House Armed Services Committee Report 110-652 on the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act includes this reporting requirement:
FOREIGN MILITARY SALES
The committee notes that the training and equipping of foreign security forces is an increasingly important element of U.S. national security policy and is an area with growing involvement by the Department of Defense. Foreign military sales (FMS) can be a highly beneficial and effective part of this effort. For example, in recent years, the Government of Iraq has increasingly utilized the FMS process to acquire and sustain U.S.-origin military equipment because the FMS process provides high-quality equipment while minimizing concerns about procurement integrity that otherwise have inhibited the Republic of Iraq's efforts to make major investments in equipment. As the United States focuses increasingly on building partnership capacity around the world, it is often doing so with countries that are not traditional FMS customers. These countries have underdeveloped institutional capacities, particularly in matters of budgeting and acquisition, which present challenges for an FMS sales system that has traditionally focused on sales to longer-term, more developed allies.
These trends have correctly led to a reexamination of the policies and processes associated with FMS, including the appointment of a dedicated FMS task force by the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The committee is pleased to note that the efforts of this task force led to a significant reduction in the time needed to process high-priority FMS requests. The committee expects that the Department will continue to examine the policies and processes associated with FMS to ensure that they are appropriately tailored to the changing environment for this program.
At the same time, the committee notes that processes other than FMS that have been and are still being used to equip foreign security forces, particularly the special funds for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, have proven extremely vulnerable to materiel diversion, corruption, and accountability failures. These failures can not only limit the effectiveness of U.S. assistance, in extreme cases, they can and have led to outcomes that work at cross purposes to U.S. policy and the military mission. The FMS program is a better long-term alternative to these more ad hoc programs, which have limited institutional support and under-developed accountability processes.
The FMS program suffers from its own accountability issues as highlighted in reports issued by the Government Accountability Office and by the recent discovery of the accidental delivery of classified parts to the Republic of China on Taiwan. The Government Accountability Office identified numerous cases of shipments leaving U.S. ports in which the defense articles were not authorized by the FMS agreement, the FMS agreement was closed, or the value of the articles exceeded the amount authorized. The Government Accountability Office also found that there is no effective system for tracking shipments after they have left a U.S. port, which increases opportunities for diversion, improper delivery, or theft. The committee expects the Department to work and share information with other federal agencies to correct problems with tracking FMS shipments at U.S. ports and during transport to the country of destination.
The committee directs the Secretary of Defense, working in coordination with the Secretary of State, to submit a report, by September 1, 2008, to the Senate Committee on Armed Services, the House Committee on Armed Services, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs containing an analysis of the implications of the Department's efforts to build partner capacity around the globe for the FMS program, measures needed to address problems with the tracking of FMS shipments, and efforts within the Department to update its policies and processes for handling FMS.