Being taken for a ride by an “ally,” and financing yet another jihad. “‘Pak using US aid against India,'” from the Times of India, with thanks to Ranajit:
NEW YORK: Pakistan has received $1.8 billion as security assistance from the US for the war against terrorism, but the weapons financed under it are “more useful in countering India” than fighting Al Qaida and Taliban, according to a study.
In addition, Pakistan has got $5.6 billion from Washington over the last five years as reimbursements for fighting Taliban and Al Qaida, the New York Times reported on Sunday quoting a research by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Here is the New York Times story in question: “U.S. Pays Pakistan to Fight Terror, but Patrols Ebb,” by David E. Sanger and David Rohde:
WASHINGTON, May 19 “” The United States is continuing to make large payments of roughly $1 billion a year to Pakistan for what it calls reimbursements to the country”s military for conducting counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan, even though Pakistan’s president decided eight months ago to slash patrols through the area where Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are most active.
The monthly payments, called coalition support funds, are not widely advertised. Buried in public budget numbers, the payments are intended to reimburse Pakistan’s military for the cost of the operations. So far, Pakistan has received more than $5.6 billion under the program over five years, more than half of the total aid the United States has sent to the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, not counting covert funds.
Some American military officials in the region have recommended that the money be tied to Pakistan’s performance in pursuing Al Qaeda and keeping the Taliban from gaining a haven from which to attack the government of Afghanistan. American officials have been surprised by the speed at which both organizations have gained strength in the past year.
Good idea. Or cut it off altogether. But Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the national security adviser, says that’s not going to happen:
“I”m not aware of any serious discussion to cut off the funding,” Mr. Johndroe said. The payments are critical to bolstering the military, General Musharraf’s greatest source of support, particularly as he faces growing street protests over his removal of an independent-minded Supreme Court chief justice as the court was about to consider the legality of the president’s decision to hold the nation’s top military and political posts at the same time….
A study of the roughly $10 billion sent to Pakistan by the United States since 2002, conducted by Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that $5.6 billion in reimbursements was in addition to $1.8 billion for security assistance, which mostly finances large weapons systems.
But those weapons are more useful, the authors concluded, in countering India than in fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The United States has also provided about $1.6 billion for “budget support,” which Pakistan can use broadly, including for reducing debt….
Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO supreme commander, said that when American or NATO forces saw Taliban fighters crossing the border and radioed nearby Pakistani posts, there sometimes was no answer. “Calls to apprehend or detain or restrict these ongoing movements, as agreed, were sometimes not answered,” General Jones said. “Sometimes radios were turned off.”…
Mr. Durrani, the ambassador, denied that Pakistani troops were failing to stop Taliban fighters at the border. He said the troops were carrying out joint operations with American forces based inside Afghanistan.
Two American analysts and one American soldier said Pakistani security forces had fired mortars shells and rocket-propelled grenades in direct support of Taliban ground attacks on Afghan Army posts. A copy of an American military report obtained by The New York Times described one of the attacks.
Durrani denies this also, of course.