Security Assistance: U.S. Government Should Strengthen End-Use Monitoring and Human Rights Vetting for Egypt
Highlights
What GAO Found
U.S. agencies allocated approximately $6.5 billion for security-related assistance to Egypt in fiscal years 2011 through 2015. As of September 30, 2015, over $6.4 billion of the $6.5 billion total had been committed or disbursed. The majority of the funding (99.5 percent) was provided to Egypt through the Department of State's (State) Foreign Military Financing (FMF) account. The funds from this account were used to purchase and sustain a wide variety of military systems, including F-16 aircraft, Apache helicopters, and M1A1 tanks.
The Departments of Defense (DOD) and State implemented end-use monitoring for equipment transferred to Egyptian security forces, but challenges including obtaining Egyptian government cooperation hindered some efforts. DOD completed all required end-use monitoring inventories and physical security inspections of storage sites for missiles and night vision devices (NVD) in fiscal year 2015, but DOD lacked documentation showing that it completed physical security inspections for these sensitive items in prior years. Despite agreeing to give access, the Egyptian government prevented DOD officials from accessing a storage site to verify the physical security of some NVDs prior to 2015, according to DOD officials and documents. State conducted 12 end-use checks of U.S. equipment exported to Egypt in fiscal years 2011 to 2015, but State data indicate that the Egyptian government's incomplete and slow responses to some inquiries limited U.S. efforts to verify the use and security of certain equipment, including NVDs and riot-control items. Despite this lack of cooperation, since 2008, State has not used outreach programs in Egypt that are intended to facilitate host country cooperation and compliance with State's monitoring program. According to State officials, this was due to the small number of end-use checks conducted in Egypt and the lower priority assigned to Egypt than to other countries.
Examples of U.S. Military Equipment Subject to End-Use Monitoring in Egypt
The U.S. government completed some, but not all, human rights vetting required by State policy before providing training or equipment to Egyptian security forces. State deemed GAO's estimate of the percentage of Egyptian security forces that were not vetted to be sensitive but unclassified information, which is excluded from this public report. Moreover, State has not established specific policies and procedures for vetting Egyptian security forces receiving equipment. Although State concurred with a 2011 GAO recommendation to implement equipment vetting, it has not established a time frame for such action. State currently attests in memos that it is in compliance with the Leahy law. However, without vetting policies and procedures, the U.S. government risks providing U.S. equipment to recipients in Egypt in violation of the Leahy laws.
Why GAO Did This Study
The U.S. government has allocated an average of about $1.3 billion annually in security assistance for Egypt in fiscal years 2011 through 2015. DOD and State have established end-use monitoring programs to ensure that military equipment transferred to foreign countries is safeguarded and used for its intended purposes. In addition, legal requirements, known as the Leahy laws, prohibit DOD- and State-funded assistance to units of foreign security forces if there is credible information that these forces have committed a gross violation of human rights.
This report examines, for fiscal years 2011 through 2015, the extent to which the U.S. government (1) committed or disbursed funds allocated for security-related assistance for Egypt, (2) implemented end-use monitoring for equipment transferred to Egyptian security forces, and (3) vetted Egyptian recipients of security-related assistance for human rights concerns. GAO analyzed U.S. agency data and documentation; conducted fieldwork in Egypt; and interviewed U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., and Cairo, Egypt. This is the public version of a sensitive but unclassified report issued in February 2016.
Recommendations
GAO is making six recommendations to strengthen State's implementation of end-use monitoring and human rights vetting, including utilizing its end-use monitoring outreach programs and developing time frames for establishing policies and procedures for equipment vetting. State generally agreed with these recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of State | To strengthen assurances that military equipment sold through direct commercial sales is used as intended, the Secretary of State should utilize available Blue Lantern outreach programs to help improve the completeness and timeliness of responses from the Egyptian government. |
State agreed with this recommendation and noted that it would implement it, subject to restrictions on travel to Egypt and any limitations in the United States' current political relations with the Egyptian government. In response to GAO's recommendation, State DDTC officials conducted a Blue Lantern outreach visit to Egypt in the fall of 2016. State officials met with Government of Egypt officials, Embassy Cairo stakeholders, and representatives of private industry during their visit to raise awareness and understanding of the Blue Lantern program and to encourage and facilitate improved timeliness and completeness of responses to Blue Lantern end-use monitoring checks.
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| Department of State |
Priority Rec.
To strengthen compliance with the Leahy laws and implementation of State's human rights vetting process and to help ensure that U.S. funded assistance is not provided to Egyptian security forces that have committed gross violations of human rights, the Secretary of State should determine, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the factors that resulted in some Egyptian security forces not being vetted before receiving U.S. training, and take steps to address these factors, to ensure full compliance with human rights vetting requirements for future training. |
State agreed with this recommendation and asserted that the department remains committed to ensuring that perpetrators of gross violations of human rights do not receive U.S. training or assistance. In April 2017 State reported that it and the Department of Defense were unable to retroactively determine the factors that resulted in no records of vetting for certain Egyptian security forces and noted that a number of these cases were from several years earlier. Although, State was unable to identify the specific factors that led to the vetting issues in the cases we identified, it reported that the Office of Military Cooperation (OMC) at Embassy Cairo has taken several steps in response to our recommendation. For example, OMC now maintains paper copies of International Vetting and Security Tracking system (INVEST) vetting approvals for all Egyptian security force personnel for a period of five years. In addition, State reported that OMC will not initiate its process to generate orders and funding for Egyptian security forces' participation in U.S.-funded training until after vetting approval is received through INVEST. Embassy Cairo has also completed an updated version of its guide for human rights vetting under the Leahy law. In the updated guide, Embassy Cairo reiterates that all offices providing training or other assistance to Egyptian security forces are required to complete required human rights vetting, in accordance with the embassy's policies and procedures, before the training or other assistance begins.
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| Department of State |
Priority Rec.
To strengthen compliance with the Leahy laws and implementation of State's human rights vetting process and to help ensure that U.S. funded assistance is not provided to Egyptian security forces that have committed gross violations of human rights, as State works to implement a revised version of the International Vetting and Security Tracking system (INVEST) system that is expected to help facilitate equipment vetting, the Secretary of State should develop time frames for establishing corresponding policies and procedures to implement a vetting process to help enable the U.S. government to provide a more reasonable level of assurance that equipment is not transferred to foreign security forces, including those in Egypt, when there is credible information that a unit has committed a gross violation of human rights. |
State agreed with this recommendation. State acknowledged challenges identifying recipients of equipment across the range of assistance activities, but noted that it would continue to update its systems and procedures to facilitate human rights vetting for recipients of equipment. State has taken a number of steps to implement this recommendation over time, including adding new features to INVEST in 2017 designed to help facilitate vetting of equipment recipients and publishing new vetting guidance requiring screening of equipment transfers. In addition, in October 2019, State launched a revised, cloud-based version of INVEST, called INVESTc, that included additional features to facilitate equipment vetting. Finally, in July 2021, State issued supplemental guidance describing steps that posts were to take to conduct vetting for recipients of U.S. equipment and other non-training assistance. Among other things, the guidance states that posts should, to the maximum extent practicable, vet recipients of equipment in INVESTc in advance of the equipment's delivery. With the issuance of this guidance and its earlier actions, State has taken sufficient action to implement our recommendation. By implementing this recommendation, State has taken an important step to strengthen compliance with the Leahy laws and help ensure that U.S.-funded equipment is not provided to security forces in Egypt, or elsewhere around the world, that have committed gross violations of human rights.
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| Department of State |
Priority Rec.
To strengthen State's documentation and procedures related to its human rights vetting process, the Secretary of State should take steps to ensure that State maintains training rosters or similar records of Egyptian security forces that have received U.S.-funded training to allow verification that required human rights vetting was completed before the individual or units received the training. |
In response to our recommendation, the Office of Military Cooperation (OMC) at Embassy Cairo now maintains a list, by fiscal year, of all Egyptian military students that have completed U.S.-funded training that it administers, using a Defense Security Cooperation Agency computer system. For training funded through other relevant accounts that the OMC does not administer, State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) maintains a database of vetted Egyptian recipients of U.S. training or other assistance, which will be updated twice yearly. As of April 2017, OMC and NEA had completed their initial rosters of Egyptian security forces receiving U.S. assistance.
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| Department of State |
Priority Rec.
To strengthen State's documentation and procedures related to its human rights vetting process, the Secretary of State should issue guidance establishing procedures for determining when subunits--and individuals within those subunits--are eligible to receive U.S. assistance when they are part of a larger unit that has been deemed ineligible to receive assistance under the Leahy laws. |
State partially agreed with this recommendation. State acknowledged that criteria for making these determinations are not covered in its guidance, but noted that it already takes such considerations into account on a case-by-case basis during internal policy deliberations to restrict or deny assistance and is currently discussing revisions to its guidance regarding this issue. In October 2016, State reported that new guidance on this topic will be included in an updated version of State's Leahy Vetting Guide. State completed the new version of the guide in 2017. In the revised guide, State explicitly confirms that the agency has the ability, in certain circumstances, to approve subunits to receive U.S. assistance even if they are part of a larger unit deemed ineligible to receive assistance under the Leahy laws. The guide also identifies various types of information that can potentially be used to clear subunits and provides guidance to embassies on steps to take to try and obtain such information. GAO is closing this recommendation as implemented.
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| Department of State |
Priority Rec.
To strengthen State's documentation and procedures related to its human rights vetting process, the Secretary of State should direct Embassy Cairo to comply with the State requirement to record relevant information it obtains regarding gross violations of human rights in INVEST. |
State agreed with this recommendation and noted that it would maintain in INVEST, and periodically update, a version of the spreadsheet it uses to track Egyptian security force units of concern and other allegations of human rights abuses. In response to our recommendation, Embassy Cairo developed an unclassified spreadsheet which it uses to track allegations of human rights violations committed by Egyptian security forces. The embassy maintains this spreadsheet in INVEST to support human rights vetting efforts.
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