SIDESTEPPING SANCTIONS, U.S. MILITARY TRAINS FOREIGN TROOPS

1991 Law Waives Many Restrictions

On the day before Pakistan exploded five underground nuclear bombs in May,
while President Clinton was urgently warning leaders in Islamabad that an
atomic test would bring worldwide isolation, the U.S. military was quietly
pursuing its own agenda just outside the Pakistani capital.

At the Army general command at Rawalpindi, officers from both countries
finished plans to bring together 60 American and 200 Pakistani special
operations forces for small unit exercises outside Peshawar near
Afghanistan and for scuba attacks on mock targets in Mangla Lake, on the
edge of the contested mountain region of Kashmir.

"Inspired Venture," as the exercise is called, is still scheduled for
August, despite U.S. sanctions imposed in retaliation for the nuclear
blasts. Since 1993, similar ventures between the U.S. and Pakistani
militaries have also sidestepped earlier sanctions by Washington designed
to punish the country for its nuclear program.

The Pakistani case is not unique. Under a 1991 law exempting them from many
congressional and White House restrictions, American special operations
forces have established military ties in at least 110 countries,
unencumbered by public debate, effective civilian oversight or the
consistent involvement of the country's top foreign affairs officials.

The law, Section 2011 of Title 10 of the U.S. code, allows the military to
send special operations forces on overseas exercises on the condition that
the primary purpose is to train U.S. soldiers. Some exercises comply
unambiguously with the letter of the law. But a review of scores of
missions found that many more have been used routinely for broader aims,
including helping foreign armies fight drug traffickers, teaching
counterinsurgency techniques in countries concerned about domestic
stability and sharing U.S. military expertise in exchange for access to top
foreign officials.

As such missions have multiplied since the end of the Cold War, special
operations forces, including Army Green Berets, Navy SEALS and Air Force
special operations airmen, have become a leading force in exerting U.S.
influence abroad. Without firing a shot in anger, they are revising the
rules of U.S. engagement with scores of foreign countries.

In the process, military officials questioned about the exercises said,
they are becoming familiar with nations where they might one day return to
evacuate U.S. citizens -- as they have done recently in Liberia, Sierra
Leone and Albania -- deliver humanitarian supplies or fight a war. The
officials said U.S. forces also pass on their values of respect for human
rights, civilian leadership and the need for a nation's military to
maintain a professional, apolitical role in society.

Above all, the officials described the exercises, known as Joint Combined
Exchange Training, or JCETs, as an indispensable part of the key post-Cold
War mission of engaging militaries abroad.

"I'd rather talk to people than hit them with sanctions. [Special
operations forces] are the greatest asset we have. They are a force
multiplier and a diplomacy multiplier," said H. Allen Holmes, Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.

To determine the scope and content of the JCET missions worldwide, The
Washington Post pieced together information based on interviews and reports
from the Defense Department, the special operations staffs and units at the
United States' five regional warfighting commands, as well as several of
the Army and Navy units involved in creating the exercises and training
foreign troops from Cambodia to Kazakhstan.

Interviews with dozens of U.S. officers and troops around the world
revealed widely inconsistent interpretations of the purpose and even the
definition of JCETs. According to military officers involved in the program
and Defense Department documents, effective civilian oversight and
coordination with the State Department or National Security Council is
minimal to nonexistent, a view disputed by Holmes. And, although U.S.
ambassadors in countries where they take place are responsible for
approving and supervising JCETs, officers and troops said that in many
countries the U.S. military group at the embassy or the regional commander
in chief, known as the CINC, dominate the process, deciding where to go
and, more importantly, what kind of training to conduct.

As a result, JCETs often appear to bring America's premier soldiers into
conflict with aims of American diplomacy enunciated in Washington.

For example:

The Clinton administration has enforced a near-total ban on the supply and
sale of U.S. military equipment and training for the Colombian military
because of its deep involvement in drug-related corruption and its record
of killing politicians, human rights activists and civilians living in
areas controlled by guerrilla groups. The restrictions have permitted
limited training in specific areas controlled by drug traffickers, but
require that Colombian units first be evaluated for human rights
performance before receiving U.S. assistance.

However, U.S. special operations forces, unbeknownst to many in Congress
who fought for the original restrictions, are legally free of these
restraints and have trained hundreds of Colombian troops in "shoot and
maneuver" techniques, counterterrorism and intelligence gathering. The
special forces training proceeded even in 1996 and 1997, when Clinton
"decertified" Colombia for military assistance because of its failure to
cooperate with U.S. anti-narcotics policy.

In on-the-record interviews, several officers with longtime experience in
Colombia said the human rights records of the Colombian units trained by
special forces in these exercises are not evaluated because it would
interfere with the unit's ability to work together. Asked about the
training, Defense officials initially said -- correctly -that they are not
legally required to vet the units. In subsequent interviews, however, they
said such vetting does take place.

In Indonesia, special operations forces have conducted 41 training
exercises since 1991, despite a congressional ban on training Indonesia's
officers in the United States and a checkered human rights record. Most of
the exercises involved Indonesia's elite Kopassus troops, whom U.S.
officials have accused of involvement in kidnappings and torture of
anti-government activists.

U.S. officers involved in the training maintained in recent interviews that
they were prohibited from teaching Indonesians lethal tactics. In fact, no
such restrictions exist. According to interviews and documents, lethal
tactics are a regular part of the exercises, which have included
instruction in sniper techniques, close-quarters combat, demolition, mortar
attacks and air and sea assaults.

The State Department's annual human rights report this year said the
military in Papua New Guinea had "committed extrajudicial killings, were
responsible for disappearances, abused prisoners and detainees, and
employed harsh enforcement measures again civilians," much of it related to
suppression of a 10-year-old insurgency that has cost 20,000 lives. A
separate State Department report to Congress said that to encourage reform
of the country's armed forces, officers would receive U.S.-based training
"with an emphasis on human rights, civilian control of the military, and
military justice."

The report did not mention that once or twice a year, in an exercise dubbed
"Balance Passion," U.S. special operations forces provide instruction to
local troops in demolition, patrolling and communications as well as in
internal defense tactics and field medicine. In return, according to U.S.
officials, American troops have learned about the country's culture and
landscape and the tactics of the Papua New Guinea armed forces.

In Turkey, repression against Kurdish villagers has raised opposition in
Congress and the State Department to the sale of attack helicopters to the
military. In 1996, the State Department documented the use of U.S.-supplied
equipment to kill and force the evacuation of civilians in disputed areas
of southeastern Turkey, where a conflict with Kurdish Workers Party
guerrillas has claimed 22,000 lives.

However, the U.S. European Command's special operations branch last year
conducted its first training exercise with the Turkish Mountain Commandos,
a unit whose chief function is to fight Kurdish guerrillas. The purpose of
the exercises, according to a U.S. after-action report, was "to ascertain
the future training needs of the Turks and to establish the groundwork" for
future bilateral exercises with the unit. The document advised American
participants in future such missions to "be prepared to get no [tactical]
training value from the exercise."

In 1993, the U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea was expelled after
criticizing the government for human rights abuses. This spring, Amnesty
International issued an urgent appeal against torture and illegal
detentions of dozens of ethnic Bubi by the military forces. In April,
Timothy F. Geithner, an assistant Treasury Department secretary, told
Congress that the tiny African country was one of only five nations where
Washington would oppose lending by the International Monetary Fund because
of its gross human rights violations.

But the 3rd Special Forces Group based at Fort Bragg, N.C., continues to
train scores of local troops in Equatorial Guinea in light infantry skills,
including operations planning, small unit tactics, land navigation,
reconnaissance and medicine. Although such exercises are supposed to be
coordinated through the U.S. Embassy, the embassy in Equatorial Guinea has
been closed for budgetary reasons since 1995.

In Suriname, king-making former military leader Desi Bouterse is wanted on
an international warrant for drug trafficking and money laundering. The
chief of military police, Col. Etienne Boerenveen, served five years in a
Miami jail for drug running. In the words of Jack A. Blum, the former chief
investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on narcotics,
the South American country has become "a criminal enterprise."

Nevertheless, a team from the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg has
conducted light infantry training and noncommissioned officer leadership
classes with dozens of members of Suriname's armed forces as recently as
March. Army Special Forces troops first described the deployments as a
one-time "security survey" for embassy personnel.

In an interview, Holmes insisted that these missions, like all those
authorized by Section 2011, were principally meant to train U.S. troops.
Asked whether he believed all deployments fit the letter of the law, he
said, "Absolutely, 100 percent. . . . Every single deployment is for the
purpose, first and foremost . . . to train special operations forces."

Despite its policy implications, the JCET program has drawn little
discernible attention from senior foreign policy officials in Washington.
White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, whose
National Security Council coordinates diplomatic and military policy for
the president, said in an interview that he was not familiar with the
program's details and asked for time to study the question. Later, an aide
said Berger would not answer questions about the program and referred
inquiries to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

Cohen, a former U.S. senator whose keen interest in special operations
dates back two decades, signs deployment orders for most JCETs. However, he
declined requests for an interview repeated over several weeks. Instead, he
issued a one-paragraph statement through his staff.

"JCETs are the backbone of training for Special Operations Forces,
preparing them to operate throughout the world," Cohen's statement said.
"In those areas where our forces conduct JCETs, they encourage democratic
values and regional stability. In the future, we can expect our forces to
confront threats posed by an increasingly diverse set of actors, placing a
premium on the skills our forces developed in JCETs."

Critics challenge whether the Pentagon is monitoring the program closely
enough to reach that conclusion.

"Due to feckless leadership in the civilian oversight office, we don't have
a handle on how the CINCs spend that [JCET] money," said Timothy Connolly,
a former special operations officer who was the principal deputy in the
Pentagon office supervising special operations from 1993 to 1996, when he
was fired after an unrelated policy dispute. "We have no idea what their
objectives are, what the units involved are. . . . The definition of [the]
training is extremely elastic depending upon the wishes of the
decision-makers."

Quiet Professionals

The JCET program was born at the end of the Cold War, when the United
States suddenly had the opportunity to open new military relationships with
dozens of former Soviet-or non-aligned countries. At the same time, the
central perceived military threat to U.S. security shifted away from a
Soviet-U.S. confrontation to instability and regional ethnic and religious
conflicts.

For military leaders, special operations forces seemed ideal for these new
missions. Heralded as "the point of the spear" in unconventional
warfighting since World War II and throughout the Cold War, special
operations forces, often in partnership with the CIA, had led covert
operations against communist-backed insurgencies in Vietnam, Laos, Latin
America and Africa. During the civil war in El Salvador, advisers from Army
Special Forces played a key role in helping the government beat back a
leftist guerrilla movement.

Special operations forces are designed to operate in small groups for long
periods behind enemy lines, or to live and work amid a foreign population
- -- as they are doing today in Bosnia. They pride themselves as "the quiet
professionals." Rigorous training, proficiency in foreign languages and
political acumen give them a self-sufficiency and versatility in countries
where a larger U.S. presence might create controversy both locally and in
the United States.

In 1987, the military inaugurated an independent command to consolidate
special operations forces -- Army Green Berets, Rangers and the covert
Delta Force; Navy SEALS, Special Boat Units and the covert Team 6; and Air
Force special operations and internal defense squadrons. The move was
sponsored by then-senator Cohen (R-Maine) and his colleague on the Senate
Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who felt these elite warriors
had been neglected.

Just as a civilian secretary is appointed to supervise the Army and the
other service branches, the assistant secretary of defense for Special
Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) is responsible for overseeing
the Tampa-based U.S. Special Operations Command. Devising rules for the new
command, Pentagon lawyers determined that "it was unclear" whether the
command was authorized to spend money to send its troops on overseas
training missions, as the individual regional commanders and the Army and
Navy had done for years.

Their solution was Section 2011, an amendment of Title 10 of the U.S. code,
which lays out the guidelines for decision-making, money-spending and troop
deployment for the military. The amendment gave commanders of special
operations forces the authority to deploy and pay for training of U.S. and
foreign troops if "the primary purpose of the training . . . shall be to
train the special operations forces of the combatant command."

The law also allows the commander to finance part of the foreign country's
participation in the training by buying food, fuel and ammunition during
the exercise. But the overall budget for JCETs remains minuscule by
Pentagon standards -- $15.2 million for fiscal 1997 -- in part because it
excludes transportation, usually the single largest expense.

Section 2011 created a critical loophole. In most cases, the House and
Senate foreign affairs committees preside over how the government spends
money overseas, including foreign aid, arms sales, the deployment of
"mobile training teams" and the training of foreign military officers in
the United States. The committees, which monitor the overall conduct of
U.S. foreign policy in addition to appropriating the money and authorizing
its expenditure, are the sources of restrictions on U.S. aid to many
countries -- restrictions that ban U.S. military cooperation or impose
economic sanctions in response to human rights abuses, support for
terrorism or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

However, to preserve the autonomy of special operations forces, Section
2011 comes under the jurisdiction of the House and Senate defense
committees, where the same restrictions do not apply and expenditures are
authorized through different channels, and where members are traditionally
more sympathetic to Pentagon programs. As a result, regional military
commanders and U.S. ambassadors enjoy wide independence in directing
special forces training missions, including in countries otherwise
subjected to restrictions.

"It was groundbreaking," said James A. Locher III, who helped craft the
legislation as a Senate staff member and later headed the SOLIC office in
the Bush administration. "It has permitted us to go to a lot of different
places, to improve our relationships with a lot of different countries. . .
We had foreseen that special operations forces were going to become
increasingly important because of their skills and the types of threats we
would face, that they would be the forces of choice by the CINCs and
ambassadors."

[continued in part 2]

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)