The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Promoting our values, at the heaviest of costs
Pressing questions about vetting internationals swirl as Department of Defense suspends training for some 900 Saudi students around U.S.
The training programs that bring thousands of foreign military forces to the United States each year are meant to project American values around the world, but they have at times had troubling outcomes: Soldiers accused of using their skills to overthrow governments, commit atrocities or crush democratic uprisings.
Hundreds of other foreign troops who came to the United States for training end up abandoning their posts, sometimes disappearing without a trace. Auditors, meanwhile, have questioned why government leaders do so little to track whether the programs are achieving their goals or teaching participants about fundamental democratic freedoms.
“For as much money as we spend on it, there are a lot of stated benefits that really go untested and unmeasured,” said Dan Mahanty, the former director of the Office of Security and Human Rights at the State Department.
Members of Congress have renewed scrutiny of foreign training programs after an aviation trainee from Saudi Arabia shot nearly a dozen military personnel at Naval Air Station Pensacola last week in Florida, killing three, in what the authorities are investigating as a terrorist attack. The Department of Defense this week suspended all operational training for nearly 900 Saudi students around the country and ordered a full security review of all international military students here.
On Wednesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R.-Fla.) said on Twitter that the attack “exposed serious flaws in our vetting process that may require additional suspensions of some of our foreign training programs until these flaws are addressed.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) called for the immediate removal of any foreign military trainees who had not been fully vetted by U.S. intelligence agencies.
More than 5,000 students from 153 countries are enrolled in the programs, which instruct foreign students in everything from fixing circuit boards and mounting counterterrorism operations to flying fighter jets.
Values, relationships
The Pentagon leadership has long seen the exchanges as an opportunity to build relationships, improve intelligence gathering and encourage foreign militaries to embrace U.S. democratic ideals.
But the government does little to assess whether it is achieving those ambitions, critics say. Former students of training programs in the United States have been accused of getting involved in a range of atrocities abroad — a massacre in Guinea, rape in St. Kitts and Nevis, and political killings in Colombia.
The United States has continued to train hundreds of Saudis even as the kingdom drew global condemnation after the murder of a journalist and a bombing campaign in Yemen that killed hundreds of civilians.
Jeff Meiser, a political-science professor who for several years taught counterterrorism to foreign officers, said it was a struggle to give students skills while preventing them from abusing them. At the National Defense University, he taught a military officer from Gambia who, a short time after graduating with a master’s degree, was killed as he led a coup attempt in his homeland.
“It was very sad, and made me reconsider a lot of what we were teaching. But I don’t think it should end — that would be even worse,” said Meiser, who now teaches at the University of Portland. He said he thought that military trainers should adopt the baseline concept of modern medicine: First do no harm.
Mohammed A. Humran, 46, who trained in the United States as a lieutenant in the Yemeni navy, studied in Rhode Island, South Carolina and California for 19 months, learning United States history, science, diplomacy and other subjects. Now the president of the Union of Arab Academics, Humran said his American training gave him a more positive view of the United States.
“It allows for people to understand many cultures,” he said in a phone interview from Yemen. “We are working as one to protect and serve humankind around the world, even if we have different opinions and different cultures.”
A link to arms sales
While the United States finances some of the training programs, many are paid for by foreign governments, sometimes linked to the purchase of weapons and aircraft that require technical training.
In 2017, countries purchased nearly half a billion dollars in education and training linked to more than $40 billion in sales, according to a State Department report.
Buddy Rivera, who formerly worked at the Navy’s international education and training center in Pensacola, said the programs teach allied military personnel to operate under a common language and procedures, which are critical in joint missions. He said the programs pay dividends as people who train in the United States rise in the ranks of their security forces.
“They are a person of influence today or they are going to be a person of influence tomorrow,” Rivera said.
Saudis have been a large presence at the Pensacola base, said Rivera, adding that the facility has dedicated special resources for Saudi personnel in case they need support on base or cultural help in the community.
Sameh Haitham, whose 19-year-old son, Airman Mohammed Haitham, was killed in last week’s shooting, said he was angry and heartbroken. But he said that as a foreigner himself — he is from South Yemen, though his son grew up in Louisiana and Florida — he knows not all Saudis share the sentiments of the gunman and believes the foreign training is beneficial.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to train here in the U.S., in order to go back and defeat terrorists in their countries,” Haitham said. “But we must be very, very careful on who’s allowed to come in.”
A 34-year-old Iraqi air force sergeant who received language and avionics training from the American military said the United States should not be scared off by the actions of one Saudi airman. The sergeant, who asked that his name not be published because he did not have authorization from his military command to speak, said he appreciated the kindness of the Americans he met.
The suspect in the Pensacola shooting, identified as 2nd Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, arrived in the United States in 2017, first taking language classes in Texas before coming to Florida for a series of training programs, most recently including strike-fighter training. An analysis of a Twitter account suspected to be Alshamrani’s suggested that he may have been influenced as early as 2015 by four religious figures who are considered extremists, a Saudi official said.
Hundreds go missing
Auditors and government officials have long scrutinized vetting and security issues around training programs.
In 2006, as the United States took on a larger role in training security forces in Afghanistan, a report by the RAND Corp. raised questions about vetting, finding that a lack of records in Afghanistan made it difficult to assess participants. “We generally don’t know who we are training,” one official told the authors of the RAND report.
For Afghan trainees who come to the United States, U.S. Embassy personnel conduct additional screening that includes researching databases for evidence of criminal conduct, drug trafficking, support for terrorist activity and corruption.
But a number of Afghan trainees have gone missing in recent years. By 2017, government officials had tallied 152 Afghan participants who had gone absent without leave from their training programs in the United States, about one-third of them from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where many international trainees get language courses.
Earlier this year, military officials shut down a class training Afghan pilots in the AC-208 Combat Caravan aircraft at Fort Worth, Texas, after more than 40% of the trainees went AWOL.
Auditors were able to track down some who have gone missing over the years and learned that many had safety fears that led them to leave, including concerns that their training in the United States might endanger them upon their return home.
Of the trainees who went AWOL, many fled the country, some were deported, and 13 remained unaccounted for. Auditors determined that the vetting process appeared to be “flawed” and that the high number of AWOL participants represented a security risk.
More than 160 trainees from other countries have gone missing, according to government records, including some from Yemen, Iraq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The issue of human rights has long complicated the United States’ coordination with Saudi Arabia, which has a troubled record, including the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Federal law prohibits financial support for foreign forces that commit gross human rights violations.
Congress has at times adopted legislation to prohibit foreign assistance to Saudi Arabia, but various White House administrations have issued national security waivers to continue allowing such support.
More scrutiny coming
Tuesday’s suspension of all operational training for Saudi military students in the United States allows them to continue in the classroom but indefinitely halts activities such as flight instruction and firing range training. Officials are also reviewing screening procedures for foreigners who participate in the training programs.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper discussed the limitations this week with his Saudi counterpart, Khalid bin Salman, who himself once underwent military training in Columbus, Mississippi.
“We’re going to look for all foreign nationals coming into the United States to make sure we have the best, strongest vetting procedures we have, so we’re confident that regardless of where folks come from, that we know who’s coming to our country,” Esper told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. “We’ve just got to get it right. We’ve got to do it better.”