{"id":3434,"date":"2024-01-26T08:25:13","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T16:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/?p=3434"},"modified":"2024-01-26T08:25:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T16:25:13","slug":"chair-cardin-senator-warren-to-defense-department-stop-providing-u-s-military-assistance-to-azerbaijan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/chair-cardin-senator-warren-to-defense-department-stop-providing-u-s-military-assistance-to-azerbaijan\/","title":{"rendered":"Chair Cardin, Senator Warren to Defense Department: Stop Providing U.S. Military Assistance to Azerbaijan"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 This week,\u00a0U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.),<\/strong>\u00a0Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee<\/strong>, and\u00a0Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)<\/strong>\u00a0sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressing their concern that the Department of Defense (DoD) is providing assistance for human rights abusers and coup governments to participate in U.S. military exercises, while ignoring the requirements of U.S. statute \u2013 the \u201cLeahy Law\u201d \u2013 to ensure military forces receiving such assistance are not themselves human rights abusers.<\/p>\n

Every year, DoD conducts joint military training exercises with foreign government military forces, and frequently provides funding support to those countries to defray the expenses of attending these military exercises. Many of these countries are subject to coup-related assistance restrictions or are gross human rights violators, such as Myanmar, Azerbaijan, and Sudan. DoD does not consider such training exercises, or support to defray expenses of attendance, to be \u201cassistance\u201d under the Leahy Law, when both clearly are U.S. assistance.<\/p>\n

In response to Chair Cardin and Senator Warren\u2019s inquires and engagement,\u00a0DoD has suspended training exercises with a group of select countries flagged by the Senators<\/u><\/strong>, but concerns remain regarding the use of taxpayer funds on other countries sanctioned for coups and human rights violations. Accordingly, Chair Cardin and Senator Warren are calling on DoD to subject statutory Leahy vetting to foreign security force units receiving assistance pursuant to Section 321.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Leahy Law is clear: if the United States provides assistance to foreign countries, recipient military units must be scrutinized for human rights abuses before receiving such assistance,\u201d\u00a0said Chair Cardin.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI am concerned that not only has the Department of Defense invited countries sanctioned for coups against their elected governments and nations with abysmal human rights records, but has also provided U.S. taxpayer dollars and support for them to attend \u2013 all without Leahy vetting. The Leahy Laws exist for a reason; to ensure that U.S. military assistance does not enable or reward human rights abusers. DoD cannot disregard or dismiss this responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTraining operations shouldn\u2019t be used as a backdoor to prop up militaries who wouldn\u2019t pass our human rights vetting,\u201d\u00a0said Senator Warren.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cIt violates the law and our values to fund and support countries with egregious human rights records.\u201d<\/p>\n

As reported exclusively by Abigail Hauslohner of the Washington Post, a Pentagon spokesperson shared that \u201cjoint exercises whose \u2018primary purpose\u2019 is to enhance U.S. forces\u2019 capability \u2018are not considered assistance\u2019 and do not require Leahy vetting. Cardin and Warren state in their letter to Austin that such a view \u2018ignores\u2019 the fact federal funds are underwriting the participation of problematic units in joint exercises, \u2018as well as the obvious benefits to such foreign forces.\u2019 Leahy vetting should apply, they contend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to read Abigail Hauslohner\u2019s Washington Post article.<\/a><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Full text of the letter is available below.<\/p>\n

Dear Secretary Austin:<\/em><\/p>\n

We write to express our concern\u00a0about the participation of\u00a0and U.S. support for\u00a0certain foreign security force units in military exercises with U.S. forces. First, the Department of Defense (DoD) has invited units from several countries with significant human rights and rule of law concerns\u2014some of which are subject to U.S. coup-related sanctions\u2014to participate in U.S. military training\u00a0exercises and thereby receive the benefit of training with U.S. forces. Second,\u00a0DoD\u00a0does not conduct Leahy vetting of such foreign security force units, even when DoD uses U.S. taxpayer dollars to\u00a0enable\u00a0the participation of those units in the exercises.<\/p>\n

As outlined in an annual notification\u00a0to Congress, the U.S. military exercises that occurred\u00a0in FY2023 and are\u00a0planned\u00a0for\u00a0Fiscal Year 2024\u00a0have included countries with egregious human rights records, such as Mali, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Azerbaijan, and\u00a0even\u00a0Myanmar. Further, the Department\u2019s notification states that these countries are considered \u201cparticipating friendly foreign countries\u201d and therefore entitled to thousands of dollars of U.S. assistance under 10 U.S.C \u00a7 321 to assist them with expenses to facilitate their participation in these exercises.<\/p>\n

As you know, when U.S.\u00a0appropriated funds are\u00a0provided to foreign security forces, such assistance triggers a statutory requirement under Title 22 and Title 10 to conduct Leahy vetting, or human rights vetting,\u00a0of such units. Specifically, 10 U.S.C \u00a7 362 includes the following requirement (bold emphasis added):<\/p>\n

(a) In General.\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

(1) Of the amounts made available to the Department of Defense, none may be used for any training, equipment,\u00a0or other assistance<\/strong>\u00a0for a unit of a foreign security force if the Secretary of Defense has credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.<\/em><\/p>\n

(2) The Secretary of Defense shall, in consultation with the Secretary of State, ensure that prior to a decision to provide any training, equipment,\u00a0or other assistance<\/strong>\u00a0to a unit of a foreign security force full consideration is given to any credible information available to the Department of State relating to human rights violations by such unit.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n


\nThe statute clearly prohibits any training or other assistance to a foreign security force unit if there is credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights. However, while DoD acknowledges that Leahy vetting must be conducted for the provision of other U.S.-funded assistance to foreign security force units, such as the capacity-building program authorized by 10 U.S.C \u00a7 333, according to DoD officials, such vetting is not done for foreign security force units participating in U.S. military exercises.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Department of Defense contends that Leahy vetting of foreign security units is not required for military exercises with U.S. forces because it does not involve the provision of training or other assistance to foreign security forces, because they are primarily for the benefit of U.S. personnel. This view ignores that U.S. federal funds are being used to facilitate those units\u2019 participation in these exercises, as well as the obvious benefits\u00a0to such foreign forces.<\/p>\n

We therefore request\u00a0that DoD\u00a0not invite foreign security\u00a0force\u00a0units\u00a0to U.S. military exercises from the aforementioned countries,\u00a0or countries in which the duly elected government has been deposed by coup\u00a0d\u2019etat. We further request that foreign security force units receiving assistance pursuant to Section 321 are subject to Leahy vetting, as required by law.<\/p>\n

We look forward to your response to these requests.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2013 This week,\u00a0U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.),\u00a0Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and\u00a0Senator Elizabeth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation","category-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo.jpg",1200,630,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-250x131.jpg",250,131,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-768x403.jpg",640,336,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-400x210.jpg",400,210,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo.jpg",1200,630,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo.jpg",1200,630,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-1115x630.jpg",1115,630,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-800x500.jpg",800,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-1024x538.jpg",1024,538,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-540x340.jpg",540,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-400x250.jpg",400,250,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo-45x45.jpg",45,45,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"ArmenianCouncil","author_link":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/author\/armeniancouncil\/"},"category_info":"Legislation<\/a> News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/sharelogo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3434"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3437,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions\/3437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}