Order Code RL32773
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
The Global Peace Operations Initiative:
Background and Issues for Congress
Updated February 8, 2006
Nina M. Serafino
Specialist in International Security Affairs
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

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The Global Peace Operations Initiative: Background
and Issues for Congress
Summary
The Administration has requested $102.6 million in FY2007 funds for the
Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), a multilateral, five-year program with
planned U.S. contributions of some $660 million from FY2005 through FY2009. Its
primary purpose is to train and equip 75,000 military troops, a majority of them
African, for peacekeeping operations by 2010. GPOI also supports an Italian training
center for gendarme (constabulary police) forces in Vicenza, Italy. In addition,
GPOI is promoting the development of an international transportation and logistics
support system for peacekeepers, and is encouraging an information exchange to
improve international coordination of peace operations training and exercises in
Africa. In June 2004, G8 leaders pledged to support the goals of the initiative.
GPOI incorporates previous capabilities-building programs for Africa. From
FY1997-FY2005, the United States spent just over $121 million on GPOI’s
predecessor program that was funded through the State Department Peacekeeping
(PKO) account: the Clinton Administration’s African Crisis Response Initiative ,
i.e., ACRI and its successor, the Bush Administrations’s African Crisis Operations
Training i.e., ACOTA. (The term ACOTA is now used to refer to GPOI’s training
program in Africa). Through mid-2005, the United States trained troops from nine
African nations — Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali,
Mozambique, and Senegal. Subsequently, three African nations were added to the
roster: Gabon, South Africa, and Zambia, and a fourth, Nigeria, is scheduled to join
the program in 2006. Some $33 million was provided from FY1998-FY2005 to
support classroom training of 31 foreign militaries through the Foreign Military
Financing account’s Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities program
(EIPC).
In mid-2005, the Administration began expanding the geographical scope of
GPOI to selected countries in Central America and Europe with funding from
supplemental funding in the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2005 (H.R.
4818, P.L. 108-447). It also has established a communications network in Asia.
Congressional action on FY2006 foreign operations legislation left uncertain the
amount of FY2006 GPOI funding. The Administration request was $114.4 million.
In FY2006 foreign operations appropriations, Congress did not allocate a specific
amount for GPOI and funded the total State Department PKO account, which
contains GPOI funds, at $20 million under the Administration’s request.
A major issue for the second session of the 109th Congress may be whether
international training efforts through GPOI and its predecessor programs are having
the desired effect. Results of a study contracted by the State Department in
September 2005 and currently underway may influence Congressional opinion.
Another issue may that may concern Members is whether the State Department
exercises sufficient control and oversight over private contractors.
This report will be updated as events warrant.

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Contents
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
GPOI Purposes and Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
GPOI Goals and Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Demand for Peacekeepers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Need for Gendarme/Constabulary Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
U.S. Peacekeeping Training in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Development of the “Beyond Africa” Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Foreign Response and Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Italian Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units
(CoESPU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
FY2005 GPOI Funding and Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Funding and Allocations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Congressional Action on FY2006 Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Appropriations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Issues for the 109th Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Are International Training Efforts through GPOI and Its
Predecessor Programs Having the Desired Effect? . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Can the State Department Exercise Sufficient Control and
Oversight of Private Contractors? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

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The Global Peace Operations Initiative:
Background and Issues for Congress
Background
The Bush Administration has requested $102.6 million in FY2007 State
Department funding for the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI). The
Administration launched the five-year (FY2005-FY2009) $660 million initiative in
mid-2004 as a means to alleviate the perceived shortage worldwide of trained
peacekeepers and “gendarmes” (police with military skills, a.k.a. constabulary
police), as well as to increase available resources to transport and sustain them.
While the United States has provided considerable support to implement several
peace processes and to support peacekeepers in the field from a variety of budget
accounts for well over a decade, it has provided relatively little funding to build up
foreign military capabilities to perform peacekeeping operations.1
The United States previously provided peacekeeping capacity-building
assistance to foreign militaries primarily under two programs, the African
Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program (ACOTA) and its
predecessor program, and the Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities
program (EIPC). Both ACOTA and EPIC have been subsumed under the GPOI
budget line. ACOTA is now the term used to refer to the Africa training component
of GPOI.
Impetus for GPOI came from the Department of Defense (DOD), where officials
in the Office of Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) worked
with the State Department for over a year and a half to develop the proposal.
Officials in SO/LIC’s section on peacekeeping developed the plan as a means to
expand and improve the ACOTA program - with more and better exercises and more
equipment - as well as to extend the program beyond Africa to other parts of the
world. Policymakers hoped that the availability of peacekeeping training would
encourage more countries to participate in peacekeeping operations, enable current
donors to provide a greater number of troops, and increase the number of countries
which potentially could serve as lead nations, according to some analysts.
The GPOI budget is part of the Foreign Operations Appropriations
Peacekeeping (PKO) account, also known as the “voluntary” Peacekeeping account,
under the Military Assistance rubric. The PKO account funds activities carried out
1 The term “peacekeeping” is used generically here. It covers the range of activities referred
to elsewhere as peace operations, stability operations, or stabilization and reconstruction
(S&R)operations.

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under Section 551 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (FAA).2
Section 551 authorizes the President to provide assistance for peacekeeping
operations and other programs to further U.S. national security interests “on such
terms and conditions as he may determine.” (This provides some flexibility to the
President, but is not tantamount to the discretion that he can exercise when funding
is provided “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”)
GPOI Purposes and Activities
In his September 21, 2004 address to the opening meeting of the 59th session of
the U.N. General Assembly, President Bush asserted that the world “must create
permanent capabilities to respond to future crises.” In particular, he pointed to a need
for “more effective means to stabilize regions in turmoil, and to halt religious
violence and ethnic cleansing.” A similar rationale prompted the Clinton
Administration to formulate the ACRI training program in 1996 and underlies the
current search for new strategies and mechanisms to prevent and control conflicts.3
GPOI Goals and Needs
To accomplish these ends, GPOI, has three major goals:
! Train some 75,000 troops worldwide, with an emphasis on Africa,
in peacekeeping skills by 2010. (The number is the total to be
trained by all participating countries, according to a State
Department official.)
! Support Italy in establishing a center to train international gendarme
(constabulary) forces to participate in peacekeeping operations (see
section below); and
! Foster an international deployment and logistics support system to
transport peacekeepers to the field and maintain them there.
Through GPOI, the State Department also promotes the exchange of information
among donors on peace operations training and exercises in Africa. This is
accomplished through donors meetings which serve as a “clearinghouse” to facilitate
2 The State Department’s Peacekeeping Operations account (i.e., PKO, also known as the
“voluntary” peacekeeping account) funds U.S. contributions to peacekeeping efforts other
than assessed contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations. U.N. assessed contributions
are funded through the State Department’s Contributions to International Peacekeeping
Account (CIPA).
3 For more information on this topic, see CRS Report RL32862, Peacekeeping and Conflict
Transitions: Background and Congressional Action on Civilian Capabilities, by Nina M.
Serafino and Martin A. Weiss.

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coordination. The first of these State Department meetings was held in Washington,
D.C. on October 7-8, 2004.4
Demand for Peacekeepers. For many analysts, continued efforts to
improve the peacekeeping skills of African and other military forces is an important
step towards controlling devastating conflicts, particularly in Africa. In the mid-
1990s, several developed nations provided most of the peacekeepers. The perception
that developed nations would not be able to sustain the burden indefinitely, as well
as the perception that the interests of those nations in Africa were not sufficient to
ensure needed troop commitments there, led international capacity-building efforts
to focus on Africa.
As of the end of December 2004, shortly after GPOI first started up, almost
25,000 of the nearly 58,000 military personnel who were participating in the current
17 U.N. peacekeeping operations were from the 22 African troop-contributing
nations. (African nations provided over half of the military personnel — roughly
24,000 of 47,000 — in the seven U.N. peacekeeping operations in Africa.) Africa’s
military contribution to U.N. peacekeeping at the end of 2004 was over double that
at the end of 2000; five of the top ten African contributors, who provided some 98%
of the military contribution, received training under the ACRI/ACOTA program.
African contributions to the U.N. international civilian police pool (CIVPOL)
remained just about the same over those four years: 1,213 in December 2004 (of a
total of 6,765 from all nations) compared to 1,088 in December 2000.
African militaries also participate in regional peacekeeping operations under the
auspices of the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) and the
African Union (AU). (The first ECOWAS peacekeeping mission was deployed to
Liberia in 1990. Subsequent missions were deployed to Liberia once again, Guinea
Bissau, Sierra Leone, and most recently the Côte d’Ivoire. The AU deployed its first
peacekeepers to Burundi in 2003 and Sudan in 2004. All missions but Sudan
eventually became U.N. operations.) Both organizations are trying to develop an
African stand-by peacekeeping force, comprised of contributions from five regional
organizations, by 2010. Under GPOI, the United States will work to enhance and
support the command structures and multilateral staff of ECOWAS and the AU.
Need for Gendarme/Constabulary Forces. A second capability in short
supply is the specialized units of police with military skills to handle temporary
hostile situations such as unruly crowds.5 Several countries have such forces, i.e., the
4 The United States European Command (EUCOM) held two previous “clearinghouse”
meetings in May and December 2004.
5 Gendarme/constabulary forces are trained in both military and policing skills, but are less
heavily armed than soldiers. According to the Clinton Administration’s Presidential
Decision Directive 71 (PDD-71), constabulary tasks include the regulation of peoples’
movements when necessary to ensure safety; interventions “to stop civil violence, such as
vigilante lynchings or other violent public crimes” and to “stop and deter widespread or
organized looting, vandalism, riots or other mob-type action;”and the dispersal of “unruly
or violent public demonstrations and civil disturbances.” (Text: The Clinton Administration
(continued...)

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Italian carabinieri, the French gendarmerie, and the Spanish Guardia Civil, among
others. In the United States these are referred to as constabulary forces.
U.S. Peacekeeping Training in Africa
Since 1996, the United States has provided field and staff training to develop
military capabilities for peacekeeping through the African Crisis Response Initiative
(ACRI) and its successor program, ACOTA, which as of 2005 was subsumed under
GPOI. From its inception through FY2005, the United States trained6 troops from
nine African nations — Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali,
Mozambique, and Senegal.7 (It also trained a small number of gendarmes who
received the same training as the others.) The United States also provides non-lethal
equipment to the militaries which it trains.8 Initially, under ACRI, U.S. soldiers
provided field training and oversaw classroom training provided by private
contractors.9 Because of the demand for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan,
private contractors also began to conduct field training.
During FY2005, some 11,000 African troops were trained and a total of 14,000
are expected to be trained with FY2005 funds. This included the training of six
battalions from Senegal which were subsequently deployed to specific peacekeeping
5 (...continued)
White Paper on Peace Operations, February 24, 2000, pp 9-10.) Constabulary forces often
can deploy more rapidly than other international civilian police because they usually deploy
as “formed units” (i.e., in previously formed working groups) instead of as individuals. They
also are often equipped with their own communication and logistical support. See CRS
Report RL32321, Policing in Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations: Problems and
Proposed Solutions, by Nina M. Serafino.
6 ACRI provided training in traditional peacekeeping skills where there is an existing cease-
fire or peace accord. The more muscular ACOTA, initiated in 2002, has also provided
training in the skills needed for African troops to perform peacekeeping tasks in more
hostile environments, including force protection, light-infantry operations and small-unit
tactics. Information from a State Department official and Col. Russell J. Handy, USAF,
Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance: Developing Training Partnerships for
the Future of Africa. Air and Space Power Journal, Fall 2003, as posted online at
[http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/fal03/handy.html]. ACOTA
also put greater emphasis on the “train the trainer” aspect. As of 2005, training packages
included Command and Staff Operations Skills, Command Post Exercises (i.e., exercises,
often computer-bases, of headquarters commanders and staff) and Peace Support Operations
Soldier Skills field training, according to a State Department fact sheet.
7 Ugandan troops were trained briefly under ACRI. That training was halted because of
Ugandan involvement in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
8 This includes communications packages, uniforms, boots, generators, mine detectors,
Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and medical and water purification equipment.
9 MPRI and Northrup Grummon Information Technology (NGIT) are both qualified to bid
for State Department contracts. According to a State Department official, many of the
trainers provided by the private contractors are military retirees or reservists.

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CRS-5
missions,10 and three battalions from Botswana who anticipated deployment.
Training for a 7th Senegalese battalion and a battalion from a new partner, Gabon,
began training in FY2005 and continued training into FY2006. Predeployment
training began in November 2005 for Mali and Senegal. Also during FY2006,
ACOTA will sponsor training for Benin, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi,
and Mozambique, as well as for two new African partners, South Africa and Zambia.
Military personnel from a third new partner, Nigeria, will join the program in
November 2005 as part of an observation team and later, in March and April 2006,
Nigerian personal will receive “train the trainer” training. Another battalion from
Gabon will be trained in February and March 2006.
Funding for ACRI, which like ACOTA was provided under the State
Department’s Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) account, totaled $83.6 million during
its six fiscal years (FY1997-FY2002). (Additional support for ACRI was provided
through the Foreign Military Financing program.) ACOTA was funded at $8 million
in FY2003, $15 million in FY2004, and $14.88 million for FY2005.
Other support for classroom training of foreign militaries has been provided
through the EIPC, a “train the trainer” program which began in FY1998 and was
subsumed under the GPOI rubric. EIPC provides assistance to selected countries —
some 31 as of early 2005 — by designing and implementing a comprehensive,
country-specific peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance training and education
program to enhance a nation’s institutional structure to train and deploy
peacekeepers. EIPC funding, which is provided under the Foreign Military Financing
Program, has totaled about $33.3 million, including an estimated $1.79 million in
spending in FY2005.
Development of the “Beyond Africa” Program
The State Department initiated the “Beyond Africa” training and equipping
program in mid-July 2005,11 and as of late 2005 was still setting up the program.
“Beyond Africa” activities will extend GPOI training to three new regions: Latin
America, Europe and Asia. (As in Africa, some equipment is provided during
training, but only that needed for the training itself. Trained troops are not provided
with equipment needed for operations until they deploy.)

In Central America, GPOI funds will be used to train and equip soldiers from
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. They are also being used to
upgrade an existing facility in order to establish a peacekeeping training center in
Guatemala. The intention is to stand up a battalion of about 600 Central American
troops.
10 The Senegalese have been trained to participate in missions in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo (DRC), the Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, and Darfur.
11 The Department of Defense transferred the $80 million in P.L. 108-447 (Division J
Section 117) supplemental appropriations to be used for GPOI programs in June 2005.
Funds became available for obligation in mid-July, 15 days after the State Department
notified Congress of its spending plans.

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In Europe, GPOI funds will be used for bilateral training of soldiers from the
Ukraine, Albania, and Bosnia-Hercegovina. The funds will also be used to provide
pre-deployment training for a “South East Europe Brigade” (SEEBRIG) of soldiers
from Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Macedonia in preparation for their participation
in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO peacekeeping
operation in Afghanistan.
In Asia, GPOI will train, equip, and provide some logistical support to soldiers
from Bangladesh, Malaysia, Mongolia, and Thailand. GPOI funds are also being used
to expand the Asia-Pacific Area Network (APAN) communications capabilities by
installing software and hardware in the peacekeeping centers of these four countries.
Foreign Response and Contributions
G8 leaders12 endorsed the GPOI goals (above) at their June 2004 summit
meeting at Sea Island, GA, adopting an “Action Plan on Expanding Global
Capability for Peace Support Operations.”13 (This was actually the third G8 Action
Plan concerning peacekeeping in Africa. In June 2002, the G8 Summit at
Kananaskis, Canada, adopted a broad Africa Action Plan that contained sections on
conflict resolution and peace-building efforts. The more specific Joint Africa /G8
Plan to Enhance African Capabilities to Undertake Peace Support Operations was
developed over the next year and presented at the June 2003 Summit at Evian-les-
baines, France.14) As indicated by the GPOI “clearinghouse” concept, several G8
countries already have significant programs in Africa. In addition to the United
States, France and the United Kingdom (UK) conduct bilateral training programs
with African militaries. Germany and the UK provided the assistance necessary to
launch the regional Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center in
Ghana, which opened in 2004; the European Union and other countries, most
prominently Canada, Italy, France and the Netherlands, have also assisted the Center.
The Italian Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units (CoESPU).
In his September 2004 speech to the United Nations, President Bush referred to Italy
as a joint sponsor of GPOI, because it co-sponsored with the United States the Sea
Island G8 peacekeeping action plan. Italy also had moved to establish a school for
training gendarme forces even before the United States Congress had provided
funding for U.S. support for the school. Italian carabinieri, who are widely viewed
as a leading model and have played a prominent role in providing constabulary forces
to peacekeeping and stabilization operations,15 established the Center of Excellence
12 G8 refers to the “Group of 8” major industrialized democracies: Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. G8 heads of state,
plus representatives from the European Union, meet at annual summits.
13 Text available at [http://www.g8usa.gov/d_061004c.htm].
14 Texts available at [http://www.g8.gc.ca/2002Kananaskis/kananaskis/afraction-en.pdf] and
[http://www.g8.gc.ca/AFRIQUE-01june-en.asp].
15 According to Carabinieri officials interviewed by the author, as of mid-November 2004,
some 1,300 carabinieri were deployed in missions to Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Albania,
(continued...)

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for Stability Police Units (CoESPU) at Vicenza in March 2005. Italy is providing not
only the facility, but also most of 130-plus person staff for the “train the trainer”
program. The U.S. contribution of $10 million for the school’s operation and
training programs was transferred to Italy in late September 2005. CoESPU’s goal,
by 2010, is to train 3,000 mid-to-high ranking personnel at Vicenza and an additional
4,000 in formed units in their home countries.16
The first CoESPU class graduated on December 7, 2005. About 40 senior
officers (staff officers ranking from Lt. Colonels to Colonels and their civilian
equivalents) attended the high level, four-and-a-half week course (approximately 150
classroom hours) for training in international organizations, international law
(including international humanitarian law), military arts in peace support operations,
tactical doctrine, operating in mixed international environments with hybrid chains
of command, and the selection, training, and organization of police units for
international peace support operations. The first class consisted of officers from
Kenya, Jordan, Cameroon, Morocco, India, and Senegal. CoESPU intends to offer
four high level courses per year.
A pilot course to train about 100 junior officers and senior non-commissioned
officers (sergeant majors to captains and the civilian equivalents) began on January
13, 2006. This seven-week course covers the materials taught in the high level
course with an emphasis on training in the more practical aspects, including check
point procedures, VIP security and escorts, high risk arrests, border control, riot
control, election security, and police self-defense techniques. CoESPU plans to
offer five such middle management courses per year. Students from Cameroon,
India, Kenya, Jordan, Morocco and Senegal are participating in this course.
CoESPU is also developing a lessons-learned and doctrine writing capability in
order to serve as an interactive resource for SPUs. It intends to develop a coherent
and comprehensive SPU doctrine to promote interoperability in the field, to ensure
that doctrine is the basis of training standards and methods, and to respond to
questions from SPU commanders in the field, as well as to support pre-mission and
in-theater training exercises.
FY2005 GPOI Funding and Activities
Funding and Allocations
Although the initiative had long been in the works, President Bush approved
GPOI in April 2004, two months after the FY2005 budget request was submitted to
15 (...continued)
and Palestine.
16 The data in this sentence and the following three paragraphs was provided by CoESPU
officials in October 2005, except for the list of countries participating in the course
beginning in January 2006, which was taken from a dispatch of the Italian news agency,
ANSA, “Esercito: Ufficiali PS Paesi Afroasiatici a Lezione di Pace,” posted on the
Caribinieri website, [http://www.carabinieri.it].

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Congress. To fund the initiative at $100 million in FY2005, the Administration
proposed that 80% be contained in the DOD budget and the remaining 20% be
ACOTA funds in the State Department budget. The Armed Services committees did
not back GPOI, because of concerns that its inclusion in the DOD budget would
divert funds from U.S. troops. GPOI’s strongest support seemed to come from
Senate foreign affairs authorizers and appropriators.
Of the $96.7 million in GPOI funding that Congress provided for FY2005,17
State Department plans called for over a third (about $35 million) to be spent on
Africa programs (i.e., for training African troops in peacekeeping and for support to
headquarters of African organizations) and about one-fifth ($20 million) for
“Beyond Africa” training. (Training expenditures include the cost of equipment used
during training.) A little under a third ($29 million) was to be spent on the
acquisition and storage of equipment for distribution to trained troops when they
deploy to missions and for other deployment support, and the remainder for other
purposes. The following chart provides a breakdown of plans, by region and
function, as of August 2005. (Total does not add due to rounding.)
Program
Amount
Africa Training
$29.0 million
Africa Headquarters Support
$ 6.3 million
Latin America Training
$ 6.5 million
Asia Training
$ 8.5 million
European Training
$ 5.0 million
Equipment Acquisition and Storage
$26.0 million
Deployment Support
$ 5.0 million
Italian Gendarme School (COESPU)
$10.0 million
Support
Measuring Effectiveness
$ 0.3 million
17 At the end of 2004, Congress provided GPOI funding in the Consolidated Appropriations
Act for FY2005 (H.R. 4818/P.L. 108-447). Section 117 of Division J (“Other Matters”)
provided that “$80 million may be transferred with the concurrence of the Secretary of
Defense” to the Department of State Peacekeeping Operations account. The authority was
provided notwithstanding any other provision of law, except section 551 of Division D (the
Foreign Operations appropriations section of the bill), i.e., the “Leahy Amendment” which
prohibits the training of military units credibly accused of gross violations of human rights.
(A State Department official said that the “notwithstanding” language was requested to
provide an exemption from FAA Section 660, which limits U.S. assistance for the training
of foreign police.) Division D of H.R. 4818/P.L. 108-447 contains the $20 million in State
Department PKO funding for ACOTA and the nearly $1.8 million in EPIC funding that are
now subsumed under GPOI.

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Congressional Action on FY2006 Funding
The Bush Administration requested $114.4 million for FY2006 funding. The
following summarizes Congressional action on that request.
Appropriations
The House FY2006 Foreign Operations appropriations bill, H.R. 3057, (as
reported by the House Appropriations Committee, H.Rept. 109-152, on June 24 and
passed on June 28), contains $96.4 million for GPOI. The Committee explained that
it had provided $18 million less than the request not because it disapproved of GPOI,
but because it did not expect that all $63 million indicated for equipment and
transportation outside of Africa could be obligated and spent in 2006. According to
the report, “the Committee is supportive of the effort to expand the number of peace
support troops and gendarme units for multilateral peacekeeping and regional
stability operations. The Committee believes that through this effort, the United
States can reduce the emphasis on the use of military troops for these operations.”
The Senate version of H.R. 3057 (as reported June 30 and passed July 20),
contains $114.0 million for GPOI. (The Senate Appropriations Committee report,
S. Rept 109-96, states that this sum is equal to the request, although the original
request was $114.4 million, as stated in the House report.) Through report language,
the Senate Appropriations Committee would require the Secretary of State to submit
detailed reports on the use of the fund within 90 days of enactment and quarterly
thereafter: “The report shall describe, at a minimum: all countries and regional
organizations receiving assistance under this heading; major end items procured;
services or training provided or purchased; operation and maintenance services and
contracts, to include logistics and commodities purchased: the procurement of
ordnance or ammunition; a description of any U.S. military organization providing
training or assistance; and, the status and description of each foreign unit receiving
training.”
The conference version of the bill (H.Rept. 109-265, P.L. 109-102, signed into
law November 14, 2005) does not earmark funding for GPOI or for any other
program contained in the PKO account. The conference version funds the full PKO
account at $175.0 million, slightly less than both the House ($175.8 million) version
and a full $20 million less than the Senate version’s $195.8 million, which was the
same as the Administration’s FY2006 budget request. The PKO account is subject
to the reporting requirement of Section 584, which mandates that the Secretary of
State provide the Appropriations Committees a report on the obligation and
expenditure of its funds no later than April 1, 2006.
Authorization
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee version of the State Department
authorization bill for FY2006 and FY2007 (S. 600, S.Rept. 109-35, reported on
March 10, 2005, and returned to the calendar on April 26) would authorize $114.4
million for FY2006 and such sums as may be necessary for FY2007 for GPOI. The
House version (H.R. 2601, H.Rept. 109-168, as reported by the House International
Relations Committee on July 13, 2005 and passed on July 20) does not mention

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CRS-10
GPOI and does not detail accounts in such a way as to indicate whether GPOI is
funded. There was no further action on the bill before Congress adjourned in
December.
Issues for the 109th Congress
As GPOI enters its third year, Members of Congress may raise four possible
issues for Congressional consideration. These are:
Are International Training Efforts through GPOI and Its
Predecessor Programs Having the Desired Effect? Members wonder
whether the GPOI program is meeting its goal of providing well-trained peacekeepers
for U.N. and other operations. There are two aspects of particular concern: (1) is the
training provided sufficient to enable soldiers (or police in the case of COESPU
training) to handle the necessary range of peacekeeping tasks effectively, and (2) are
the soldiers (and police) trained under GPOI actually deployed to international
peacekeeping operations? In an effort to measure results, the State Department
awarded in September 2005 a contract to DFI International to develop a system to
evaluate GPOI and to monitor its results against that “metrics” system.
Can the State Department Exercise Sufficient Control and
Oversight of Private Contractors? Because of the need for a large number of
U.S. soldiers to train Iraqi and Afghani national armies, private contractors are likely
to continue to provide the bulk of military training to GPOI participants. Although
private contractors can offer advantages, such as specialized local knowledge, in
training situations, occasional problems have arisen with the use of military and
police contractors abroad in other types of operations. Members may wish to
consider whether the State Department can enforce appropriate professional
standards and a code of conduct.

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