to "any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." This law was seen as too vague to be effective in cases where the U.S. government had an overriding interest. According to Senator Leahy, his law "makes it clear that when credible evidence of human rights violations exists, U.S.aid must stop. But, it provides the necessary flexibility to allow the U.S. to advance its foreign policy objectives in these countries." Text of the laws U.S. assistance to foreign armed forces comes from two different budgets; therefore, two separate versions of the Leahy amendment have been enacted into law. One covers assistance to foreign forces funded through the State Department foreign assistance budget, and another covers assistance funded out of the Department of Defense budget. The law covering State Department funded aid is found in Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (as amended most recently in January 2014). It states: The Department of Defense Appropriations version of the Leahy Law (10 U.S. Code § 2249e) reads: There are several key differences between the two versions of the law. First, the Department of Defense version includes a waiver that allows the Secretary of Defense – after consulting with the Secretary of State – to waive the requirements of the provision if "extraordinary circumstances" warrant it. Another difference concerns what steps a government must take to resume assistance once a security force unit has been flagged for gross human rights violations. The Foreign Assistance Act version requires that the government of the country in question "is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice" while the Defense Department version prohibits assistance "unless all necessary corrective steps have been taken". Leahy Law provisions are sometimes confused with human rights conditionality that applies to overall Foreign Operations aid packages to a specific country, such as Colombia, Mexico, or Guatemala. The Leahy Law applies only to assistance to specific units, and does not necessarily affect the level of assistance to a country, even when implemented. Human rights conditionality, on the other hand, typically requires a percentage of assistance to a country to be withheld until the Department of State certifies progress on certain human rights conditions. Vetting process The U.S. government (via the State Department) implements the law through a process known as "Leahy vetting". A