Accounts that Pay for U.S. Drug War Aid to Latin America
This post is cross-posted with Adam Isacson's personal blog. The original can be read here.
I wrote the text below in a follow-up email to some congressional staff with whom I’d met last week. It occurred to me, though, that it might be helpful to share it more widely than that.
There are only three U.S. programs that specifically pay for counter-drug aid in Latin America. Together, though, they make up about 81% of all U.S. military/police aid to the region over the last 10 years. (And 12% of economic/civilian aid.) They are:
1. International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE): the biggest single aid program to Latin America by far. The only program I know of in the U.S. foreign aid budget that can pay for both military aid (helicopters etc.) and economic aid (alternative development programs etc.)
- Administered by the State Department Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
- Funded through annual State / Foreign Operations budget appropriation.
- Authorized by Sections 481-489 of Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 USC, Chapter 32, Subchapter I, Part VIII )
- Total aid to Latin America 2005-2014 $7.01 billion ($5.11 billion military/police, $1.90 billion economic/civilian.)
- Best official report breaking down aid: INL Program and Budget Guide
2. Section 1004 Counternarcotics: the Defense Department’s non-permanent, but regularly renewed, authorization to use its own budget for several specific kinds of military and police aid to other countries (and to US civilian law enforcement). After INCLE, the second-largest source of military/police aid to Latin America.
- Administered by Defense Department, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics (under Assistant Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.)
- Funded through annual Defense budget appropriation.
- Authorized by Section 1004 of the 1991 National Defense Authorization Act, as amended.
- Total aid to Latin America 2005-2014 $3.47 billion.
- Best official report breaking down aid: reporting is poor. Armed Services Committees sometimes require reports, sometimes don’t. All reports we’ve obtained are at http://bit.ly/QLm2GQ.
3. Section 1033 Counternarcotics: another Defense Department counter-drug military aid program, which pays for a few additional kinds of aid that 1004 doesn’t. Begun in 1998 for Colombia and Peru, since expanded to 39 countries worldwide.
- Administered by Defense Department, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics (under Assistant Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.)
- Funded through annual Defense appropriation.
- Authorized by Section 1033 of the 1998 National Defense Authorization Act, as amended.
- Total aid to Latin America 2007-2014 $192 million. (In our estimates, some earlier years’ aid is probably included in “1004” above.)
- Best official report breaking down aid: reporting is poor. Armed Services Committees sometimes require reports, sometimes don’t. All reports we’ve obtained are at http://bit.ly/QLm2GQ.