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New signs of fallout in U.S.-Pakistani relations

09 May 2011 22:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. There’s probably just one thing anyone can say with certainty about the U.S. relationship with Pakistan: It won’t be getting any simpler any time soon, APA reports quoting â€œThe Envoyâ€.
Today, for instance, Pakistani news outlets ratcheted up tensions between the two nations--which have been battered badly in the wake of the May 1 U.S. raid on the compound that quartered Osama bin Laden--by revealing the name of the alleged CIA station chief in Islamabad. In Washington, meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers issued a series of letters demanding more accountability for the billions of dollars in assistance the United States gives to Pakistan’s military.
Key lawmakers, including Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Ca), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, circulated the letters, which raise concerns about Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism amid the call for stricter accountability and oversight on aid to the Pakistani military. The missives stop short of threatening an outright cut in U.S. assistance--another tacit reminder that however fraught things may be at the moment in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, both parties are likely to be stuck with each other for awhile.
Noting the $20 billion in U.S. civilian and military assistance to Pakistan since 2001, Berman -- a key co-author of the Pakistan aid legislation -- wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "However, according to recent documents, ... certain elements of the Pakistani defense and intelligence establishments continue to provide direct and indirect support to groups that directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan’s own stability." Berman said he would like to engage the administration further on how to improve relations with Pakistan "while also ensuring accountability," he wrote.
"The discovery of Osama Bin Laden in a military town less than forty miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad indicates, at a minimum, a lack of commitment by the Pakistani government to aggressive cooperation with the United States," Sen. Menendez wrote in a separate letter to Clinton and Defense Secretary Bob Gates.
Menendez also questioned the scale of the current assistance package for Pakistan, noting that after Afghanistan, the country is the second largest recipient of U.S. assistance, including $4.7 billion in U.S. aid and reimbursements in fiscal 2010.
However, U.S. South Asia hands warned that while threatening Pakistan with an aid cut-off may make for good domestic political rhetoric in the United States, an actual aid pullback could have disastrous consequences for wider U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and the region.
"Cutting off [aid to] Pakistan would be a great strategy if killing [Osama bin Laden] was the [one] piece of business we had in South Asia," one U.S. official working on the issue told the Envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity, and with evident sarcasm and frustration. "Provided," he continued, "we are willing to wash off our hands of the Afghan war, and accept being cut-off from further access to counter-terrorism opportunities."
None of this means, of course, that either country is going to be happy with the status quo. White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon also made the rounds on the Sunday TV news shows to discuss the pressure U.S. diplomats are now seeking to put on their Paksitani counterparts to gain access to bin Laden’s three widows, who are all reportedly in Pakistani custody.
These intrigues are all complicated by the Pakistani press’s outing of the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad--information that the media in Pakistan presumably got from the Pakistani security services, annoyed at the U.S. unilateral action against bin Laden. (A former U.S. official told The Envoy on condition of anonymity, however, that the Pakistani media had misspelled the U.S. officer’s name slightly.)
This is the second time in five months the name of the alleged CIA station chief has been exposed in Pakistan. The U.S. pulled the last CIA station chief from Islamabad in December, after he received threats after he’d been named in a Pakistani court case--again, presumably, with a nod of approval from the Pakistani spy agency.
President Barack Obama struck a patient note as he recounted the ups and downs and complexities of joint U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism efforts in his "60 Minutes" interview Sunday. But he, too, has taken some pointed--if somewhat indirect--swipes at the Pakistanis Monday for the station head’s public exposure. Without taking full aim at the Pakistanis, the White House nonetheless sent out a notice stressing its sunny relationship with India--Pakistan’s fiercely hated rival in the region.
"President Obama spoke with Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh this morning to discuss the successful American action against Osama Bin Laden and to review progress in implementing the initiatives launched during the President’s November 2010 visit to India," the White House said in a readout of an apparent Obama phone call with his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"The two leaders re-affirmed their commitment to building a global, strategic partnership, including defense cooperation, and looked forward to the upcoming meetings of the Strategic Dialogue, the Homeland Security Dialogue, the Joint Space Working Group, and the High-Technology Cooperation Group," the statement continued. The readout didn’t note whether the two leaders complained about recent events in Pakistan--but then again, it really didn’t need to.