Lebanon is a small, religiously diverse country on the Mediterranean Sea that borders Israel and Syria (see fig. 1). Religious tensions among Lebanon’s Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Shiite Muslims, and others, along with an influx of Palestinian refugees, for decades have underpinned Lebanon’s internal conflicts as well as its conflicts with neighboring countries. Hezbollah emerged in Lebanon as a powerful Islamic militant group and since 2005, a member of Hezbollah has held a cabinet position in the Lebanese government. Hezbollah is funded by Iran and has been designated by the United States and Israel as a terrorist organization. In the summer of 2006, Hezbollah and Israel entered into a month-long conflict that ended with the adoption of United Nations Resolution 1701 by both the Israeli and Lebanese governments. The resolution called for, among other things, Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in parallel with the deployment of Lebanese and United Nations forces and the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon. Instability arising from the civil war in neighboring Syria that began in 2011 has exacerbated sectarian conflict within Lebanon. In May 2013, Hezbollah leaders confirmed their intervention in the Syrian conflict. Figure 2 presents a timeline of selected political events in Lebanon. Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war, the United States has kept strategic goals for Lebanon constant. These goals are to support Lebanon as a stable, secure, and independent democracy. The overarching priorities of U.S. assistance programs for Lebanon focus on supporting Lebanese sovereignty and stability and countering the influence of Syria and Iran. Security-related goals for Lebanon focus on counterterrorism and regional stability or internal security, and corresponding activities seek to support development of the LAF and the ISF as the only legitimate providers of Lebanon’s security. The United States has provided security equipment and training to the LAF, which is generally responsible for providing border security, counterterrorism, and national defense, and to the ISF, or national police force, which is generally responsible for maintaining law and order in Lebanon. In 1996, Congress amended the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which authorizes the President to control the sale or export of defense articles and services, 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 act, including through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and direct commercial sales, or the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The amendment specified that the program should provide reasonable assurances that recipients comply with restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on the use, transfer, and security of defense articles and defense services. The President delegated responsibilities for the program to the Secretary of Defense, insofar as they relate to defense articles and defense services sold, leased, or transferred under FMS, and to the Secretary of State, insofar as they relate to commercial exports licensed under the Arms Export Control Act. For FMS, DOD’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) is responsible for end-use monitoring; for direct commercial sales, State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls is responsible for end-use monitoring. In addition to the end-use monitoring requirements under the Arms Export Control Act, the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, directs the President to take all reasonable steps to ensure that aircraft and other equipment made available to foreign countries for international narcotics control under the Foreign Assistance Act are used only in ways that are consistent with the purposes for which such equipment was made available. State’s Bureau of International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) has implemented this requirement by means of its End-Use Monitoring Program. To help ensure that U.S. assistance is not used to support human rights violators, Congress prohibits certain types of assistance from being provided to foreign security forces implicated in human rights abuses. Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the United States from providing assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of a foreign country’s security forces if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights. This provision is known colloquially as the State Leahy law. DOD’s annual appropriation contains a similar provision, known colloquially as the DOD Leahy law. The current version prohibits funds from being used to support training, equipment, or other assistance for security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of Defense has received credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights. DOD, in consultation with State, must give full consideration to any credible information available to State relating to human rights violations by a unit of the foreign security forces before it conducts training for the unit. According to State, Leahy laws and the corresponding policies developed to enforce and supplement these laws are intended to leverage U.S. assistance to encourage foreign governments to prevent their security forces from committing human rights violations and to hold their forces accountable when violations occur. According to State, U.S. programs subject to the Leahy laws in Lebanon include Foreign Military Financing; International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE); Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining, and Related programs; and Sections 1206 and 1207 authorities. See appendix II for additional information on the U.S. human rights vetting process. The United States allocated $671 million for security-related assistance for Lebanon from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2013. Of these total allocated funds, $477 million, or 71 percent, had been disbursed or committed by the end of fiscal year 2013. Nearly all of the allocations made in fiscal years 2009 through 2011 had been disbursed or committed. Since 2007, the United States has provided security-related assistance for Lebanon through the Foreign Military Financing program; the International Military Education and Training program; the INCLE program; the Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining, and Related programs; and Section 1206 and 1207 authorities for training and equipping foreign militaries and security forces and for reconstruction, stabilization, and security activities in foreign countries, respectively. For the largest program, Foreign Military Financing, DOD had committed about $352 million of the $481 million allocated from fiscal years 2009 through 2013. Table 1 presents the amounts of funds allocated, committed, or disbursed to these programs for Lebanon in fiscal years 2009 through 2013. Appendix III provides additional information on the status of these funds. Table 2 describes the U.S. security-related assistance programs for Lebanon and their goals, and identifies the agencies that implement them. We provide examples of the types of equipment some of these programs provide to the Lebanese security forces in the next section. DOD and State conduct end-use monitoring for equipment each has provided or authorized for sale to Lebanese security forces, but gaps in implementation of procedures may limit efforts to safeguard some equipment. DOD annually inventories sensitive equipment by serial number, as required by its policy; however, U.S. embassy officials in Beirut have not always used DOD’s required checklists to document compliance with security safeguards and accountability procedures. In addition, State officials in headquarters and at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut did not always document the results of end-use monitoring checks as specified in State guidance. Finally, State INL officials annually inventory all equipment INL has provided to the ISF, but INL may not be ensuring that the ISF is implementing recommended physical security safeguards for defense articles because INL lacks procedures to identify defense articles and the recommended safeguards for storing them. DOD officials conduct annual inventories as part of end-use monitoring through the Golden Sentry program, which is DOD’s program to comply with requirements of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended, related to the end use of defense articles and services. DOD personnel at U.S. missions worldwide conduct the monitoring activities established and overseen by DSCA. Under this program, DOD conducts two levels of monitoring: routine end-use monitoring and enhanced end-use monitoring. Routine end-use monitoring: 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. Enhanced end-use monitoring: DOD conducts enhanced end-use monitoring for defense services, technologies, or articles specifically identified as sensitive—such as night vision devices. DOD policy requires serial number inventories for defense articles requiring enhanced end-use monitoring following delivery of the articles and at regular intervals thereafter. In addition, Letters of Offer and Acceptance, the FMS purchase agreements authorizing the sale of an item, may contain specialized notes or provisos requiring the purchaser to adhere to certain physical security and accountability requirements. With respect to enhanced end-use monitoring, DSCA’s policy manual for end-use monitoring, the Security Assistance Management Manual, and the associated standard operating procedures for Beirut require DOD officials annually to conduct a physical inventory of 100 percent of designated defense articles, conduct physical security checks of facilities where the equipment is kept, and use and maintain records of equipment-specific checklists that outline the physical security requirements for Lebanese facilities that store the equipment. Officials of DOD’s Office of Defense Cooperation in Beirut told us that they annually conduct an inventory involving the inspection of serial numbers for 100 percent of defense articles requiring enhanced end-use monitoring. Such equipment includes certain types of missiles, night vision devices, sniper rifles, aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Figure 3 shows examples of defense articles provided to the LAF.