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More Effort Is Needed to Strengthen and Expand the Proliferation 
Security Initiative' which was released on November 10, 2008.

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Report to Congressional Committees: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

November 2008: 

Nonproliferation: 

U.S. Agencies Have Taken Some Steps, but More Effort Is Needed to 
Strengthen and Expand the Proliferation Security Initiative: 

GAO-09-43: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-09-43, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The President announced the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) in 
2003 to enhance U.S. efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass 
destruction. In a 2006 classified report, GAO recommended that agencies 
establish clear PSI policies and procedures and performance indicators. 
In 2007, Congress enacted a law calling for the administration to 
expand and strengthen PSI and address GAO’s prior recommendations. 

This report assesses (1) the extent to which the administration issued 
a PSI directive and submitted required PSI-related reports to Congress; 
(2) steps U.S. agencies have taken to establish clear PSI policies and 
procedures, structures, budgets, and performance indicators; and (3) 
U.S. agencies’ efforts to increase cooperation and coordination with 
PSI countries and develop a strategy to resolve interdiction issues. 

GAO reviewed and analyzed agency documents and interviewed officials 
from the Departments of State (State), Defense (DOD), and other 
agencies with PSI responsibilities. 

What GAO Found: 

The administration has not issued a PSI directive that directs U.S. 
agencies to take actions to strengthen PSI activities, such as 
establishing clear PSI structures. The administration also has not 
submitted a required budget report to Congress, describing its funding 
for past and future PSI-related activities. Five months after the 
February 2008 mandated issuance date, the administration issued a 
report describing steps agencies have taken to implement the provisions 
called for in the law. However, this report does not fully specify the 
steps taken to implement GAO’s previous recommendations or other 
provisions called for in the law. 

DOD has taken more steps to address the law’s provisions, such as 
establishing clear PSI policies and procedures, than State or law 
enforcement agencies. However, none of the agencies has established 
performance indicators to measure the results of PSI activities. 
Consistent with internal controls, establishing clear PSI policies and 
procedures and indicators to measure results will help the agencies 
better organize their PSI activities. DOD has taken steps to clarify 
its PSI policies and procedures and has established a support office to 
improve DOD’s participation in PSI exercises. However, uncertainties in 
DOD’s policies and procedures remain about how to incorporate law 
enforcement agencies into PSI exercises. Even though PSI activities are 
increasingly focused on law enforcement issues, State and U.S. law 
enforcement agencies do not all have the policies, procedures, or 
budgets that would facilitate their participation in PSI. While State 
and law enforcement agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection 
(CBP), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Coast Guard, have 
some PSI structures in place, only CBP has written PSI guidance 
establishing agency roles and responsibilities; other law enforcement 
agencies have not taken similar steps. 

U.S. agencies have made efforts to increase cooperation and 
coordination with PSI countries through multilateral PSI planning 
meetings, exercises, and other outreach. However, these efforts have 
focused mostly on the 19 other leading PSI countries that attend 
multilateral meetings. U.S. agencies have not built relationships in 
the same way with more than 70 PSI countries not invited to attend the 
multilateral meetings. Agency officials acknowledged that more needs to 
be done to directly engage these countries. In addition, State and DOD 
have not developed a written strategy to resolve interdiction issues, 
as GAO previously recommended. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that (1) relevant law enforcement agencies establish 
clear policies, procedures, and indicators to support PSI activities, 
and (2) DOD and State take steps to increase cooperation and 
coordination between the United States and certain PSI countries. DHS 
and FBI concurred with our first recommendation, and DOD and State 
concurred with our second recommendation. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-43]. For more 
information, contact Joseph A. Christoff at (202) 512-8979 or 
christoffj@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

The Administration Has Not Issued Two of Three PSI Documents Called for 
or Required in Law: 

DOD Has Taken More Steps than Other U.S. Agencies to Address the Law's 
Provisions, but None Has Established Indicators to Measure PSI Results: 

U.S. Agencies Have Made Efforts to Increase Cooperation and 
Coordination with Leading PSI Countries but Less So with Other PSI 
Countries and Have Not Developed a Written Strategy to Resolve 
Interdiction Issues: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Statement of Interdiction Principles: 

Appendix III: Chronology and Location of Multilateral PSI Planning 
Meetings, 2003 to 2008: 

Appendix IV: Bilateral Shipboarding Agreements, 2004 to 2008: 

Appendix V: Countries Supporting PSI: 

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of State: 

GAO Comments: 

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

GAO Comments: 

Appendix VIII: Comments from the Department of Justice: 

Appendix IX: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Figure: 

Figure 1: PSI Exercises from September 2003 through September 2008: 

Abbreviations: 

CARICOM: Caribbean Community: 

CBP: Customs and Border Protection: 

COCOM: Combatant Command: 

CPI: Office of Counter Proliferation Initiatives: 

DHS: Department of Homeland Security: 

DOD: Department of Defense: 

FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation: 

GWOT: Global War on Terror: 

INA: Office of International Affairs: 

ISN: International Security and Nonproliferation: 

OEG: Operational Expert Group: 

OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense: 

PSI: Proliferation Security Initiative: 

WMD: weapons of mass destruction: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548: 

November 10, 2008: 

Congressional Committees: 

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery 
systems, and related materials poses a serious threat to the peace, 
security, and stability of the global community. The threat of WMD 
proliferation was underscored in 2002 when the United States and its 
allies encountered difficulties in seizing a shipment of North Korean 
missiles bound for Yemen. In December 2002, the U.S. administration 
released its "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction," 
which called for a comprehensive approach to countering such threats. 
The President subsequently announced the Proliferation Security 
Initiative (PSI) in May 2003. According to the Department of State 
(State), PSI aims to enhance and expand our efforts to prevent the flow 
of WMD, their delivery systems, and related materials on the ground, in 
the air, and at sea, to and from states and nonstate actors of 
proliferation concern. 

In September 2006, we issued a classified report on the PSI.[Footnote 
1] The report found that U.S. agencies did not have the policies and 
procedures in place to plan and manage their PSI activities or 
performance indicators required to measure the results of PSI 
activities. Accordingly, we recommended that the Secretaries of Defense 
and State better organize their efforts for performing PSI activities, 
including establishing clear PSI policies and procedures and indicators 
to measure the results of PSI activities. In addition, we recommended 
that the two departments develop a strategy to work with PSI- 
participating countries to resolve interdiction issues.[Footnote 2] 

In August 2007, Congress passed the Implementing Recommendations of the 
9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (here and after, "the law"), which 
specified that the President and relevant agencies and departments take 
a variety of actions to expand and strengthen PSI, including 
implementing our recommendations.[Footnote 3] Under a sense of Congress 
provision of the law, the President is called upon to issue a directive 
to U.S. agencies to take actions to expand and strengthen PSI. The law 
calls upon U.S. agencies to take specific actions, namely to establish 
clear PSI policies and procedures, structures, funding, and performance 
indicators to measure the results of PSI activities; increase 
cooperation and coordination with PSI countries; and develop a strategy 
to resolve interdiction issues. The law required the President to 
submit a PSI implementation report by February 2008 to relevant 
congressional committees. State and DOD are required to submit a 
comprehensive joint budget report to Congress for each fiscal year 
describing U.S. funding and other resources for PSI-related activities. 
Finally, Congress required GAO to assess and report on the 
effectiveness of PSI, including the progress made in implementing the 
provisions of the law. 

Based on these provisions, we examined the actions that the 
administration and relevant U.S. agencies have taken to expand and 
strengthen PSI. Specifically, this report assesses the (1) extent to 
which the administration issued a PSI directive and submitted to 
Congress the required PSI-related reports; (2) steps U.S. agencies have 
taken to establish clear PSI policies and procedures, structures, 
budgets, and performance indicators; and (3) efforts U.S. agencies have 
made to increase cooperation and coordination with PSI countries and 
develop a strategy to resolve interdiction issues. 

To address these objectives, we reviewed and analyzed U.S. agency 
management reports, cables, and other documents. We interviewed 
officials from the Departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security, 
Justice, and other agencies with PSI responsibilities, including 
officials and military personnel at five Combatant Commands: (1) 
Central Command, (2) European Command, (3) Africa Command, (4) Southern 
Command, and (5) Strategic Command's Center for Combating WMD. We also 
conducted structured interviews with U.S. agency officials and military 
personnel who have attended multilateral PSI planning meetings of WMD 
proliferation experts. At these multilateral meetings--referred to as 
Operational Expert Group meetings--experts from the United States and 
19 other leading PSI countries consider ways to enhance the WMD 
interdiction capabilities of PSI participants, plan PSI exercises, and 
build support for the initiative.[Footnote 4] Appendix I provides more 
details on our objectives, scope, and methodology. 

We conducted this performance audit from November 2007 to November 
2008, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit 
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for 
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Results in Brief: 

The administration has not issued a directive for PSI called for in the 
law or submitted the PSI budget report required by the law; however, it 
has submitted to Congress the required PSI implementation report. 
First, the administration has not issued a directive directing U.S. 
agencies to take actions, such as establishing clear PSI structures. In 
its implementation report to Congress in July 2008,[Footnote 5] the 
administration stated it is unnecessary to issue a directive for PSI 
because it believes that an existing WMD interdiction process, 
documented in an 8-page 2002 National Security Presidential Directive, 
already addresses the relevant issues that would be covered under a PSI 
directive. However, this process predates the creation of PSI and does 
not cover U.S. agencies' involvement in three broad PSI activities: 
multilateral planning meetings, exercises, and other outreach efforts. 
Second, the administration has not submitted the joint budget report to 
Congress that was to be prepared by the Secretaries of State and 
Defense and was due in February 2008. The budget report must describe 
the administration's funding and other resources for PSI-related 
activities over a specified period of time. Third, the administration 
has issued an implementation report, required by the law, to describe 
the steps agencies have taken to implement the provisions of the law. 
However, this report was issued in July 2008, rather than February 
2008, and does not fully specify the steps taken to implement GAO's 
previous recommendations or other provisions of the law.Our assessment 
of U.S. agencies' performance in implementing the provisions of the law 
shows that the agencies have taken some steps, but more effort is 
needed to strengthen and expand U.S. PSI activities. 

DOD has taken more steps to address some of the law's provisions, such 
as establishing clear PSI policies and procedures, than State or law 
enforcement agencies; however, none of the agencies has established 
performance indicators to measure the results of PSI activities. 
Consistent with internal controls, establishing clear PSI policies and 
procedures and indicators to measure results will help the agencies 
better organize their PSI activities. DOD has taken some steps to 
establish PSI policies and procedures, but uncertainties remain about 
incorporating law enforcement agencies into PSI exercises. DOD has 
established some structures to implement its PSI policies, such as a 
PSI support office designed to improve DOD's participation in PSI 
exercises and an informal interagency working group that sets 
priorities for U.S. agencies' involvement in multilateral PSI planning 
meetings. DOD established an $800,000 annual budget (starting fiscal 
year 2008) to offset the costs of adding a PSI component into existing 
DOD exercises, but DOD staff responsible for arranging PSI exercises 
stated that this budget is inadequate to support stand-alone PSI 
exercises or large exercise planning conferences. State and U.S. law 
enforcement agencies do not all have the policies, procedures, or 
budgets in place to facilitate their participation in PSI activities, 
even though PSI activities are increasingly focused on law enforcement 
issues. Although State has an existing structure, it has not 
established written policies and procedures or a budget to facilitate 
its participation in PSI activities. While relevant law enforcement 
agencies such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Coast Guard have some basic 
structures in place, only CBP has written PSI guidance establishing 
agency roles and responsibilities; other law enforcement agencies have 
not taken similar steps. None has established PSI funding lines in its 
annual budgets. Although CBP and FBI officials stated that they have 
small travel budgets for fiscal year 2008 to facilitate participation 
in PSI activities, these officials stated that additional funding may 
be needed to support important PSI activities, such as hosting PSI 
exercises, training, or workshops.[Footnote 6] Furthermore, U.S. 
agencies have not established performance indicators to measure the 
results of PSI activities. 

U.S. agencies have made efforts to increase cooperation and 
coordination through multilateral PSI planning meetings, exercises, and 
other outreach with the 19 other leading PSI countries that attend the 
multilateral meetings. However, U.S. agencies have not built 
relationships in the same way with their counterparts from the more 
than 70 PSI countries not invited to attend the meetings and have not 
developed a written strategy to resolve interdiction issues, as we 
recommended in 2006.[Footnote 7] First, U.S. agencies have primarily 
focused on the 19 other leading PSI countries that attend multilateral 
PSI planning meetings to consider ways to improve WMD interdiction 
capabilities and plan PSI exercises. Agency officials stated that the 
United States has used these multilateral meetings, and related 
bilateral meetings, to build relationships with their foreign 
counterparts. However, U.S. agencies have not built relationships in 
the same way with their counterparts from the more than 70 PSI 
countries that are not invited to the meetings. Second, U.S. agencies 
have made efforts to increase cooperation and coordination with PSI 
countries through exercises, but these exercises do not always involve 
countries from among the more than 70 PSI countries that are not 
invited to attend the multilateral meetings. The 20 PSI leading 
countries have established a schedule of PSI exercises to practice and 
enhance collective capabilities to interdict suspected WMD cargoes 
shipped by sea, air, and land. From September 2003 through September 
2008, 21 countries have led 36 PSI exercises. However, only 6 of the 36 
exercises were hosted or cohosted by countries from among the more than 
70 PSI countries who are not invited to attend the multilateral 
meetings. Third, U.S. agencies have undertaken other outreach 
activities to increase cooperation and coordination with PSI countries. 
For example, State sponsored a fifth anniversary conference for PSI 
countries in May 2008 and is continuing to seek PSI shipboarding 
arrangements with other countries. Also, the FBI sponsored a workshop 
in 2006 to train law enforcement officials from PSI countries to 
identify WMD items. However, only representatives from the 19 other 
leading PSI countries were invited to attend the workshop. Agency 
officials acknowledged that more needs to be done to directly engage 
the more than 70 countries that are not invited to attend the 
multilateral meetings. Finally, State and DOD have not developed a 
written strategy to resolve interdiction issues, as GAO previously 
recommended. Agency officials stated that the involvement of the U.S. 
delegation at the multilateral meetings is part of an attempt to 
resolve these issues. 

This report makes two recommendations. First, we recommend that 
relevant law enforcement agencies, such as CBP and Coast Guard (both 
within the Department of Homeland Security [DHS]) and FBI establish 
clear PSI policies, procedures, and performance indicators to support 
PSI activities. Second, we recommend that DOD in cooperation with State 
increase cooperation, coordination, and information exchange between 
the United States and the more than 70 PSI countries who are not 
invited to attend multilateral PSI planning meetings. 

We received written comments on a draft of this report from State, DOD, 
and FBI within the Department of Justice (Justice) that are reprinted 
in appendixes VI, VII, and VIII; we also received e-mail comments from 
DHS. DHS and FBI concurred with our first recommendation and State and 
DOD concurred with our second recommendation. 

DHS concurred with our first recommendation and provided a Planned 
Corrective Action for CBP that CBP will update its PSI directive and 
implementation plan, including adding appropriate performance 
indicators and milestones. FBI also concurred with our first 
recommendation and described some steps being taken to mitigate the 
issues. 

DOD concurred with our second recommendation and stated that it has 
already taken several steps to implement it. State also concurred with 
our second recommendation, recognizing the need to deepen the 
involvement and knowledge of all PSI endorsing countries and stating 
that it is undertaking new efforts to address this need. State said 
that foremost among future plans of the leading PSI countries that 
attend the multilateral meetings is to focus on regional PSI activities 
and outreach workshops to increase the participation of those PSI 
countries who are not invited to attend the multilateral meetings. 

We also received technical comments from State and DHS, which we have 
incorporated throughout the report where appropriate. 

Background: 

PSI is a multinational effort to prevent the trafficking of WMD, their 
delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and nonstate 
actors of proliferation concern. The PSI has no formal organization or 
bureaucracy. U.S. agencies are involved in the PSI as a set of 
activities, rather than a program. PSI encourages partnership among 
states to work together to develop a broad range of legal, diplomatic, 
economic, military, law enforcement, and other capabilities to prevent 
WMD-related transfers to states and nonstate actors of proliferation 
concern. International participation is voluntary, and there are no 
binding treaties on those who choose to participate. Countries 
supporting PSI are expected to endorse PSI principles, embodied in six 
broad goals in the Statement of Interdiction Principles of September 
2003 (see app. II) by a voluntary, nonbinding "political" commitment to 
those principles and to voluntarily participate in PSI activities 
according to their own capabilities. According to the principles, PSI 
participants use existing national and international authorities to put 
an end to WMD-related trafficking and take steps to strengthen those 
authorities, as necessary. 

The U.S. government's PSI efforts involve three broad activities: 
multilateral PSI planning meetings (referred to as Operational Expert 
Group meetings), participation in PSI exercises, and other outreach 
efforts such as workshops and conferences.[Footnote 8] According to 
State, at multilateral PSI planning meetings, military, law 
enforcement, intelligence, legal, and diplomatic experts from the 
United States and 19 other PSI countries meet to explore and consider 
operational ways to enhance the WMD interdiction capabilities of PSI 
participants, build support for the initiative, develop operational 
concepts, organize PSI exercises, and share information about national 
legal authorities. The policy office in the Office of the Secretary of 
Defense heads the U.S. delegation to these multilateral meetings. 

PSI exercises vary in size and complexity, and some involve military 
personnel and assets from participating PSI countries. Some exercises 
do not involve any military assets but instead examine the use of law 
enforcement or customs authorities to stop WMD proliferation. Other 
exercises are "tabletop" exercises or simulations, which explore 
scenarios and determine solutions for hypothetical land, air, or sea 
interdictions. Among the most visible PSI exercises are those that 
combine a tabletop and a live interdiction exercise using military 
assets from multiple PSI countries, such as practicing the tracking and 
boarding of a target ship. Outreach efforts include workshops, 
conferences, and other meetings that relevant U.S. officials said they 
engage in to support PSI goals and bilateral PSI shipboarding 
agreements that the United States concludes with other states. 

The Administration Has Not Issued Two of Three PSI Documents Called for 
or Required in Law: 

The administration has not issued the directive, as called for by a 
sense of Congress provision in the law, that directs U.S. agencies to 
take actions to improve PSI activities, such as establishing clear 
structures. In addition, the administration has not submitted a PSI 
budget report for fiscal year 2009 detailing PSI-related expenditures 
in the past 3 fiscal years and a plan for the next 3 years. In July 
2008, the administration submitted to Congress a PSI implementation 
report that was required by law to be issued in February 2008. 

The Administration Has Not Issued a Directive Directing U.S. Agencies 
to Take Actions Specified in Law to Expand and Strengthen PSI: 

The administration has not issued a directive to U.S. agencies that 
perform PSI functions to take actions to expand and strengthen PSI, as 
called for by a sense of Congress provision in the Implementing 
Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.[Footnote 9] 
Multiple U.S. agencies, including State, DOD, and law enforcement 
agencies such as CBP and FBI, perform PSI-related activities for the 
United States. Section 1821(a) of Pub. L. No. 110-53 contains a sense 
of Congress that a presidential directive should be issued to direct 
these agencies to take actions such as establishing clear PSI 
structures, incorporating a PSI budget request in each agency's fiscal 
year budget request, and providing other resources necessary to achieve 
better performance of U.S. PSI-related activities. 

The administration, in its implementation report to Congress in July 
2008, asserted that it is unnecessary to issue a directive for PSI. The 
administration believes that an existing WMD interdiction process, as 
documented in an 8-page 2002 National Security Presidential Directive, 
addresses the relevant issues that would be covered under a PSI 
directive. The existing WMD interdiction process covers how U.S. 
agencies should coordinate U.S. government efforts to conduct WMD 
interdictions. However, this process predates the creation of PSI and 
does not cover U.S. agencies' involvement in three broad PSI 
activities: multilateral planning meetings, exercises, and other 
outreach efforts. According to the administration, the President 
launched PSI in 2003 because of the recognition that stopping WMD 
proliferation is a task the United States cannot accomplish by itself. 
U.S. involvement in PSI activities, while complementing U.S. agencies' 
participation in WMD interdictions, is focused on the diplomatic and 
educational outreach efforts of the U.S. government to other countries 
to strengthen their interdiction capabilities and efforts. 

The Administration Has Not Submitted a PSI Joint Budget Report to 
Congress for 2008: 

The administration has not submitted a PSI joint budget report for 
fiscal year 2009, as required by the law.[Footnote 10] Specifically, 
the law required the Secretaries of State and Defense to submit an 
unclassified comprehensive joint budget report to Congress in each year 
for which the President submits a PSI budget request, with the first 
report due in February 2008. The joint budget report should contain the 
following: 

* A 3-year plan, beginning with the fiscal year for which the budget is 
requested, specifying the amount of funding and other resources the 
United States would provide for PSI-related activities and the purposes 
for such funding and resources over the term of the plan. 

* For the 2008 report, a description of the PSI-related activities 
carried out during the 3 fiscal years preceding the year of the report, 
and for 2009 and each year thereafter, a description of PSI-related 
activities carried out during the fiscal year preceding the year of the 
report. 

* Other information that the Secretaries of State and Defense determine 
should be included to keep Congress fully informed of PSI operations 
and activities. 

Agency officials stated that they were in the process of preparing the 
budget report, but they did not provide an estimated completion date. 

The Administration Issued a PSI Implementation Report to Congress, but 
It Was Late and Does Not Fully Specify Steps Taken to Implement 
Provisions of the Law: 

The administration issued a required PSI implementation report to 
Congress in July 2008, 5 months after the mandated issuance date of 
February 2008.[Footnote 11] In addition, the report does not fully 
specify the steps taken to implement GAO's previous recommendations or 
other provisions of the law.[Footnote 12] The law required the 
administration to issue an implementation report to Congress describing 
the steps it had taken to implement the recommendations contained in 
our classified September 2006 report and the progress it has made 
toward implementing the other actions contained in the sense of 
Congress provisions of the law.[Footnote 13] 

In our September 2006 report, we made two recommendations. First, we 
recommended that the administration better organize its efforts for 
performing PSI activities, including establishing clear PSI policies 
and procedures and indicators to measure the results of PSI activities. 
Second, we recommended that the administration develop a strategy to 
work with PSI-participating countries to resolve interdiction issues. 
The agencies did not concur with our recommendations. Their reasons are 
discussed in our classified report. The administration's 2008 
implementation report reiterates the agencies' nonconcurrence with our 
prior recommendations. While the implementation report primarily 
described the administration's activities with the 19 other leading 
countries that attend the multilateral PSI planning meetings, it did 
not specify the steps taken to develop a comprehensive strategy for 
resolving interdiction issues with PSI-participating countries. 
[Footnote 14] 

Also, under a sense of Congress provision in the law, the 
administration is called upon to issue a PSI directive, increase 
cooperation with all countries, and increase coordination and 
cooperation with PSI-participating countries. The implementation report 
did not fully specify the steps taken to implement these other 
provisions of the law. The report stated that the administration did 
not consider it necessary to issue a PSI directive because it believes 
that an existing WMD interdiction process already addresses the 
relevant issues. However, this existing WMD interdiction process is not 
responsive to the provisions of the Implementing Recommendations of the 
9/11 Commission Act of 2007. As previously noted, it predates the 
creation of PSI and does not cover U.S. agencies' involvement in three 
broad PSI activities: multilateral planning meetings, exercises, and 
other outreach efforts. 

DOD Has Taken More Steps than Other U.S. Agencies to Address the Law's 
Provisions, but None Has Established Indicators to Measure PSI Results: 

DOD has taken more steps to address some of the law's provisions, such 
as establishing clearer PSI policies and procedures, structures, and 
budgets, compared with other agencies such as State and law enforcement 
agencies. State and U.S. law enforcement agencies do not all have the 
policies, procedures, or budgets in place to facilitate their 
participation in PSI activities, despite the need for greater 
involvement of U.S. law enforcement agencies to address PSI law 
enforcement issues. Furthermore, U.S. agencies have not established 
performance indicators to measure the results of PSI activities. 

DOD Has Taken Some Steps to Clarify PSI Policies and Procedures for PSI 
Activities, but Uncertainties Remain: 

DOD has taken some steps to establish PSI policies and procedures for 
U.S. military support to PSI, specifically by encouraging Combatant 
Commands (COCOM) to incorporate PSI components into existing DOD 
exercises when resources or mission requirements permit. However, 
uncertainties remain about how to incorporate law enforcement agencies 
into PSI exercises and track PSI expenditures. Consistent with internal 
controls, establishing clear PSI policies and procedures will help the 
agencies better organize their PSI activities. COCOMs generally plan, 
implement, and pay for military exercises in their area of 
responsibility. According to agency officials, in the past, DOD Joint 
Staff encouraged the COCOMs to implement PSI exercises in addition to 
their scheduled standard DOD exercise program. As a result, financial 
and logistical pressures of planning and implementing PSI exercises 
outside their standard exercise program discouraged COCOM participation 
in PSI exercises. In March 2007, DOD Joint Staff revised its guidance 
to direct COCOMs to leverage the staff, assets, and resources of the 
existing DOD exercise program in support of PSI exercises. Joint Staff 
guidance is the primary document setting forth PSI policy and provides 
procedures, including roles and responsibilities, for the planning and 
execution of U.S. military support to PSI. The guidance encourages 
COCOMs to put a PSI component into existing DOD exercises and 
establishes a small office that will assist COCOMs in planning and 
executing a PSI component.[Footnote 15] 

According to agency officials, COCOMs generally plan to include PSI 
components, such as PSI-focused interdictions and boardings, into their 
existing multinational exercises that regularly practice these 
activities and intend to increase the complexity of PSI components in 
the future. For example, since 2006, Southern Command has included a 
PSI component in its multinational military exercise designed to defend 
the Panama Canal against a terrorist-based threat. Agency officials 
stated that there is no significant cost for including an additional 
PSI interdiction scenario. This strategy helps to relieve COCOMs from 
developing and paying for a stand-alone PSI exercise with their 
operational funds and, therefore, allows COCOMs to exercise PSI 
objectives more frequently.[Footnote 16] 

However, placing a PSI component in a strictly military exercise does 
not allow COCOMs to exercise law enforcement issues and interagency 
coordination. To address these issues, COCOMs can plan stand-alone PSI 
exercises and computer-based or gaming exercises. In one case, a COCOM 
is planning a stand-alone PSI exercise that will address law 
enforcement issues, such as seizure and disposal of cargo, and 
interagency participation. DOD officials stated that it also plans to 
examine these and other law enforcement concerns in greater detail 
through gaming and simulation exercises. In February 2008, DOD 
conducted such a simulation using a U.S. shipboarding agreement with 
Malta. In June 2007, DOD sponsored a PSI game at the Naval War College 
to test national interagency processes to interdict WMD-related 
materials and to address post-interdiction issues, such as disposition 
of seized cargo and prosecution of proliferators.[Footnote 17] 

Although COCOM officials generally report having clear roles and 
responsibilities in incorporating PSI components, they lack guidance on 
how to incorporate law enforcement issues into military exercises and 
track PSI expenditures. The revised Joint Staff guidance does not 
clearly address some areas of COCOM responsibility. For example, to 
facilitate interagency involvement, the revised Joint Staff guidance 
encourages COCOMs to include law enforcement agencies in exercise 
planning, but the guidance does not provide specifics on how to liaise 
with law enforcement agencies. Some COCOM officials stated that they 
need clear guidance on how to exercise the disposition of cargo and 
other law enforcement issues. Direct coordination with either domestic 
or foreign law enforcement agencies is outside of normal COCOM military 
function. In one case, a PSI exercise was hosted by foreign law 
enforcement agencies, but a DOD official stated that they did not have 
clear guidance on how to coordinate U.S. military participation with 
U.S. and foreign law enforcement agencies. Also, Joint Staff guidance 
calls upon COCOMs to track PSI expenditures, personnel, and military 
assets used in support of PSI activities. However, some COCOM officials 
stated that they typically do not track these types of expenditures, 
except for PSI-related travel costs for COCOM staff. For example, while 
COCOMs may submit to Joint Staff the costs for travel to exercise 
planning conferences or a PSI exercise site, as well as travel cost 
estimates for future activities, they typically do not submit other 
costs expended on PSI stand-alone exercises or PSI components of 
existing DOD exercises. 

DOD Has Established Some PSI Structures and Budget: 

DOD has structures in place at the Office of the Secretary of Defense 
(OSD), the Joint Staff, and the COCOMs to coordinate its involvement in 
PSI activities. Within OSD, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 
for Counternarcotics, Counterproliferation, and Global Threats leads 
the U.S. interagency delegation to multilateral PSI planning meetings 
and coordinates with Joint Staff on U.S. participation in PSI-related 
live and tabletop exercises. Joint Staff assists with exercise planning 
and provides COCOMs with policies and procedures to direct their 
participation in PSI activities. Joint Staff also can provide COCOMs 
with information gathered at multilateral PSI planning meetings to keep 
them informed on PSI-related developments. COCOMs plan, implement, and 
participate in PSI stand-alone exercises or existing DOD exercises with 
PSI components based on their mission priorities and available 
resources. 

DOD also has established an office to further support COCOM involvement 
in PSI exercises and produce guidance on how to achieve this goal. The 
March 2007 Joint Staff guidance directed Strategic Command to develop a 
"PSI Support Cell" that educates COCOMs regarding the process of 
putting a PSI component into an existing DOD exercise and helps develop 
exercise scenarios that meet objectives developed at multilateral PSI 
planning meetings. COCOM officials reported that they have collaborated 
with the cell to incorporate PSI components into two existing DOD 
exercises and, in one case, it improved the exercise's sophistication. 
COCOM officials also reported that they use the cell's secure Web 
portal, which integrates information for planning and implementing PSI 
exercises, such as scenarios and lessons learned from previous PSI 
exercises. The PSI support cell is drafting an exercise planning 
handbook that will detail guidelines and best practices for use by 
COCOMS in designing and conducting multilateral PSI exercises. DOD also 
has created public affairs guidance to publicize exercises and other 
PSI activities in U.S. and international media. 

OSD established an interagency working group that sets priorities for 
U.S. agencies involved in multilateral PSI planning meetings. This 
interagency working group leverages capabilities and resources of U.S. 
agencies participating in PSI activities. Through this working group, 
OSD provides input to the host of the multilateral meeting on the 
agenda and determines which agencies will participate in the U.S. 
delegation. Before the multilateral PSI planning meeting, OSD ensures 
that the U.S. delegation coordinates and cooperates to reach a 
consensus on PSI-related issues and resolves any disagreements. OSD 
requests relevant U.S. agencies to submit briefings on agenda topics 
and circulates them to staff involved in PSI to receive feedback before 
clearing them for presentation at the multilateral meeting. After the 
multilateral meeting, OSD also oversees the process of delegating tasks 
to relevant U.S. agencies and keeps track of their progress. Agency 
officials reported that this informal interagency working group is 
valuable because it is a regular channel for exchanging information 
about PSI and setting priorities identified at multinational PSI 
planning meetings among all U.S. agencies that support PSI activities. 

DOD has established an annual budget to offset COCOM costs of adding a 
PSI component into existing DOD exercises and other PSI-related 
expenses. However, COCOM staff responsible for arranging PSI exercises 
stated that this funding level is inadequate to support stand-alone PSI 
exercises. DOD has created an $800,000 annual budget (starting fiscal 
year 2008) that can be used by COCOMs for variety of PSI-related 
activities, including upgrades to equipment used in interdictions and 
to engage subject matter experts. Some COCOMs stated that this funding 
helped them to attend multilateral PSI planning meetings, exercise 
planning conferences, and other PSI events. These funds are not 
available, however, to other U.S. agencies to host PSI events, such as 
PSI workshops or other outreach events, or to cover any foreign 
country's costs to participate in PSI activities. Some COCOM officials 
responsible for arranging PSI exercises stated that the $800,000, which 
DOD has established out of operations and maintenance funds, is 
sufficient to fund less-expensive PSI activities, such as adding PSI 
components into existing DOD exercises, hosting computer-simulated 
games or tabletop exercises. However, this funding is inadequate to 
cover the costs of stand-alone PSI exercises or large exercise planning 
conferences, according to these officials. For example, one COCOM 
reported that it will need to request additional funds from DOD or find 
additional operational funds to host a stand-alone PSI exercise in the 
next 2 years. Otherwise, the COCOM will have to reduce the scope of the 
exercise. 

State Has an Existing Structure but Does Not Have Policies, Procedures, 
or a Budget in Place for PSI Activities: 

Although State has an existing structure, it has not established 
written policies and procedures or developed a budget to facilitate its 
participation in PSI activities. State placed responsibility for PSI in 
the Office of Counter Proliferation Initiatives (CPI) within the bureau 
of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN).[Footnote 18] CPI 
handles a number of WMD and related issues, in addition to PSI, and is 
primarily involved in PSI's diplomatic outreach. Besides a mission 
statement that describes roles of CPI's PSI activities, State has not 
created policies or procedures, consistent with internal controls, 
regarding PSI-related activities. Also, State has not established a 
separate funding line for PSI in its annual budget but uses operational 
funds to travel to PSI activities. State stated that its operating 
funds are sufficient for its officials' involvement in PSI activities, 
and it will continue to evaluate any funding requests for PSI in 
accordance with established department budget procedures. 

Law Enforcement Agencies Have Existing Structures, but Not All Agencies 
Have Policies, Procedures, or Budgets in Place for PSI Activities: 

Although relevant law enforcement agencies such as CBP, FBI, and Coast 
Guard have some basic structures in place, only CBP has written 
policies and procedures, and none has established PSI funding lines in 
their annual budgets to facilitate participation in PSI activities. 
CBP's Office of International Affairs (INA) has the programmatic lead 
for the agency's contributions to PSI. Several personnel from other CBP 
offices coordinate on legal, intelligence, and operational issues to 
facilitate support of PSI activities. CBP has issued a PSI directive 
specifying roles and responsibilities of INA and related program 
offices. CBP also created an implementation plan that establishes the 
agency's leadership role among law enforcement agencies in PSI and 
specifies strategies to achieve this and other PSI-related goals, 
including participating in PSI exercises and hosting trainings and 
workshops. CBP has a limited budget, used mostly for travel to PSI 
multilateral meetings from existing agency operational funds, but 
budget constraints could limit the extent of CBP's participation in PSI 
activities. According to agency officials, CBP's internal budget for 
travel to multilateral PSI planning meetings and exercises was cut from 
about $100,000 in fiscal year 2007 to about $50,000 in fiscal year 
2008. CBP officials stated that additional funds may be needed to host 
exercises or workshops, or aid CBP's outreach to industry, as stated in 
the goals of its implementation plan. 

FBI has delegated its PSI responsibility to the Counter Proliferation 
Operations Unit within the WMD directorate and has one staff member 
dedicated part-time to PSI activities. However, this unit has not 
created policies and procedures for PSI-related activities. Coast Guard 
participates in multilateral PSI meetings and exercises through its 
Office of Law Enforcement, Operations Law Division, and Office of 
Counterterrorism and Defense Operations. The Office of Law Enforcement 
and the Operations Law Division also work with State to arrange 
bilateral PSI shipboarding agreements to conduct interdictions at sea. 
However, the Coast Guard also has not established policies and 
procedures to guide its involvement in PSI activities. 

The FBI has budgeted $40,000 to support staff travel costs to PSI 
meetings and exercises for fiscal year 2008 but has generally been 
funding PSI workshops and training exercises on an ad hoc basis. Agency 
officials stated that additional funding would be needed to host 
exercises or workshops. Also, the FBI made a special request for a 
fiscal year 2008 Global War on Terror (GWOT) grant of about $700,000 to 
fund training for some PSI countries on how to enhance their national 
interagency decision-making processes and WMD interdiction 
capabilities. However, FBI officials noted that this type of grant will 
probably not be available for PSI activities next fiscal year. The 
Coast Guard has not established a PSI funding line and uses operational 
funds to travel to PSI activities. 

PSI exercises, multilateral PSI planning meetings, and workshops are 
increasingly focused on law enforcement issues, including customs 
enforcement, and legal authorities to detain and dispose of cargo. 
Agency officials said that law enforcement agencies are key 
participants in PSI activities since shipboardings and cargo 
inspections are conducted by those agencies. For example, CBP and Coast 
Guard assisted New Zealand with developing a PSI exercise hosted by New 
Zealand in September 2008. According to agency officials, this was the 
first live PSI exercise mostly focused on law enforcement issues. 
Agency officials stated that law enforcement agencies of other 
countries, instead of their militaries, are increasingly participating 
in PSI exercises. According to agency officials, it can be challenging 
to find countries willing to exercise PSI law enforcement issues with 
the U.S. military in an existing DOD exercise. Constitutions or 
political considerations of some countries preclude their military's 
involvement in exercises with a law enforcement component. For example, 
one COCOM planned to add a PSI component into an existing DOD military 
exercise, but the foreign country participants refused to allow such a 
component to be added. According to COCOM officials, the foreign 
country participants said a PSI component should be part of a law 
enforcement exercise with law enforcement agencies; these countries' 
military and law enforcement agencies can not exercise together. 

U.S. Agencies Have Not Established Performance Indicators to Measure 
the Results of PSI Activities: 

While the COCOMs assess the extent to which they meet the goals of 
their mission to combat WMD, they do not make the same kind of 
assessments for PSI activities. None of the agencies participating in 
PSI activities has established performance indicators to measure the 
results of their activities. GAO previously recommended in its 2006 
report that DOD and State develop performance indicators to measure PSI 
results. A good internal control environment calls for agencies to 
create the means to monitor and evaluate their efforts to enable them 
to identify areas needing improvement. Further, a good internal control 
environment requires assessing both ongoing activities and separate 
evaluations of completed activities and should assess quality of 
performance over time.[Footnote 19] Without establishing and monitoring 
performance indicators, it will be difficult for policymakers to 
objectively assess the relevant U.S. agencies' contributions to PSI 
activities over time. State officials stated that they measure PSI 
progress by the number of endorsing PSI countries, the number and 
complexity of PSI exercises around the world, and the number of PSI 
shipboarding agreements. However, it is difficult to attribute these 
high-level outcomes to the PSI activities of U.S. agencies because 
these outcomes are dependent on the actions of other governments as 
well. CBP officials stated that the agency has designed a PSI 
Implementation Plan to use when participating in PSI. The plan 
established expected goals and targets related to each goal. Although 
the plan indicates which goals have been completed and which are 
ongoing, the document has not been updated since June 2006. In 
addition, CBP has not established performance indicators for its 
involvement in PSI activities. 

U.S. Agencies Have Made Efforts to Increase Cooperation and 
Coordination with Leading PSI Countries but Less So with Other PSI 
Countries and Have Not Developed a Written Strategy to Resolve 
Interdiction Issues: 

U.S. agencies have made efforts to increase cooperation and 
coordination with PSI countries by working with the 19 other leading 
PSI countries at multilateral PSI planning meetings; however, U.S. 
agencies have not built relationships in the same way with their 
counterparts from the more than 70 PSI countries who are not invited to 
these meetings. U.S. agencies also have made efforts to increase 
cooperation and coordination with PSI countries through exercises and 
other outreach activities, but the more than 70 PSI countries who are 
not invited to attend multilateral meetings are not often involved. 
State and DOD have not developed a written strategy to resolve 
interdiction issues, as we previously recommended. Agency officials 
stated that the involvement of the U.S. delegation at the multilateral 
meetings is part of an attempt to resolve these issues. 

U.S. Agencies Have Made Efforts to Increase Cooperation and 
Coordination with 19 Leading PSI Countries through Multilateral 
Meetings but Less So with More than 70 Other PSI Countries: 

U.S. agencies have made efforts to increase cooperation and 
coordination with PSI countries by working with the 19 other leading 
PSI countries at multilateral PSI planning meetings; however, U.S. 
agencies have not built and expanded relationships in the same way with 
their counterparts from the more than 70 PSI countries who are not 
invited to attend these meetings.[Footnote 20] According to DOD, 
multilateral PSI planning meetings are to be held three to four times 
annually as delegations from 20 leading PSI countries (including the 
United States) meet to consider ways to enhance the WMD interdiction 
capabilities of PSI participants.[Footnote 21] At the meetings, the 
delegations also consider ways to build support for PSI, share ideas to 
strengthen legal authorities to interdict, and discuss hosting and 
participating in PSI exercises. Each of the 20 leading PSI countries 
sends a delegation to the multilateral PSI planning meetings; the 
Office of the Secretary of Defense heads the U.S. delegation to these 
multilateral meetings. 

According to agency officials, the multilateral PSI planning meetings 
themselves have no compliance mechanisms. However, according to agency 
officials, by actively engaging in bilateral meetings, the U.S. 
delegation is able to reach bilateral agreement with leading PSI 
countries to take certain actions to support PSI, such as hosting a PSI 
exercise. Before or during the multilateral meetings, the U.S. 
delegation often meets with delegations from other leading PSI 
countries bilaterally. Agency officials use bilateral meetings to reach 
agreements with other leading PSI countries to host future multilateral 
PSI planning meetings, participate in PSI exercises, or engage in 
outreach to countries that do not yet endorse or support PSI. Agency 
officials said that the bilateral meetings have been useful in 
increasing U.S. cooperation and coordination with the 19 other leading 
PSI countries. Meeting bilaterally before the multilateral PSI planning 
meetings allows the U.S. delegation to make arrangements with other 
leading PSI countries before the large plenary session of the 
multilateral PSI planning meeting begins. 

Agency officials stated that the plenary session and related breakout 
sessions at multilateral meetings have been useful in increasing 
cooperation and coordination with their counterparts from other leading 
PSI countries. The plenary session is where the heads of the 
delegations from the 20 leading PSI countries meet to discuss current 
PSI issues and explain their countries' perspectives and opinions on 
such issues. Following or concurrent with the plenary session, breakout 
sessions are held for working-level officials to get together and 
discuss exercise, law enforcement, intelligence, or legal issues in 
more detail. 

However, because the multilateral PSI planning meetings only include 
the 20 leading PSI countries (including the United States), U.S. 
agencies have not built and expanded relationships in the same way with 
their counterparts from the more than 70 additional PSI countries who 
are not invited to attend these meetings. Agency officials acknowledged 
that more needs to be done to directly engage these more than 70 
additional PSI countries.[Footnote 22] 

U.S. Agencies Have Made Efforts to Increase Cooperation and 
Coordination with PSI Countries through Exercises, but More Than 70 PSI 
Countries Are Not Always Involved: 

U.S. agencies also have made efforts to increase cooperation and 
coordination with PSI countries through hosting and/or participating in 
PSI exercises, but countries from among the more than 70 PSI countries 
who are not invited to attend multilateral meetings are not always 
involved. While the United States encourages PSI supporting countries 
to participate in PSI exercises, agency officials acknowledged that 
more needs to be done to directly engage the PSI countries who are not 
invited to attend multilateral PSI planning meetings. According to DOD, 
PSI exercises are intended to test national capabilities to conduct 
air, ground, and maritime interdictions; increase understanding of PSI 
among participating countries; and establish interoperability among PSI 
participants. The 20 leading PSI countries have established a schedule 
of PSI exercises to practice and enhance collective capabilities to 
interdict suspected WMD cargoes shipped by sea, air, and land. These 
exercises have also included simulations and scenarios to practice 
country-to-country and interagency communication processes to conduct 
WMD interdictions. 

Twenty-one countries have led 36 PSI exercises from September 2003 
through September 2008. As figure 1 shows, these exercises have 
included sea, land, and air exercises, spanning the different regions 
of the globe, although more of them have been held in Europe and the 
Mediterranean. Also, while the United States has led a number of the 
exercises, the large majority of them have been led by other PSI 
countries, with European countries leading most of these. However, only 
6 of the 36 exercises held from September 2003 to September 2008 were 
hosted or cohosted by countries from among the more than 70 PSI 
countries who are not invited to attend the multilateral PSI planning 
meetings.[Footnote 23] 

Figure 1: PSI Exercises from September 2003 through September 2008: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure is a map of the world depicting the site and date of PSI 
Exercises from September 2003 through September 2008. The following 
information is illustrated (host nations in parenthesis): 

Pacific: 
Sea: 
Sept. 03 -- Pacific Protector (Australia); 
Oct. 04 -- Team Samurai 04 (Japan); 
Aug. 05 -- Deep Sabre (Singapore); 
Oct. 07 -- Pacific Shield 07 (Japan); 
Air: 
Apr. 06 -- Pacific Protector (Australia); 
Combined (sea and land): 
Sept. 08 -- Maru (New Zealand) (proposed). 

Europe: 
Sea: 
Apr. 06 -- Top Port (Netherlands); 
Air: 
June 05 -- Blue Action (Spain); 
June 06 -- Hades (France); 
Apr. 07 -- Smart Raven (Lithuania); 
Land: 
Apr. 04 -- Safe Borders (Poland); 
Mar. 04 -- Hawkeye (Germany); 
June 05 -- Bohemian Guard (Poland, Czech Republic); 
Combined: 
Sept. 06 -- Amber Sunrise sea/land (Poland); 
Oct. 07 -- Eastern Shield 07 sea/air/land (Ukraine). 

Mediterranean: 
Sea: 
Oct. 03 -- Sanso 03 (Spain); 
Nov. 03 -- Basilac (France); 
Apr. 04 -- Clever Sentinel (Italy); 
May 05 -- Ninfa 05 (Portugal); 
Apr. 08 -- Phoenix Express 08 (United States); 
May 08 -- Adriatic Shield 08 (Croatia); 
Air: 
Oct. 03 -- Air CPX Tabletop Exercise (United Kingdom); 
Feb. 04 -- Air Brake 04 (Italy); 
June 04 -- ASPE 2004 (France); 
Land: 
May 07 -- Adriatic Gate (Slovenia); 
Combined (sea, air, and land): 
May 06 -- Anatolian Sun (Turkey). 

PSI Gaming Exercises: 
Sept. 04 -- Sea (United States); 
Oct. 05 -- Sea/air (Norway); 
June 07 -- Sea/air/land (United States). 

Western Hemisphere: 
Sea: 
Nov. 04 -- Chokepoint 04 (United States); 
Aug. 07 -- Panamax 07 (United States); 
Aug. 08 -- Panamax 08 (United States). 

Indian Ocean: 
Sea: 
Jan. 04 -- Sea Saber (United States); 
Nov. 05 -- Exploring Themis (United Kingdom); 
Mar. 08 -- Guistir 08 (Djibouti, France); 
Combined (sea and land): 
Oct. 06 -- Leading Edge (United States). 

Sources: Departments of State, Defense; Map Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

According to agency officials, U.S. agencies have used PSI exercises to 
increase cooperation and coordination with PSI countries and educate 
countries that have not yet endorsed PSI about the initiative. For 
example, DOD officials stated that they used a U.S.-hosted September 
2007 exercise to protect the Panama Canal as a means of increasing 
cooperation and coordination among the 8 PSI countries (including the 
United States) that participated in it. However, of the 8 PSI countries 
who participated, only 3 were from among the more than 70 PSI countries 
who are not invited to attend multilateral meetings.[Footnote 24] 
According to DOD officials, the inclusion of PSI in existing DOD 
exercises also creates opportunities to educate other countries about 
PSI. The September 2007 exercise was an existing DOD exercise, which 
included a PSI component, and involved 9 other countries that have not 
yet endorsed PSI. However, agency officials cautioned against potential 
backlash from "overloading" existing DOD exercises with PSI components. 
For example, foreign countries may choose not to participate in an 
existing DOD exercise if a PSI component appears to overshadow the 
original objectives of the exercise. 

U.S. Agencies Have Undertaken Other Outreach Activities to Increase 
Cooperation and Coordination with PSI Countries: 

U.S. agencies stated that they have engaged in other outreach 
activities to increase cooperation and coordination with PSI countries. 
For example, since we issued our 2006 report, State sponsored a PSI 
fifth anniversary conference in May 2008 attended by 86 PSI countries. 
At this conference, these countries restated their support for PSI and 
the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles.[Footnote 25] State 
officials also stated that their outreach efforts have included 
promoting the PSI when senior State officials meet foreign 
representatives or make high-level country visits. In addition, agency 
officials said the United States and other leading PSI countries 
sometimes engage in ad hoc outreach activities to other PSI countries 
before or after multilateral PSI planning meetings, such as a 1-day 
outreach session with Middle Eastern PSI countries after the February 
2008 multilateral meeting in London, England. 

Also, State is continuing to seek international agreements, such as PSI 
shipboarding agreements, with input from the U.S. Coast Guard. These 
legally binding bilateral agreements, between the United States and 
other countries, facilitate bilateral, reciprocal cooperation by 
establishing the authorities and procedures the parties use to confirm 
and authorize flag state consent to board and search each other's 
vessels suspected of carrying WMD and related materials. Since PSI was 
announced in 2003, the United States has signed a total of nine PSI 
shipboarding agreements, including agreements with Malta, Mongolia, and 
the Bahamas since we issued our report in 2006.[Footnote 26] In 
addition, as we reported in September 2006, the United States helped 
negotiate an amendment to the Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful 
Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation that criminalizes WMD 
proliferation activities. The amendment also created an international 
framework for nations that are party to the amended convention to board 
ships believed to be engaged in WMD proliferation activities. Agency 
officials said that the amended convention was sent to the Senate for 
review in October 2007, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
voted favorably on it on July 29, 2008. According to agency officials, 
the Senate gave its advice and consent to the ratification of the 
amended convention on September 25, 2008. The administration awaits 
congressional enactment of the necessary implementing legislation. With 
the success of amending the maritime convention, U.S. agencies, with 
other members of the International Civil Aviation Organization, are 
currently examining ways to amend the Montreal Convention of 1971, to 
criminalize the airborne transportation of WMD and related materials. 

Other U.S. agencies have also made some efforts to increase cooperation 
and coordination with PSI countries through outreach activities. 
According to DOD officials, DOD has produced talking points on PSI for 
high-level, military-to-military discussions with PSI countries and, 
where appropriate, for high-level DOD officials' discussions with high- 
level foreign political officials. Also, through the recently 
established Africa command, DOD officials, in consultation with State, 
have contacted some North African political officials on enhancing 
their involvement in PSI activities, including exercises. The FBI 
sponsored a workshop in 2006 to train law enforcement officials from 
the 19 other leading PSI countries to identify WMD items. According to 
agency officials, attendance of representatives from the 19 other 
leading PSI countries at the conference led to improved relationships 
between the United States and these countries, and these relationships 
are still yielding benefits. However, only representatives from the 19 
other leading PSI countries who go to multilateral meetings were 
invited to attend the FBI-sponsored workshop in 2006; no other PSI 
countries were invited. 

State and DOD Have Not Developed a Written Strategy to Resolve 
Interdiction Issues: 

According to State and DOD officials, the departments have not 
developed a formal, written strategy to resolve interdiction issues, as 
GAO previously recommended. Agency officials stated that the 
involvement of the U.S. delegation at the multilateral meetings is part 
of an attempt to resolve these issues. The administration's PSI 
implementation report states that diplomatic, military, law 
enforcement, and legal experts from the United States and the 19 other 
leading PSI countries convene at multilateral PSI planning meetings to 
develop cooperative strategies to address issues that extend beyond the 
control of any one country, such as compensation for seized cargo. 
These issues are discussed through a plenary session and in greater 
detail through law enforcement, legal, intelligence, and exercise 
breakout sessions. The PSI implementation report also states that the 
United States, a leading member of the meetings, continues to develop 
and implement multinational strategies to resolve issues beyond the 
exclusive control of the United States. 

Conclusions: 

The administration has only partially addressed the provisions of the 
Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007. 
Although relevant agencies perform various activities under PSI, the 
administration's approach to PSI activities overall has been ad hoc. 
While DOD has taken more steps than State and law enforcement agencies 
to address some of the law's provisions, such as clarifying policies 
and procedures, none of the agencies has fully addressed the law's 
provisions. Consistent with internal controls, establishing clear PSI 
policies and procedures and performance indicators to measure results 
will help the agencies better organize their PSI activities. While U.S. 
agencies have made efforts to increase cooperation and coordination 
with the 19 other leading PSI countries that attend multilateral PSI 
planning meetings, they have not yet built relationships in the same 
way with over 70 PSI countries that are not part of these meetings. 
Agency officials acknowledged that more efforts are needed to directly 
engage these countries; doing so could create opportunities for 
increased PSI cooperation and coordination, including information 
exchanges between them and the United States. We also reaffirm the 
recommendations from our 2006 report on PSI that DOD and State should 
better organize their efforts for performing PSI activities, including 
establishing clear PSI policies and procedures and indicators to 
measure the results of PSI activities, and that they develop a strategy 
to work with PSI-participating countries to resolve interdiction 
issues. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

* Since PSI activities are increasingly focused on law enforcement 
issues, we recommend that relevant law enforcement agencies, such as 
CBP, FBI, and Coast Guard, establish clear PSI policies and procedures 
and work toward developing performance indicators to support PSI 
activities, including PSI workshops, training courses, and exercises. 

* Since U.S. agencies have not built relationships with their 
counterparts from the more than 70 PSI countries who are not invited to 
attend multilateral PSI planning meetings to the same extent as with 
the 19 other leading PSI countries, we recommend that DOD, in 
cooperation with State, take additional steps to increase cooperation, 
coordination, and information exchange between the United States and 
these countries. In building such relationships, DOD and State will 
obviously have to work cooperatively with the 19 other leading PSI 
countries that attend the PSI multilateral planning meetings. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretaries of State, 
Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice for their review and comment. 
We received written comments from State, DOD, and FBI within Justice 
that are reprinted in appendixes VI, VII, and VIII; we also received e- 
mail comments from DHS. DHS and FBI concurred with our first 
recommendation and State and DOD concurred with our second 
recommendation. State and DHS also provided us with technical comments, 
which we incorporated as appropriate. 

DHS concurred with our first recommendation and provided a Planned 
Corrective Action for CBP that CBP will update its PSI directive and 
implementation plan, including adding appropriate performance 
indicators and milestones. FBI also concurred with our first 
recommendation and described some steps being taken to mitigate the 
issues. 

DOD concurred with our second recommendation and stated that it has 
already taken several steps to implement it. State also concurred with 
our second recommendation, recognizing the need to deepen the 
involvement and knowledge of all PSI endorsing countries and stating 
that it is undertaking new efforts to address this need. State said 
that foremost among future plans of the leading PSI countries that 
attend the multilateral meetings is to focus on regional PSI activities 
and outreach workshops to increase the participation of those PSI 
countries who are not invited to attend the multilateral meetings. 

State maintained that a PSI directive is not necessary to strengthen 
and expand PSI because an existing WMD interdiction process created by 
a classified National Security Presidential Directive is sufficient. 
However, as we noted in our report, the existing WMD interdiction 
process predates the creation of PSI and does not cover U.S. agencies' 
involvement in three broad PSI activities: multilateral planning 
meetings, exercises, and other outreach efforts. State also said the 
agency uses the number of countries endorsing PSI, the number and 
complexity of PSI exercises, and the conclusion of PSI shipboarding 
agreements as indicators to measure PSI performance. However, a good 
internal control environment calls for agencies to create their own 
means to monitor and evaluate their own efforts to identify areas 
needing improvement and requires assessing the quality of performance 
of ongoing and completed activities over time. We reaffirm the 
recommendation from our 2006 report that DOD and State should better 
organize their efforts for performing PSI activities, including 
establishing indicators to measure the results of PSI activities. 

State also said that it is not feasible or effective to develop a 
single comprehensive written strategy to deal with issues arising after 
interdictions because every interdiction must be dealt with on a case- 
by-case basis. While acknowledging the unique characteristics of each 
interdiction, we reaffirm our prior recommendation; the recurring 
interdiction issues that are beyond the control of the United States, 
as noted in our 2006 classified report, demonstrate the need for a 
written strategy to resolve these issues. State also stated that it has 
policies and procedures in place for PSI activities, although they are 
not recorded in a single document, but did not provide us any evidence 
of these written PSI policies and procedures. 

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional 
committees. We also will make copies available to others on request. In 
addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web 
site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-8979 or christoffj@gao.gov. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are 
listed in appendix IX. 

Signed by: 

Joseph A. Christoff, Director: 
International Affairs and Trade: 

List of Congressional Committees: 

The Honorable Carl Levin: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable John McCain: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Richard G. Lugar: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Foreign Relations: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Ike Skelton: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Howard L. Berman: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Foreign Affairs: 
House of Representatives: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

To examine U.S. agencies' efforts to take a variety of actions to 
expand and strengthen the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), we 
assessed the (1) extent to which the administration issued a PSI 
directive, a sense of Congress provision in the law, and submitted to 
Congress required PSI-related reports; (2) steps U.S. agencies have 
taken to establish clear PSI policies and procedures, structures, 
budgets, and performance indicators; and (3) efforts U.S. agencies have 
made to increase cooperation and coordination with PSI countries and 
develop a strategy to resolve interdiction issues. We employed various 
methodologies to address these three objectives. We reviewed the 
Department of Defense's (DOD) Public Affairs Guidance on the 
Proliferation Security Initiative, the Report to Congress on 
Implementation of the Proliferation Security Initiative Pub. L. No. 110-
53, Section 1821, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 
on the Proliferation Security Initiative (2005 and revised in 2007) and 
documentation on the PSI fifth anniversary conference held May 2008 in 
Washington, D.C. 

In addition, we reviewed various documents produced by the Departments 
of State (State), DOD, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and other 
agencies involved in PSI, such as presentations, management reports, 
documents, and cables on U.S. agencies' participation in and management 
of their involvement in PSI activities. We reviewed various documents 
produced by the U.S. delegation to multilateral PSI planning meetings, 
including presentations, exercise summaries, meeting summaries, and DOD 
documents that discussed best practices for PSI exercises. We met with 
officials from State, DOD, CBP, the Federal Bureau of Investigation 
(FBI), Coast Guard, and other agencies in Washington, D.C., involved in 
PSI activities. 

We interviewed officials and military personnel at five DOD Combatant 
Commands (COCOM): (1) Central Command in Tampa, Florida; (2) European 
Command in Stuttgart, Germany; (3) Africa Command in Stuttgart, 
Germany; (4) Southern Command in Miami, Florida; and (5) the Strategic 
Command's Center for Combating WMD in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. We 
discussed how DOD manages and coordinates its involvement in PSI 
activities, including preparation and execution of PSI components 
within existing DOD exercises, as well as stand-alone PSI exercises; 
cooperation between the COCOMs, particularly with the Center for 
Combating WMD; and management of PSI activities between the Joint Staff 
and the COCOMs. 

To collect detailed qualitative information from participants on how 
and why the multilateral PSI planning meetings (including breakout 
sessions and related bilateral meetings) are or are not useful for the 
U.S. delegation, we conducted structured interviews with 12 U.S. 
participants. In addition, we gathered the participants' perspectives 
on the structure, evolution, and possible improvements for such 
meetings through the structured interviews. While we did not select a 
generalizeable sample, we did select one that included officials with a 
wide range of views and relatively more experience of the meetings. 
Specifically, we selected U.S. agency officials and military personnel 
that had a range of military, law enforcement, legal, diplomatic, and 
intelligence expertise and that had attended two or more of the last 
six multilateral PSI planning meetings. To ensure that the structured 
instrument we used was clear and comprehensive, we pretested the 
instrument with two agency officials who had attended at least four of 
the last six multilateral meetings. We made changes to the content and 
format of the structured interview based on comments from the expert 
reviews, as well as the pretests. 

The scope of our review was set by the Implementing Recommendations of 
the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.[Footnote 27] The law specified that 
the President and relevant agencies and departments take a variety of 
actions to expand and strengthen PSI, including implementing 
recommendations from our September 2006 classified report, which 
identified weaknesses with the U.S. government's planning and 
management of PSI. Under a sense of Congress provision of the law, the 
President is called upon to issue a PSI directive to U.S. agencies, and 
U.S. agencies are called upon to take actions listed in the law, namely 
to establish clear PSI policies and procedures, structures, funding, 
and performance indicators to measure the results of PSI activities; to 
take steps to increase cooperation and coordination with PSI countries; 
and to develop a strategy to resolve interdiction issues. The law 
required the President to submit a PSI implementation report by 
February 2008 to congressional committees; State and DOD are required 
to submit a comprehensive joint budget report to Congress describing 
U.S. funding and other resources for PSI-related activities. Congress 
required GAO to issue three consecutive reports assessing the 
effectiveness of PSI, including progress made in implementing the 
provisions of the act. This report is the first of the three reports. 

We conducted this performance audit from November 2007 to November 
2008, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit 
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for 
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Statement of Interdiction Principles: 

PSI: Statement of Interdiction Principles: 

The PSI is a response to the growing challenges posed by the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery 
systems, and related materials worldwide. The PSI builds on efforts by 
the international community to prevent proliferation of such items, 
including existing treaties and regimes. It is consistent with, and a 
step in the implementation of the UN Security Council Presidential 
Statement of January 1992, which states that the proliferation of all 
WMD constitutes a threat to international peace and security, and 
underlines the need for member states of the UN to prevent 
proliferation. The PSI is also consistent with recent statements of the 
G8 and the European Union, establishing that more coherent and 
concerted efforts are needed to prevent the proliferation of WMD, their 
delivery systems, and related materials. PSI participants are deeply 
concerned about this threat and of the danger that these items could 
fall into the hands of terrorists and are committed to working together 
to stop the flow of these items to and from states and nonstate actors 
of proliferation concern. 

The PSI seeks to involve, in some capacity, all states that have a 
stake in nonproliferation and the ability and willingness to take steps 
to stop the flow of such items at sea, in the air, or on land. The PSI 
also seeks cooperation from any state whose vessels, flags, ports, 
territorial waters, airspace, or land might be used for proliferation 
purposes by states and nonstate actors of proliferation concern. The 
increasingly aggressive efforts by proliferators to stand outside or to 
circumvent existing nonproliferation norms, and to profit from such 
trade, requires new and stronger actions by the international 
community. We look forward to working with all concerned states on 
measures they are able and willing to take in support of the PSI, as 
outlined in the following set of "Interdiction Principles." 

Interdiction Principles for the Proliferation Security Initiative: 

PSI participants are committed to the following interdiction principles 
to establish a more coordinated and effective basis through which to 
impede and stop shipments of WMD, delivery systems, and related 
materials flowing to and from states and nonstate actors of 
proliferation concern, consistent with national legal authorities and 
relevant international law and frameworks, including the UN Security 
Council. They call on all states concerned with this threat to 
international peace and security to join in similarly committing to: 

1. Undertake effective measures, either alone or in concert with other 
states, for interdicting the transfer or transport of WMD, their 
delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and nonstate 
actors of proliferation concern. "States or nonstate actors of 
proliferation concern" generally refers to those countries or entities 
that the PSI participants involved establish should be subject to 
interdiction activities because they are engaged in proliferation 
through: (1) efforts to develop or acquire chemical, biological, or 
nuclear weapons and associated delivery systems or (2) transfers 
(either selling, receiving, or facilitating) of WMD, their delivery 
systems, or related materials. 

2. Adopt streamlined procedures for rapid exchange of relevant 
information concerning suspected proliferation activity, protecting the 
confidential character of classified information provided by other 
states as part of this initiative, dedicate appropriate resources and 
efforts to interdiction operations and capabilities, and maximize 
coordination among participants in interdiction efforts. 

3. Review and work to strengthen their relevant national legal 
authorities where necessary to accomplish these objectives, and work to 
strengthen when necessary relevant international law and frameworks in 
appropriate ways to support these commitments. 

4. Take specific actions in support of interdiction efforts regarding 
cargoes of WMD, their delivery systems, or related materials, to the 
extent their national legal authorities permit and consistent with 
their obligations under international law and frameworks, to include: 

a. Not to transport or assist in the transport of any such cargoes to 
or from states or nonstate actors of proliferation concern and not to 
allow any persons subject to their jurisdiction to do so. 

b. At their own initiative, or at the request and good cause shown by 
another state, to take action to board and search any vessel flying 
their flag in their internal waters or territorial seas, or areas 
beyond the territorial seas of any other state, that is reasonably 
suspected of transporting such cargoes to or from states or nonstate 
actors of proliferation concern, and to seize such cargoes that are 
identified. 

c. To seriously consider providing consent under the appropriate 
circumstances to the boarding and searching of its own flag vessels by 
other states, and to the seizure of such WMD-related cargoes in such 
vessels that may be identified by such states. 

d. To take appropriate actions to (1) stop and/or search in their 
internal waters, territorial seas, or contiguous zones (when declared) 
vessels that are reasonably suspected of carrying such cargoes to or 
from states or nonstate actors of proliferation concern and to seize 
such cargoes that are identified and (2) to enforce conditions on 
vessels entering or leaving their ports, internal waters, or 
territorial seas that are reasonably suspected of carrying such 
cargoes, such as requiring that such vessels be subject to boarding, 
search, and seizure of such cargoes prior to entry. 

e. At their own initiative or upon the request and good cause shown by 
another state, to (1) require aircraft that are reasonably suspected of 
carrying such cargoes to or from states or nonstate actors of 
proliferation concern and that are transiting their airspace to land 
for inspection and seize any such cargoes that are identified and/or 
(2) deny aircraft reasonably suspected of carrying such cargoes transit 
rights through their airspace in advance of such flights. 

f. If their ports, airfields, or other facilities are used as 
transshipment points for shipment of such cargoes to or from states or 
nonstate actors of proliferation concern, to inspect vessels, aircraft, 
or other modes of transport reasonably suspected of carrying such 
cargoes, and to seize such cargoes that are identified. 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Chronology and Location of Multilateral PSI Planning 
Meetings, 2003 to 2008: 

The following multilateral PSI planning meetings are also known as 
Operational Expert Group (OEG) meetings: 

2003: 

1.Brisbane, Australia (July):
2. London, United Kingdom (July):
3. Paris, France (September):
4. London, United Kingdom (October):
5. Washington, D.C., United States (December): 

2004: 

1. Ottawa, Canada (April):
2. Oslo, Norway (August):
3. Sydney, Australia (November): 

2005: 

1. Omaha, Nebraska, United States (March):
2. Copenhagen, Denmark (July):
3. Hamburg, Germany (November) - Regional OEG meeting: 

2006: 

1. Miami, Florida, United States (April):
2. Singapore (July):
3. Montreal, Canada (December): 

2007: 

1. Auckland, New Zealand (March):
2. Rhodes, Greece (October): 

2008: 

1. London, United Kingdom (February):
2. Paris, France (September): 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Bilateral Shipboarding Agreements, 2004 to 2008: 

1. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
Liberia: 

Signed February 11, 2004, entered into force December 9, 2004. 

According to State, Liberia has the second largest ship registry in the 
world. 

2. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
Panama: 

Signed May 12, 2004; entered into force December 1, 2004. 

According to State, Panama has the largest ship registry in the world. 

3. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
Marshall Islands: 

Signed August 13, 2004; provisionally applied from August 13, 2004; 
entered into force November 24, 2004. 

According to State, Marshall Islands has the eleventh largest flag 
registry in the world. 

4. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
Republic of Croatia: 

Signed June 1, 2005; entered into force March 5, 2007. 

5. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
Cyprus: 

Signed July 25, 2005; entered into force January 12, 2006. 

According to State, Cyprus has the sixth largest ship registry in the 
world and was the first European Union member to sign such an agreement 
with the United States. 

6. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
Belize: 

Signed August 4, 2005; entered into force October 19, 2005. 

According to State, Belize is the first Caribbean Community (CARICOM) 
member state to sign such an agreement with the United States in 
support of PSI. 

7. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
the Republic of Malta: 

Signed March 15, 2007; entered into force December 19, 2007: 

According to State, Malta has the eighth largest ship registry in the 
world. 

8. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
Mongolia: 

Signed October 23, 2007; entered into force February 20, 2008. 

9. Proliferation Security Initiative Shipboarding Agreement Signed with 
the Bahamas: 

Signed August 11, 2008; not yet in force. 

According to State, the Bahamas has the third largest flag registry of 
merchant ships in the world and serves as an open registry for 
shipowners from dozens of countries. 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: Countries Supporting PSI: 

Countries supporting PSI are as follows; PSI countries with an asterisk 
are the 20 leading PSI countries who attend multilateral PSI planning 
meetings: 

1. Afghanistan:
2. Albania:
3. Andorra:
4. Angola:
5. Argentina*:
6. Armenia:
7. Australia*:
8. Austria:
9. Azerbaijan:
10. Bahamas:
11. Bahrain:
12. Belarus:
13. Belgium:
14. Belize:
15. Bosnia:
16. Brunei Darussalam:
17. Bulgaria:
18. Cambodia:
19. Canada*:
20. Chile:
21. Croatia:
22. Cyprus:
23. Czech Republic:
24. Denmark*:
25. Djibouti:
26. El Salvador:
27. Estonia:
28. Fiji:
29. Finland:
30. France*:
31. Georgia:
32. Germany*:
33. Greece*:
34. Holy See:
35. Honduras:
36. Hungary:
37. Iceland:
38. Iraq:
39. Ireland:
40. Israel:
41. Italy*:
42. Japan*:
43. Jordan:
44. Kazakhstan:
45. Kyrgyzstan:
46. Kuwait:
47. Latvia:
48. Liberia:
49. Libya:
50. Liechtenstein:
51. Lithuania:
52. Luxembourg:
53. Macedonia:
54. Malta:
55. Marshall Islands:
56. Moldova:
57. Mongolia:
58. Montenegro:
59. Morocco:
60. The Netherlands*:
61. New Zealand*:
62. Norway*:
63. Oman:
64. Panama:
65. Papua New Guinea:
66. Paraguay:
67. Philippines:
68. Poland*:
69. Portugal*:
70. Qatar:
71. Romania:
72. Russia*:
73. Samoa:
74. San Marino:
75. Saudi Arabia:
76. Serbia:
77. Singapore*:
78. Slovakia:
79. Slovenia:
80. Spain*:
81. Sri Lanka:
82. Sweden:
83. Switzerland:
84. Tajikistan:
85. Tunisia:
86. Turkey*:
87. Turkmenistan:
88. Ukraine:
89. United Arab Emirates:
90. United Kingdom*:
91. United States*:
92. Uzbekistan:
93. Yemen: 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of State: 

Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the 
end of this appendix. 

United States Department of State: 
Assistant Secretary for Resource Management and Chief Financial 
Officer: 
Washington, D.C. 20520: 

Ms. Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers: 
Managing Director: 
International Affairs and Trade: 
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, D.C. 20548-0001: 

October 17, 2008: 

Dear Ms. Williams-Bridgers: 

We appreciate the opportunity to review your draft report, 
"Nonproliferation: U.S. Agencies Have Taken Some Steps, but More Effort 
Is Needed to Strengthen and Expand the Proliferation Security 
Initiative," GAO Job Code 320563. 

The enclosed Department of State comments are provided for 
incorporation with this letter as an appendix to the final report. 

If you have any questions concerning this response, please contact Jan 
Purcell, Foreign Affairs Officer, International Security and 
Nonproliferation at (202) 647-6186. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Bradford R. Higgins: 

cc: GAO - Joseph Christoff: 
ISN -- Patricia Mcnerney: 
State/OIG - Mark Duda: 

Department of State Comments on GAO Draft Report: 

Nonproliferation: U.S. Agencies Have Taken Some Steps, but More Effort 
Is Needed to Strengthen and Expand the Proliferation Security 
Initiative: 
(GAO-09-43, GAO Code 320563) 

Thank you for giving the Department of State the opportunity to comment 
on the draft report 'Nonproliferation: U.S. Agencies Have Taken Some 
Steps, but More Effort Is Needed to Strengthen and Expand the 
Proliferation Security Initiative.' The comments below respond to 
statements made in various places in the GAO’s draft report. 

GAO Recommendation: DOD and State should take steps to increase 
cooperation and coordination between the United States and the more 
than 70 PSI countries who are not invited to attend multilateral PSI 
planning meetings. 

Response: The U.S. and the 19 other countries participating in the PSI 
Operational Experts Group (OEG) have recognized the need to deepen the 
involvement and knowledge of all PSI endorsing states. This year, we 
are undertaking several new efforts to implement this objective, 
including creation of a PSI web portal to share documents among all PSI 
countries, and creation of a regular PSI newsletter for all PSI 
countries. 

The Department of State sponsored a PSI 5th Anniversary Senior-Level 
Meeting on May 28, 2008 in Washington for all PSI countries. 
Representatives from 86 PSI countries attended. At this meeting, the 
attendees discussed current PSI issues and restated their support for 
the PSI and the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles, in particular 
through adoption of the Washington Declaration (available online at 
[hyperlink, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/may/105268.htm]). 
[See comment 1] The GAO’s draft report failed to note that, on the 
following day, the U.S. hosted a PSI outreach workshop, attended by 
representatives of 21 countries that had not yet endorsed the PSI, as 
well as most of the PSI participating states. The workshop provided 
detailed information on the broad range of PSI activities and tools 
that have been developed for training, organizing for, and conducting 
interdictions of shipments of proliferation concern. It was designed 
both to promote PSI endorsement by additional states and to deepen the 
knowledge of and participation in PSI activities by states that have 
endorsed the PSI. 

Foremost among future plans of the countries participating in the OEG 
is to focus on regional PSI activities and outreach workshops intended 
to increase active PSI participation by the countries that do not 
participate in the OEG meetings. [See comment 2] For example, the USG 
will host an OEG meeting in May 2009 in Miami, Florida, and will invite 
all PSI partners from the Western Hemisphere to actively participate. 
This will be the first time an OEG meeting will integrate non-OEG 
regional partners from the Western Hemisphere. The meeting’s content 
will focus on interdiction issues and challenges most relevant to the 
region. Other PSI partners also plan to host regional OEG meetings for 
other regions in 2009 and beyond. These meetings will help to increase 
the capabilities of all PSI partners to interdict WMD shipments. 

The Department of State has always disseminated summaries of each PSI 
OEG meeting to all PSI countries. State also has supported - with 
funding and/or expert advice - several PSI exercises in Central and 
Eastern Europe, Africa, and Central/South America hosted by and 
intended for non-OEG countries. These exercises have enhanced the 
skills and interoperability of the non-OEG countries in that region in 
combating WMD-related trafficking. In addition, exercises hosted by OEG 
countries in the last two years have been attended by a number of non-
OEG countries, as well as by countries that have not yet endorsed the 
PSI, as noted in DOD’s comments on this report. 

In addition, the Department of State leads USG efforts to conclude 
bilateral, reciprocal PSI shipboarding agreements with key ship 
registry states, with support from the U.S. Coast Guard, DOD and the 
Department of Justice. [See comment 3] All nine agreements we have 
concluded so far are with non-OEG PSI partner nations. Since 2006, 
three more shipboarding agreements have been signed -- with Malta, 
Mongolia and The Bahamas. These agreements provide expedited procedures 
for obtaining authorization to board and search ships suspected of 
transporting proliferation-related cargo. 

GAO Statement: The Administration has not issued a PSI directive that 
directs U.S. agencies to establish clear PSI authorities, structures, 
roles, responsibilities, policies and procedures, including budget 
requests for PSI activities. In its implementation report to Congress 
in July 2008, the Administration stated it is unnecessary to issue a 
directive for PSI because it believes that an existing WMD interdiction 
process, documented in an 8-page 2002 National Security Presidential 
Directive, already addresses the relevant issues that would be covered 
under a PSI directive. 

Response: As was the case in 2006, all U.S. PSI activities are 
conducted via an extensive interagency coordination process through a 
policy coordination committee chaired by National Security Council 
(NSC) staff, implementing clearly defined strategy documents that 
established agency roles, responsibilities, and common goals. In its 
PSI implementation report to Congress of July 2008, the Administration 
stated it does not consider issuing an additional Presidential 
directive to be necessary in order to continue expanding and 
strengthening the PSI. The Administration continues to hold this view. 
A classified National Security Presidential Directive governs the 
interdiction process. [See comment 4] 

The report correctly notes that there is no single Administration 
budget request for the PSI. In fact, the PSI was designed to be not a 
single, distinct program, but rather a set of activities interwoven 
into the USG’s established diplomatic, military, and law enforcement 
relations with other countries. In addition, many existing programs, 
missions, international agreements and frameworks promote the same 
objectives as the PSI without being narrowly defined as part of the 
PSI. It should remain the responsibility of each agency to determine 
whether it can accomplish its PSI objective best by establishing a 
budget line item for PSI activities. 

GAO Statement: The existing WMD interdiction process covers how U.S. 
agencies should coordinate U.S. government efforts to conduct WMD 
interdictions. However, this process predates the creation of PSI and 
does not cover U.S. agencies’ involvement in three broad PSI 
activities: multilateral planning meetings, exercises, and other 
outreach efforts. 

Response: Presidential directives set out broad U.S. Government policy 
and goals. Such a document is neither appropriate nor necessary to 
administer the details of USG agencies’ work on PSI Operational Experts 
Group meetings, PSI exercises, PSI outreach, and WMD-related 
interdictions. USG agencies are working together closely and 
continuously on these PSI activities, via an extensive interagency 
coordination process through a policy coordination committee chaired by 
National Security Council (NSC) staff. [See comment 5] 

GAO Statement: U.S. agencies have not established performance 
indicators to measure the results of PSI activities. 

Response: Standard Department of State procedures are followed 
regarding indicators to measure program results for State’s work on the 
PSI. There are certain unclassified PSI activities that can be 
quantified, which State uses as indicators to measure the Initiative’s 
progress as required in the annual Strategic Plan of the Bureau of 
International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN). [See comment 6] 
These are: increases in the number of countries endorsing the PSI; the 
number and complexity of PSI exercises conducted around the world; and 
the conclusion of PSI shipboarding agreements. 

The Department of State requires evidence of countries’ endorsement of 
the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles in order to consider them 
to be PSI participants. Such evidence can take the form of a diplomatic 
note to the U.S. or to another PSI partner state, a public statement of 
endorsement, or representation at a meeting of PSI participating 
states. Use of this clear criterion allowed the Department to begin 
publishing in 2006 a list of PSI participants on the State website. 

GAO Statement: State officials stated that they measure PSI progress by 
the number of endorsing PSI countries; the number and complexity of PSI 
exercises around the world; and the number of PSI shipboarding 
agreements. However, it is difficult to attribute these high-level 
outcomes to the PSI activities of U.S. agencies because these outcomes 
are dependent on the actions of other governments as well. 

Response: The mission of the Department of State is to conduct 
international diplomacy in support of U.S. foreign policy goals, where 
all outcomes depend on the actions of other governments. State’s PSI 
activities are no exception, as the GAO’s previous report highlighted. 
State uses these performance indicators because we are confident that 
the results would not have occurred without our efforts. [See comment 
7] 

GAO Statement: State and DOD have not developed a written strategy to 
resolve interdiction issues. Agency officials stated that the 
involvement of the U.S. delegation at the multilateral meetings is part 
of an attempt to resolve these issues. 

Response: U.S. agencies have developed tools and use standard 
procedures to plan and execute interdictions. [See comment 8] To deal 
with issues arising as a result of interdictions that have taken place, 
we have not found it feasible or effective to develop a single, 
comprehensive written strategy, because every interdiction case is 
unique and each must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis depending on 
the specific circumstances. U.S. agencies are familiar with the tools 
and resources available to deal with the issues that come up. Subject 
matter experts from across the USG consult and coordinate courses of 
action to address each WMD-related interdiction case, guided by 
Presidential Directives and agency procedures. 

Because interdictions involve other countries, resolving interdiction 
issues is a task the U.S. cannot accomplish by itself. The PSI is based 
on the concept of cooperation and coordination among PSI partners in 
countering WMD-related trafficking, each utilizing the national 
authorities available to it. All PSI activities are aimed at 
strengthening such cooperation and coordination. 

GAO Statement: State has an existing structure but does not have 
policies, procedures, or a budget in place for PSI activities. 

Response: The Department of State does have policies and procedures in 
place for its PSI activities, although they are not all recorded in a 
single document. State updates its PSI plans and strategies frequently 
to take developments into account. [See comment 9] 

The Department of State has provided funding to support four complex 
interdiction-related PSI exercises hosted by PSI partners Poland and 
Ukraine, as authorized under section 504(a) of the Freedom Support Act 
and the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund’s (NDF) expanded 
authority under the Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and 
Related Programs (NADR). Apart from these line items, the ISN Bureau’s 
operating budget has been sufficient to fund the expenses for State’s 
PSI activities. [See comment 10] 

In order to ensure that Department of State activities related to the 
PSI and interdiction are properly coordinated, in late 2005 the 
Department created the Office of Counterproliferation Initiatives. This 
Office is responsible for all State Department PSI activities, as part 
of its counterproliferation diplomacy mission. As noted in its Mission 
Statement, the Office of Counterproliferation Initiatives develops and 
conducts diplomatic outreach to prospective PSI participants, informs 
current participants of PSI events, and works on broadening their 
participation; participates in negotiation of ship-boarding and other 
relevant international agreements and understandings; and facilitates 
State support to the PSI Operational Experts Group. Most important, 
this Office routinely interfaces with foreign governments on WMD-
related interdictions and the disposition of seized cargo. 

GAO Statement: International [PSI] participation is voluntary and there 
are no binding treaties on those who choose to participate. 

Response: It is correct that PSI participation is voluntary. Of course, 
the actions of PSI participants must be consistent with their national 
legal authorities and relevant international law. The PSI is part of 
the overall international nonproliferation framework that includes the 
international nonproliferation treaties – such as the NPT, CWC, and 
BWC, to which most countries are parties. The Law of the Sea and the 
Chicago Conventions govern the actions of PSI countries in the maritime 
and air domains, respectively. In addition, the UN Security Council 
resolutions addressing North Korea’s and Iran’s WMD-related activities, 
as well as UNSC Resolution 1540, are legally binding on all UN Member 
states. Finally, our bilateral PSI shipboarding agreements with other 
countries are binding on the Parties. 

GAO Statement: The multilateral PSI planning meetings themselves have 
no compliance mechanisms. [See comment 11] 

Response: The term “compliance” indicates legal obligations. The 
meetings of the 20-nation OEG are not based on or involved with 
establishing legal obligations, so it is meaningless to refer to 
compliance mechanisms in this context. The operational experts meet to 
discuss and resolve issues related to interdictions, and to plan 
exercises and outreach events. This forum for experts to meet regularly 
with their counterparts from other countries has proven very valuable 
for strengthening the PSI network and the collective body of knowledge 
about how to effectively interdict proliferation-related trafficking. 
We are working on ways to expand the benefits of the OEG to all PSI 
countries by holding more regionally-focused meetings. 

GAO Statement: The United States helped negotiate an amendment to the 
Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of 
Maritime Navigation that criminalizes WMD proliferation activities... 
Agency officials said that the amended convention was sent to the 
Senate for review in October 2007, and the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee voted favorably on it on July 29, 2008. It is now awaiting 
full Senate action. 

Update: The Senate gave its advice and consent to the ratification of 
the 2005 Protocols to the Convention of the Suppression of Unlawful 
Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation on September 25, 2008 
(source: Congressional Record). The Administration welcomes the 
Senate’s action, and awaits Congressional enactment of the necessary 
implementing legislation before the U.S. can deposit its instruments of 
ratification. [See comment 12] 

The following are GAO's comments on the Department of State's letter 
dated October 17, 2008. 

GAO Comments: 

1. We have added information in the report that State hosted a PSI 
outreach workshop at the PSI fifth anniversary conference. 

2. We have added information in the report on the future multilateral 
PSI planning meeting in 2009 to be hosted by the United States. 

3. Appendix IV provides information on the shipboarding agreements the 
United States has signed with other countries. 

4. As we stated in our report, the existing WMD interdiction process 
covers how U.S. agencies should coordinate U.S. government efforts to 
conduct WMD interdictions. This process, as we noted, predates the 
creation of PSI and does not cover U.S. agencies' involvement in three 
broad PSI activities: multilateral planning meetings, exercises, and 
other outreach efforts. 

5. As noted in our report, the WMD interdiction process predates the 
creation of PSI and does not cover U.S. agencies' involvement in three 
broad PSI activities: multilateral planning meetings, exercises, and 
other outreach efforts. 

6. We reaffirm the recommendation from our 2006 report that DOD and 
State should better organize their efforts for performing PSI 
activities, including establishing indicators to measure the results of 
PSI activities. As we stated in our report, a good internal control 
environment calls for agencies to create their own means to monitor and 
evaluate their own efforts to enable them to identify areas needing 
improvement. Further, a good internal control environment requires 
assessing both ongoing activities and separate evaluations of completed 
activities and should assess quality of performance over time. 

7. See response (6) above. 

8. State has not worked with DOD to implement the second recommendation 
from our 2006 report, as called for in the law. While acknowledging the 
unique characteristics of each interdiction, we reaffirm our prior 
recommendation. The recurring interdiction issues that are beyond the 
control of the United States, as noted in our 2006 classified report, 
demonstrate the need for a written strategy to resolve these issues. 

9. While State said that it has PSI policies and procedures that are 
not recorded in a single document, it did not provide GAO any evidence 
of its written PSI policies and procedures. 

10. Although State reports providing funding to support certain PSI 
exercises, State has not requested funds necessary for PSI-related 
activities, as called for in the law. 

11. This statement was based on information from U.S. agency officials. 
We have modified the text in our report to attribute it to agency 
officials. 

12. We have updated our report to reflect the Senate's actions. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the 
end of this appendix. 

Office Of The Assistant Secretary Of Defense: 
Global Security Affairs: 
2900 Defense Pentagon: 
Washington D.C. 20201-2900: 

Mr. Joseph A Christoff: 
Director, International Affairs and Trade: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

Dear Mr. Christoff: 

This is the Department of Defense (DOD) response to the GAO Draft 
Report, GAO-09-43, `Nonproliferation: U.S. Agencies Have Taken Some 
Steps, but More Effort Is Needed to Strengthen and Expand the 
Proliferation Security Initiative,' dated September 3, 2008 (GAO Code 
320563). The GAO Report contained one recommendation for the Department 
of Defense. The Department concurs with the recommendation and has 
already taken steps to implement it. 

My point of contact for the report is Ms. Beth Flores, 703-692-0147. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Richard J. Douglas: 
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense: 
Counternarcotics, Counterproliferation and Global Threats: 

GAO Draft Report Dated September 30, 2008: 
GAO-09-43 (GAO Code 320563): 

"Nonproliferation: U.S. Agencies Have Taken Some Steps, But More Effort 
Is Needed To Strengthen And Expand The Proliferation Security 
Initiative" 

Department Of Defense Comments To The GAO Recommendation: 

Recommendation: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense, in 
cooperation with the Department of State. take additional steps to 
increase cooperation, coordination, and information exchange between 
the United States and the more than 70 PSI countries that do not attend 
the multilateral PSI planning meetings. (p. 26/GAO Draft Report) 

DOD Response: DoD concurs with this recommendation and has already 
taken several steps to implement it, working in close cooperation with 
the Department of State and other relevant U.S. government Departments 
and Agencies. In February 2008 at the PSI Operational Experts Group 
(OEG) meeting in London, a Department of Defense official proposed that 
the OEG increase its efforts to build the knowledge and capacity of all 
PSI partners. That objective was formally captured in the Washington 
Declaration, which was adopted by the PSI-endorsing countries at the 
Department of State-hosted PSI 5th Anniversary Senior-Level Meeting 
held in Washington, DC on May 28, 2008. Over the past several years, 
there have been multiple engagements with non-OEG PSI partners to 
explore operational concepts through live and table top exercises. In 
2008 alone, the U.S. sponsored two bilateral table top exercises with 
Malta and Croatia, respectively, focusing on the implementation 
procedures of PSI shipboarding agreements. Additionally, the U.S. 
(USEUCOM and USSOUTHCOM), Croatia. Djibouti, France. Poland, and New 
Zealand hosted PSI exercises that involved more than thirty non-OEG PSI-
endorsing countries from the Western Hemisphere, North Africa. Europe 
and Asia-Pacific regions. OSD and Joint Staff worked together to 
establish a task-organized delegation of experts from the Department of 
Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, 
the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, the Department of 
Commerce, the Department of Treasury and organizations across the 
intelligence community. In 2009, DoD will sponsor two major PSI events 
that will emphasize capacity-building involve non-OEG PSI partners. 
[See comment 1] OSD and SOUTHCOM will host an Operational Experts Group 
meeting in Miami, FL and will invite regional PSI partners from the 
Western Hemisphere to participate. This will be the first time an OEG 
meeting will integrate regional partners and gear content toward 
regional aspects of the proliferation challenge. In October 2009, 
USCENTCOM will host a PSI exercise, inviting PSI partners from the 
region and integrating non-military elements of interdiction into the 
design. In sum, the above activities reflect a concerted effort among 
the Department of Defense, the Department of State and other U.S. 
government Departments and Agencies to extend the reach of PSI capacity-
building efforts to all PSI endorsing countries. 

Attachment: 

The following are GAO's comments on the Department of Defense's letter 
dated October 10, 2008. 

GAO Comments: 

1. We have added information to the report noting the 2009 PSI events 
DOD will be sponsoring. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VIII: Comments from the Department of Justice: 

U.S. Department of Justice: 
Federal Bureau of Investigation: 
Washington, DC: 

October 22, 2008: 

In Reply, Please Refer to file No.: 

Joseph A. Christoff: 
Director, International Affairs and Trade: 
U.S. General Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Thank you for providing the Federal Bureau of Investigation the 
opportunity to comment on the draft report 'Nonproliferation:
U.S. Agencies Have Taken Some Steps, Put More Effort is Needed to 
Strengthen and Expand the Proliferation Security Initiative.' The FBI 
concurs with the recommendation presented in the GAO report. However, 
the FBI would like to describe how we are mitigating the issues 
regarding the recommendation. 

GAO Recommendation: Since PSI activities are increasingly focused on 
law enforcement issues we recommend that relevant law enforcement 
agencies such as Customs and Border Protection (CEP), FBI, and Coast 
Guard establish clear PST policies and procedures, and work toward 
developing performance indicators to support PSI activities, including 
PSI workshops, training courses, and exercises. 

As an agency with both intelligence collection and law enforcement 
investigative responsibilities, the FBI is bound by a number of 
operating documents, primary of which are the Attorney General 
Guidelines AGG) in addition to numerous other departmental and agency 
policy documents which are clearly defined. 

FBI PSI related activities are captured as part of the FBI's Strategic 
Management System (SMS). Under SMS the FBI is required to meet 
performance metrics on a quarterly and/or yearly basis. 

The GAO finding that there is no specific departmental budget line item 
supporting PSI is correct. PSI activities are covered by the 
Counterproliferation Operations Unit (CPOU), which is part of the 
Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD), which is in turn a 
component of the FBI's National Security Branch (NSB). As a sub-
program, there is no specific line item in the congressional budget 
request. However, funding for PSI is a priority matter within 
CPOU/WMDD. In FY 2009, the FBI increased the number of personnel 
assigned to PST. 

While it is true that most activities to date have focused on the 20 
leading PSI countries, it is important to note that the FBI maintains a 
network of overseas Legal Attaches (Legats), based at U.S. embassies, 
covering all of the remaining PSI partner nations. Many of these Legats 
have received PSI specific training. As the overall mission of the FBI 
Legats is to foster liaison and cooperation with our global partners in 
the realm of law enforcement and criminal intelligence, the FBI 
maintains an established capability and a growing commitment to PSI. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Gary Douglas Perdue: 
Chief, Investigations and Operations Section: 
Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate: 
Federal Bureau of Investigation: 

[End of section] 

Appendix IX: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Joseph A. Christoff, (202) 512-8979, or Christoffj@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, Godwin Agbara, Assistant 
Director; Ian Ferguson; Yana Golburt; Helen Hwang; and Lynn Cothern 
made key contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] See GAO, Better Controls Needed to Plan and Manage Proliferation 
Security Initiative Activities, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-06-937C] (Washington, D.C.: September 2006). 

[2] The Department of Defense (DOD) did not concur with both 
recommendations, and State did not concur with the first 
recommendation. 

[3] Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 1821. Section 1821 includes a nonbinding 
sense of Congress provision, as well as binding provisions. 

[4] The 20 leading PSI countries who attend multilateral PSI planning 
meetings are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, 
Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, 
Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the 
United States. In this report, these countries are referred to as the 
"leading PSI countries" because only they attend the multilateral PSI 
planning meetings held three to four times annually. At these meetings, 
delegations of experts from these 20 countries meet to decide how to 
build support for the initiative, consider ways to enhance the WMD 
interdiction capabilities of all PSI countries, share ideas to 
strengthen legal authorities to interdict, and discuss hosting and 
participating in PSI exercises. 

[5] See Report to Congress on Implementation of the Proliferation 
Security Initiative, Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 1821, July 2008. 

[6] CBP officials stated that, since they hosted a workshop in 2005, 
they have not been asked to host any exercises or workshops so they 
have not had to request funding to host such events. 

[7] According to State, more than 90 countries currently support PSI. 
More than 70 of these PSI countries do not attend multilateral PSI 
planning meetings, and some of these countries might be located along 
routes of WMD proliferation concern, or have other strategic importance 
to international WMD interdiction efforts. For a full list of countries 
supporting PSI, according to State, see appendix V. 

[8] According to State officials, the U.S. government's PSI efforts 
also involve working with partner states on interdictions. We discussed 
interdiction cases in our 2006 classified report. 

[9] Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 1821 (a) (1). 

[10] Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 1821 (b). 

[11] Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 1821 (c). 

[12] See Report to Congress on Implementation of the Proliferation 
Security Initiative, Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 1821, July 2008. 

[13] The other provisions are detailed in Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 
1821, paragraphs (1), (2), and (4) of subsection (a). 

[14] While the agencies did not concur with these two recommendations, 
the law called on the agencies to implement GAO's recommendations. 

[15] DOD is also in the process of revising its Weapons of Mass 
Destruction Maritime Interdiction Execution Order, designed to 
strengthen national WMD interdiction capabilities by including COCOMs 
in the decision-making process. Based on these revisions, COCOMs will 
change the design and implementation of existing WMD exercises as most 
of these exercises involve interdiction scenarios. 

[16] Stand-alone exercises typically include both a live exercise and a 
simulated computer or tabletop component. The live portion requires 
assets, such as a ship or a helicopter to interdict and board a 
suspected vessel. During the simulated portion, participants discuss 
issues that cannot be incorporated into the live portion, such as the 
disposition of seized cargo. 

[17] In DOD's letter commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated 
that in October 2009 Central Command will host a PSI exercise inviting 
PSI countries from the region. Among the countries that Central Command 
plans to invite are those countries from the region that are not 
normally invited to attend the multilateral PSI planning meetings. This 
exercise will integrate nonmilitary elements of interdiction into the 
design of the exercise. 

[18] ISN was formed as a result of a 2005 State reorganization that 
combined nonproliferation and arms control issues under one bureau. 

[19] See GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] 
(Washington, D.C.: November 1999). 

[20] The 20 leading PSI countries (including the United States) who 
attend multilateral PSI planning meetings are: Argentina, Australia, 
Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, The 
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, 
Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Many of these 
countries have been active in international WMD and related materials 
nonproliferation efforts, such as the Australia Group, the Missile 
Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the 
Wassenaar Arrangement. 

[21] For a chronology and location of multilateral PSI planning 
meetings held from 2003 to 2008, see appendix III. 

[22] DOD and State's letters commenting on a draft of this report 
stated that the U.S. government will host a multilateral PSI planning 
meeting in Miami, Florida in 2009 and will invite regional PSI 
countries from the Western Hemisphere to participate. This will be the 
first time a multilateral meeting will include those PSI countries from 
the Western Hemisphere who are not normally invited to attend the 
multilateral meetings. 

[23] Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, and Ukraine each hosted an exercise. 
Czech Republic cohosted an exercise with Poland and Djibouti cohosted 
an exercise with France. 

[24] Three other PSI countries also attended the exercise as observers. 

[25] At this conference, State also hosted a PSI outreach workshop 
attended by representatives from 21 countries who had not yet endorsed 
PSI, as well as representatives from PSI countries. According to State, 
this workshop provided information on a broad range of PSI activities. 

[26] The United States has signed PSI shipboarding agreements with nine 
countries: Liberia, Panama, Marshall Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Belize, 
Malta, Mongolia, and the Bahamas. See appendix IV for more details. 

[27] Pub. L. No. 110-53, Sec. 1821. 

[End of section] 

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