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| India-Pakistan |
| US offers Pakistan government $7bn in non-military aid to fight terrorism |
| 2008-04-17 |
| The US has promised to curb air strikes by drones against suspected militants in Pakistan, as part of a joint counter-terrorism strategy agreed with the new civilian government in Islamabad, the Guardian has learned. That strategy will be supported by an aid package potentially worth more than $7bn (£3.55bn), which is due to go before Congress for approval in the next few months. The package would triple the amount of American non-military aid to Pakistan, and is aimed at "redefining" the bilateral relationship, US officials say. Pakistan will also be given a "democracy dividend" of up to $1bn, a reward for holding peaceful elections and forming a coalition government. Of that, $200m could be approved in the next few days. The aid package, being put together by the Democratic senator Joseph Biden, will mark a decisive break in US policy on Pakistan, which for much of the past nine years focused on President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military as Washington's primary partners in the "war on terror". Officials in Washington said yesterday that the shift had already been made. "Senator Biden wants to show the relationship is much broader than a military one, and that we are willing to sustain it over time," one of the senator's senior aides said yesterday. A US administration official said: "Each day Musharraf's influence becomes less and less. Civilians are in control. People aren't meeting with Musharraf any more ... we are very pleased with the new civilian government." Pakistani officials say much of the new counter-terrorism aid will be spent on civilian law enforcement institutions, such as the interior ministry, the intelligence bureau and the federal investigation agency, rather than being channelled almost exclusively through the army and the military-run Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organisation. The new government says it has also won American support for its policy of opening a dialogue with Pashtun tribes along the Afghan border, led by an ethnic Pashtun group, the Awami National party, that is part of the government coalition. The new understanding on air strikes by US Predator drones is seen in Islamabad as a critical benchmark for the new relationship. In January senior US intelligence officials flew to Islamabad and struck an agreement with Musharraf to give the American military a freer hand in the use of Predators against targets in Pakistan's tribal areas, which have become havens for al-Qaida and other foreign jihadists as well as Taliban forces fighting Nato forces and the government in Afghanistan. The subsequent increase in Predator strikes - estimates of the number range up to eight - caused outrage in Pakistan. Britain also broke with Washington over the reliance on air strikes often guided by uncertain intelligence. Pakistani officials say they have been given assurances by Washington that there will be close consultation with the civilian government, not with Musharraf, before any future strikes. However, the use of Predators is held as a closely guarded secret and US intelligence is reluctant to share information about targets, and there is some scepticism in Islamabad over whether the deal will stick. "We'll have to take them at their word, won't we," said the new information minister, Sherry Rahman, in an interview in Islamabad. She added that Washington's previous emphasis on ties to Musharraf and the Pakistani military "hasn't provided the results that were supposed to happen on the ground". The US has given Pakistan about $10bn in military aid during the past seven years, but it has not diminished the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, while Pakistani extremism is also on the rise. Some officials in Washington believe most of the money has been used to build up Pakistan's conventional forces for use in a possible future conflict with India, rather than spent on counter-insurgency. Furthermore, much of the money being used for counter-terrorism is being misspent, both Pakistan and US government officials say. As an example they say that Musharraf distributed the $25m reward money for capturing or killing "high value" al-Qaida targets in the form of an "inverted pyramid". "A few thousand would go to the police constable on the ground who actually spotted the guy, but the millions go to the generals up the chain," a Pakistani official said. No wonder, he added, that the tip-offs stopped coming in and the number of high-profile arrests dropped. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #5 Hands across the waters. Pols helping pols... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-04-17 13:05 |
| #4 I'm sure we will get our monies worth out of this deal! /sarcasm |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-04-17 12:52 |
| #3 Because, just like in D.C., all of the money will go exactly where it is earmarked to go. If this goes, unless it builds completely an American run superhighway from Karachi to Kabul, biden owes me $20. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-04-17 11:44 |
| #2 So they want to borrow 7 billion and give it to these clowns to line their pockets with and with demand zero results. This sounds just like a plan made in Washington DC where not one of these bastards has to worry about paying the bill. I say we get some results from the money we already have giving them first. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2008-04-17 07:25 |
| #1 when will the west realise that terrorism is a foreign policy by perv & Co to gtee cqs from the west!!!! |
| Posted by: Paul 2008-04-17 06:41 |