KABUL: The US military funded Afghan police and security units even thoughAmerican officials knew members were implicated in gross human rightsviolations, according to a watchdog report released Tuesday.
The previously secret report, first provided to Congress in June but nowdeclassified, lays bare the cultural rifts that can exist when Americaworks with local partners.
According to the report by the office of the Special Inspector General forAfghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Pentagon repeatedly grantedexemptions from US rules that bar assistance to a foreign nation’s securityforces if credible information exists of rights violations.
For instance, the Pentagon approved waivers to these so-called Leahy Lawsto continue funding for 12 Afghan security force units implicated in 14gross human rights violations in 2013.
The same workaround, known as the “notwithstanding clause,” was used foreight of nine additional units implicated in 2014.
Although the Defense Department and State Department have “confirmed thatsome units of the Afghan security forces have committed gross violations ofhuman rights, the secretary of defense has used the notwithstanding clause”to some implicated units, the report states.
The exemptions were made under then-secretaries Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter.
In a response to the report, the Pentagon said the document “does notreflect an understanding of the challenges faced by US forces inAfghanistan in developing and sustaining the Afghan National Defense andSecurity Forces.”
Jedidiah Royal, a Pentagon official, wrote that removing the“notwithstanding clause” would remove the defense secretary’s ability tobalance the Leahy Laws with “national security objectives and theprotection of US forces.”
The report states that as of June 12, 2016 officials were tracking 75reported gross violation of human rights incidents, including seveninvolving child sexual assault.
Afghanistan has an entrenched custom of what is known as “bacha bazi” — orthe sexual abuse of boys — and critics have long accused the United Statesof not doing enough to counter it.
In one instance outlined in the report, a US soldier heard Afghan menscreaming “in what sounded like sex” but did not take action to report it,SIGAR states.
“The full extent of child sexual assault committed by Afghan securityforces may never be known,” the report says.
In addition to the child sex assault incidents, officials were alsotracking extrajudicial killings and the torture of detainees.
Members of Congress requested the review in 2015 after The New York Timesreported on “rampant” child sex abuse in the Afghan security services andsaid that US personnel had been told not to intervene.