Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are key U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf (see fig. 1). The countries are primarily governed by longstanding ruling families under emirates and monarchies, and, with the exception of Bahrain and Oman, each possesses large oil or gas reserves. Together, these countries constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council, which they established in 1981 as a means to coordinate on security concerns, among other issues. The United States maintains close security ties with the Gulf countries. For example, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are two of the largest purchasers of U.S. arms in the world, the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain, and U.S. Central Command operates its forward command facilities in Qatar. Moreover, the United States has designated Bahrain and Kuwait as major non- NATO allies. In the 1990s, the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf and efforts to promote greater coordination among the Gulf Cooperation Council states was primarily aimed at containing conventional threats from Iraq and Iran. More recently, U.S. security cooperation has focused on addressing transnational terrorism and proliferation networks and confronting regional security threats, in particular Iran. However, popular uprisings in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the Arab world strained U.S. relations with some Gulf Cooperation Council countries in 2011 and have drawn into focus the tension between preserving existing security relationships and promoting human rights. For example, human rights organizations and other observers have noted that the government in Bahrain may have violated human rights in its attempt to quell protests in February 2011 and suppress dissent in their aftermath. The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA) authorizes the President to control the sale or export of defense articles and services. The U.S. government sells defense articles and services to foreign governments and international organizations through FMS and authorizes the commercial export of defense articles and services to foreign governments and other entities through DCS. State has overall regulatory responsibility for both FMS and DCS, but DOD’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) administers FMS, and the individual military departments implement the sale and delivery process for FMS.Directorate of Defense Trade Controls administers DCS by licensing exports from U.S. companies to foreign entities. The AECA, as amended, also requires end-use monitoring for the sale or export of defense articles and services, and these responsibilities are delegated to the same agencies that administer the programs. A 1988 amendment to the AECA required the President to develop standards for identifying high-risk commercial exports for regular end-use monitoring. In consultation with other agencies, State developed a list of standards that may signal an illegal export or diversion, and therefore warrant end- use monitoring. In 1996, Congress amended the AECA to require the President to establish a program for monitoring the end-use of defense articles and defense services sold, leased, or exported under the AECA, including through FMS and DCS. The amendment specified that the program should provide reasonable assurances that the recipient is complying with restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on the use, transfer, and security of the defense articles and defense services. DOD’s DSCA administers the Golden Sentry program to monitor the end-use of defense articles and defense services transferred through FMS, and State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls administers the Blue Lantern program to conduct end-use monitoring for defense articles and defense services exported under DCS. U.S. officials located in the Gulf countries conduct the monitoring for each program. DOD officials at Security Cooperation Organizations conduct Golden Sentry end-use monitoring and State officials at U.S. embassies conduct Blue Lantern checks. Policies and procedures for the Golden Sentry and Blue Lantern programs are outlined in DOD’s Security Assistance Management Manual and State’s Blue Lantern Guidebook, respectively. A provision in the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended in 2008, commonly referred to as the “Leahy Law,” prohibits the United States from providing any assistance under the act or AECA to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if there is credible information that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights. This law applies to assistance provided through the International Military Education and Training and Foreign Military Financing programs, among others. From 1997 through 2007, this provision was included as an amendment to State’s annual foreign operations appropriation bills. In 2008, the Foreign Assistance Act was amended to make these restrictions permanent. In addition, DOD’s annual appropriations bill contains a similar “Leahy” provision that applies to DOD-funded training programs. This provision prohibits any funding made available through DOD’s appropriations bill from being used to train a unit of security forces or foreign police forces if State provides to DOD credible evidence of gross human rights violations by such unit. According to DOD policy, this provision applies to Joint Combined Exchange Training and the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program—two training programs that DOD has funded in the Persian Gulf countries. The State and DOD Leahy provisions do not apply to training and equipment purchased through FMS or DCS using host country funds. These purchases are subject to a separate human rights provision, which limits security assistance to countries whose governments engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights. According to State, it reviews all arms sales and exports through FMS and DCS for human rights concerns, among other things. State’s review process is described in greater detail in our previous report on arms sales and arms exports to the Gulf countries. Under its Golden Sentry program, DOD conducts two levels of monitoring—enhanced end-use monitoring and routine end-use monitoring—based on a list of specific sensitive defense articles. DOD conducts enhanced end-use monitoring for specifically identified sensitive defense articles, services, and technologies. Letters of Offer and Acceptance authorizing the sale of these items to countries in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere may contain specialized notes or provisos specifying that the purchaser must adhere to certain physical security and accountability requirements. For example, specialized notes for Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles require the purchaser to conduct semiannual inventories by serial number and establish procedures to provide a continuous accounting for the items. To verify compliance with these provisos, DOD policy requires that it conduct serial number inventories for items designated as requiring enhanced end-use monitoring following delivery and at regular intervals thereafter. As of July 2011, DOD had designated 16 defense articles that always require enhanced end-use monitoring when sold though FMS. As of August 23, 2011, the Gulf countries have purchased 9 of these 16 defense articles, including NVDs and various missiles (see table 1). DOD conducts routine end-use monitoring for defense articles and services sold through FMS that do not have any unique conditions associated with their transfer. Routine end-use monitoring is conducted in conjunction with other required security-related duties. For example, U.S. officials might observe how a host country’s military is using U.S. equipment when visiting a military installation on other business. Given the large volume of defense articles transferred through FMS, DSCA officials have instructed DOD personnel to concentrate routine end-use monitoring efforts on a “watch list” of specific categories of items, including battle tanks, artillery systems, fixed wing aircraft, and helicopters. All other defense articles, such as uniforms, radios, and canteens, are still subject to routine end-use monitoring, but receive a lower priority. In addition to enhanced and routine end-use monitoring, DOD conducts periodic Compliance Assessment Visits to review and evaluate the Security Cooperation Organizations’ and host nations’ overall end-use monitoring compliance programs. A Compliance Assessment Visit evaluates a country’s compliance with specific physical security and accountability agreements, provisos, and other terms of sale. It may include facility visits, records reviews, reviews of local security procedures, and inventories of U.S. origin defense articles. As of October 27, 2011, DOD has conducted a Compliance Assessment Visit in each of the Gulf countries except for Qatar, which has not received any defense articles requiring enhanced end-use monitoring except for Communications Security Equipment (see table 2). In May 2009, we reported that DOD did not have written guidance for selecting countries for compliance visits and recommended that DOD create written guidance that incorporated a risk-based approach.written guidelines for identifying countries to receive compliance visits in its May/June 2011 End-Use Monitoring newsletter, and these guidelines will be included in forthcoming revisions to the Security Assistance Management Manual. These guidelines will be broad enough to take various factors into consideration, including the political and military stability of the region, the history of a country’s compliance with the Golden Sentry program, and the makeup of a country’s inventory of defense articles requiring enhanced end-use monitoring, among other factors. The U.S. government considers NVDs to be a sensitive military technology that is vulnerable to diversion. According to DOD, control and security of NVDs continues to be a major national security concern, and its policy is to treat these systems as a valuable, limited, and sensitive national security resource to be husbanded and invested in support of national security objectives. NVDs provide U.S. forces a technological advantage by facilitating the location, recognition, and defeat of opposing forces during periods of low battlefield visibility, a capability also sought by terrorist groups. Night vision technology may be incorporated into man-portable devices, such as binoculars, weapons sights, and thermal imagers, or devices mounted onto other platforms, including helicopters and unmanned aerial systems.