Department of Defense’s Section 1004 Mid-Year Report Released
For the first time, the Department of Defense (DoD) released a biannual report to Congress on its spending for Section 1004 counter-drug assistance, a major program that supports foreign governments’ counternarcotic activities.
The report, required by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, covered the first half of FY2014, from October 2013 through March 2014. The numbers from the report already show there could be significant differences in funding between the Fiscal Years 2014 and 2012 (the last year for which we have obtained updated data from DOD on this program).
The chart above compares funding levels for the top Section 1004 recipients in 2012 to the aid figures in the report for the first half of this fiscal year. We’ll have to wait for the next report to be released to have complete numbers for FY2014, but unless spending trends differ widely in the second half of this fiscal year, the following are some trends we are seeing in Section 1004 funding in 2014 compared to 2012:
South Asia
· Afghanistan: appears funding is will drop significantly in 2014. In 2012, Afghanistan received close to $315 million in Section 1004 funding, while in the first half of FY2014 Afghanistan only received about $24 million. If support for the rest of this fiscal year were to mirror 2012 levels, the DoD would have to spend 13 times the current amount.
· Pakistan: So far in FY2014, the United States has increased Section 1004 funding to Pakistan significantly. In 2012, Pakistan only received $629,000, but after the first half of FY2014, funding stood at around $3 million.
Central Eurasia
· Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—all top receivers of Section 1004 funding in 2012— are on course to receive far less support in 2014. Kyrgyzstan had the largest drop in support, receiving only $1.2 million in the first half of FY2014 compared to $21.3 million in 2012.
Latin America and the Caribbean
·Belize, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru are all on their way to receiving roughly the same amount of support in FY2014 as in FY2012.
· Mexico and Honduras will both likely receive far less support. Mexico has received only $14.3 million, compared to over $127.9 million in 2012. Similar to Afghanistan, DoD would have to spend nine times the current amount in the second half of FY14 to match the FY2012 figure. Honduras has received only $1.7 million—if this figure were doubled, that would mean Honduras would receive less than half of the funding it did in 2012, when it received $10.4 million.
A second report covering the rest of FY14 is due at the end of November and will show whether these trends have continued. The apparent overall drop in Section 1004 funding levels, while likely a reverberation of sequestration, could also indicate shifting U.S. priorities in combatting the illegal drug trade or the allocation of funds for these activities through different accounts.