterterrorism program, proxies to be used against an enemy are considered to be covered by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Congress enacted after the 11th attacks. In September 2001, a senior official from the Ministry of National Defense said. The executive branch interpreted the law as a legal basis for waging an armed conflict against Al Qaeda, Islamic State and the Somali militant group Al Shabab.
It is not clear whether the program has always been limited to groups with forced authorization. Reported by intercept And politics has suggested that the Pentagon may have used the program to assist a force in Cameroon fighting both an affiliate of ISIS and Boko Haram, a group deemed unauthorized. However, some Boko Haram members also have links to IS.
The senior Defense Department official said the unusual warfare program provided training for allied forces in countries facing the threat of invasion from larger neighbours. washington articles reported that an unusual war proxy program in Ukraine was terminated shortly before the Russian invasion and that some officials wanted to restart it.
The directives also describe the vetting process that allied partners must go through before US taxpayers pay them and get specialized weapons and military equipment, such as night vision goggles, into their hands. Surname.
Screening includes collecting people’s DNA; analyze phone call logs, travel history, social media posts and social contacts; check local and national records for offensive information; and conduct security interviews. Leaders who will have more exposure to the US military and learn more about their plans also undergo behavioral health interviews and polygraph tests.
But the purpose of this review is to detect counterintelligence risks and potential threats to US forces. The directive does not address human rights violations — such as rape, torture or extrajudicial killing.
The Extraordinary War Directive is less detailed about inspection. But it clearly says, “The provision of assistance under Section 1202 is not subject to successful human rights screening requests as defined in” a statute with a rule known as Leahy’s Law.
Leahy Law, named after former Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, prohibits security assistance to foreign military units or other security forces with a history of serious human rights violations. (The law does not apply to non-state forces, such as tribal militias.)
However, Col. any human rights concerns with potential recipients.”
At first, the Pentagon’s version of Leahy Law only applied to training. But in 2014, Congress expanded it to provide equipment and other support. But in a memorandum that year was signed by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and obtained by The Times separately from the information case, the Pentagon states that the Leahy Act does not apply to counterterrorism agents.
The memo says that allowing proxies to support Special Forces counterterrorism operations is “no assistance” to foreigners. This distinction has a purpose – that building proxies so that they can assist the United States in pursuing its goals legally is different from assisting foreign partners in capacity building. their own security – is disputed.
One critic of that theory is Sarah Harrison, who served as an attorney for the Pentagon from 2017 to 2021 and now works at the International Crisis Group, where she has call for a human rights check by the representative forces. She argued that the Pentagon’s narrow interpretation of the Leahy Law was “a dishonest interpretation of the plain text and intent of Congress.”
