A group of State Department officials accused Secretary of State Tex Tillerson of violating a federal law intended to keep foreign governments from using child soldiers, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

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The confidential “dissent” memo said Tillerson ​flouted the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act in June when he excluded Afghanistan, Iraq and Myanmar from a US list of offenders using child soldiers despite the State Department publicly stating those countries were conscripting them, the wire service reported, citing a review of the documents.

Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier for the US to supply them with military assistance, the report said, noting that Afghanistan and Iraq are allies in the fight against terrorists and Myanmar is emerging as a check on China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, Sudan, Syria and Yemen​ appear on the State Department list. ​

The decision to add the three countries was made after “months of research, legal assessments, collaboration among multiple bureaus within the Department, and dialogue with NGOs and international organizations,” the memo said, using the abbreviation for non-governmental organizations.

“Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government’s primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” ​the memo sent in July said, according to the report.

The law requires that for a country to be removed from the list, the US must conclude that no children under 18 are “recruited, conscripted or otherwise compelled to serve as child soldiers​.​”

”The ​s​ecretary thoroughly reviewed all of the information presented to him and made a determination about whether the facts presented justified a listing pursuant to the law,” a State Department spokesperson ​told Reuters.

T​illerson’s adviser, Brian Hook, ​in response to the “dissent” memo on Sept. 1, acknowledge the countries used child solider, but pointed out the need to distinguish between governments “making little or no effort to correct their child soldier violations … and those which are making sincere – if as yet incomplete – efforts.”