Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, left, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, right, arrive on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday to testify before the House Armed Services committee hearing on the Islamic State group.WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has repeatedly asked Congress to exempt its military effort against the Islamic State from a longstanding ban on U.S. assistance to torturers and war criminals, highlighting doubts about finding “clean” American allies in a region wracked by ethnic animosity and religious extremism.
The latest proposal is included in a Nov. 10 request to Congress for $1.6 billion to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight IS as part of a $5.6 billion request to expand the U.S. mission in Iraq. The proposal sets up a fight with key Senate Democrats, who blocked two earlier requests for such an exemption, according to documents and interviews.
The 1997 Leahy Law, named after Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, bars the U.S. from funding military units suspected of “gross human rights violations,” which include murder, torture and extrajudicial imprisonment. Top military officers have long complained that the law slows their work with local forces, while human rights activists call it an important safeguard against U.S. complicity in abuses by unsavory allies.
The Obama administration is seeking a blanket exemption from the Leahy provisions and related constraints as it trains and equips Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight IS.
Iraqi government forces, in particular, were notorious for human rights abuses under the previous prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. In July, a United Nations human rights report documented allegations of atrocities by the government, including shelling civilians and executing Sunni detainees.