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US Special Operations forces are not required to investigate past human rights abuses by foreign forces trained and trained as surrogates, newly disclosed documents show.
While gaps in the rules governing vetting for counterterrorism programs have previously been reported based on anonymous sources, the document provides official confirmation. Under the program, American commandos pay, train and equip foreign partner forces and then send them on kill-or-capture operations.
The documents, which include two sets of directives obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information lawsuit, also show similar gaps in the Pentagon’s other replacement force programs for irregular warfare. The aim is to disrupt rival nation-states through operations that do not involve full armed conflict – including sabotage, hacking and information campaigns such as propaganda or covert efforts to shape morale.
While the Pentagon is more open about security cooperation that helps allies and partners develop their own capabilities, it rarely discusses the use of surrogates, or foreign forces that Special Operations forces use to achieve American goals. The document opens a window on the functions of the program and what rules govern it.
Proxy forces are an important part of American foreign policy. Over the past decade, the United States has increasingly relied on supporting or deputizing local partner forces in places like Niger and Somalia, moving away from deploying large numbers of American ground forces like in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although these strategic changes were intended to reduce the risk of American casualties and blowback from being seen as invaders, the training and arming of local forces created other dangers.
The disclosure underscores the need for stricter rules on proxy forces, said Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California. “We have to make sure that we don’t train our abusive units to become more lethal and cause more conflict and violence,” he said. “And it starts with vetting universal human rights.”
Last year, he and Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, sponsored an amendment to the defense bill to require human rights vetting of surrogate forces that passed the House but not the Senate. He said he plans to introduce a more comprehensive bill to tighten the rules.
A senior Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said all members of the proxy force had undergone extensive vetting to ensure they did not attack or spy on American forces. The official stated that vetting is enough to eliminate bad actors.
Lt. Col. Cesar Santiago-Santini, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement to The Times that the department had found “no verifiable human rights violations” by participants in the proxy force program.
Katherine Yon Ebright, an adviser with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school who has written critically about both programs, said Pentagon officials have sent mixed signals about whether replacement troops are being investigated for past, present and former human rights violations. officials sometimes objected.
“Now it is very helpful to have this internal policy that clearly shows that human rights are not required,” said Ms. Ebright. “You’re frustrated, the more you know about it, because of the mixed messages and the opacity.”
The Pentagon remains secretive about proxy force operations.
In February, the Government Accountability Office completed a report titled “Special Operations: Public Guidance Needed to Monitor and Assess the Use of Substitute Forces to Combat Terrorism,” but everything beyond that title is classified. (The Times is seeking a declassification review under the Freedom of Information Act.)
The Pentagon also would not release a full list of partner forces and the countries they operate with. Defense Department officials said the list is classified primarily because of its sensitivity to partners, citing situations in which foreign governments have agreed to it but want to keep their participation for their own domestic political reasons.
Documents obtained by The Times include directives for two programs named for the authorizing legislation. The Section 127e program, commonly referred to as “127 Echo,” can spend up to $100 million annually on counterterrorism proxies. The Section 1202 program is authorized to spend up to $15 million annually on substitutes for irregular warfare.
The rules lay out the process in which special operators propose to develop new partner forces, which is ultimately up to the secretary of defense. The head of the State Department mission in the affected country – if any – must also agree, but the rule does not require consultation with the secretary of state in Washington. The program cannot be used for covert operations.
The law that created the two programs does not provide independent operational authority, the document said. He did not elaborate on the scope and limitations that the program could target.
For counterterrorism programs, proxy forces should be used against adversaries deemed protected by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force enacted by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a senior Defense Department official said. The executive branch has interpreted the law as a legal basis for fighting armed conflicts against Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Somali militant group Al Shabab.
It is unclear whether the program is necessarily limited to groups protected by the force’s authority. Reports by The Intercept and Politico have suggested that the Pentagon may be using the program to support forces in Cameroon fighting ISIS affiliates and Boko Haram, a group it does not consider authoritative. However, some Boko Haram members also have ISIS links.
The irregular warfare program has provided training for allied forces in countries facing the threat of invasion by their larger neighbors, a senior Defense Department official said. The Washington Post has reported that its irregular wartime proxy program in Ukraine was halted before the Russian invasion, and some officials want to restart it.
The directive also describes the vetting that allied partners must undergo before American taxpayers pay their salaries and put special military weapons and equipment, such as night vision goggles, in their hands.
Screening involves collecting a person’s DNA; analyze call logs, travel history, social media posts, and social contacts; check local and national records for derogatory information; and conduct security interviews. Leaders who will interact more with American forces and learn more about their plans will also have to undergo behavioral health interviews and lie detector tests.
But the purpose of this vetting is to detect counterintelligence risks and potential threats to American forces. The directive does not mention human rights violations – such as rape, torture or extrajudicial killings.
Irregular battle instructions lack vetting detail. But it expressly states, “The provision of support under Section 1202 is not dependent on the successful human rights requirement as defined in” the statute by a rule known as the Leahy Law.
The Leahy Law, named for former Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, prohibits security assistance to foreign military units or other security forces with a history of human rights abuses. (The law does not cover non-state forces, like tribal militias.)
However, Colonel Santiago-Santini, a Pentagon spokesman, said the department “believes that our vetting system for the Section 127e and 1202 programs will open up human rights issues with potential recipients.”
Initially, the Pentagon’s version of Leahy’s Law only applied to training. But in 2014, Congress expanded to provide more equipment and assistance. But in a memo that year signed by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and obtained by The Times separately from the information lawsuit, the Pentagon stated that the Leahy Law does not apply to counterterrorism substitutes.
The memo said allowing proxy forces to help Special Forces counterterrorism operations “is not assistance” to foreigners. This so-called distinction — that building a proxy force to help the United States achieve its goals is legitimately different from helping foreign partners build their own security capabilities — is disputed.
A critic of the theory is Sarah Harrison, who worked as a Pentagon lawyer from 2017 to 2021 and is currently at the International Crisis Group, where she called for a human rights review of the replacement force. He said the Pentagon’s narrow interpretation of the Leahy Law was a “dishonest read
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