Relationship with US in balance

File photo of Zardari and Obama in Washington. Photo: REUTERS 

Pakistan may be the loser as legislators question Islamabad’s ignorance of haven 60km away

Published: 2011/05/04 06:48:53 AM

THE greatest long-term casualty of the US operation to kill Osama bin Laden, besides the al-Qaeda leader himself, may be the US-Pakistani relationship.


That the mastermind of the September 11 attacks in 2001 was found in a three-storey house in a Pakistani town prompted umbrage in the US capital, where legislators said US aid may hinge on what, if anything, Pakistan knew or suspected of Mr bin Laden’s whereabouts.


The Bin Laden bombshell comes as the two countries seek to repair ties frayed by friction over US drone attacks on militants on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan and Pakistan’s six-week imprisonment of a CIA contractor.




While President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton say Pakistan helped lead them to Bin Laden’s doorstep in a compound in the city of Abbottabad, they also said it was fair to question US aid. In the US Congress, the questions have been sharp.


"The US provides billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan," says senator Frank Lautenberg, a fellow Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee that apportions government spending. "Before we send another dime, we need to know whether Pakistan truly stands with us in the fight against terrorism."


Since 2001, Congress, which holds the US government purse strings, has approved about $20bn for Pakistan in direct aid and military payments, making it one of the top recipients of US aid, according to the Congressional Research Service.


Much of it has been spent on building a close relationship with Pakistan’s military with the intention that it would help the US fight militants like Mr bin Laden and stabilise a nuclear-armed Pakistan facing its own militant insurgency.


"This is going to be a time of real pressure" on Pakistan "to basically prove to us that they didn’t know that Bin Laden was there", says Senate homeland security committee chairman Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent who often sides with opposition Republicans on national security matters.


"In terms of the military aid … support for that will depend on how Pakistan answers some of these questions, which need to be asked, about the presence of Bin Laden in such a central location," says Senate armed services committee chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat.


While Abbottabad is only about 60km on a map from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the drive takes anywhere from two to five hours, depending on traffic levels, and the final stretch is through mountainous terrain.


The town is the headquarters of the Pakistan army’s Baluch Regiment and one former resident says the life of the town largely revolves around the military, including the Kakul academy, which is Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point.


The US and Pakistan have had an uneasy alliance since the September 11 attacks, with Washington pushing Islamabad to take stronger action against suspected militants launching attacks on US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.


Even Democratic representative Howard Berman, an author of a 2009 law that expanded civilian aid to Pakistan by $1,5bn a year over five years, says he had doubts about the military aid even before Mr bin Laden was killed.


"I am more alarmed about the fact that we are funding and helping to equip a military that doesn’t seem to have a view of its enemies that is the same as our view," according to Mr Berman.


He describes a general pattern emerging with Pakistan maintaining ties with militants such as the Haqqani network and "refusing to take on the Afghan Taliban", as well as criticising the use of US drone aircraft to attack militants.


"All this raises serious questions about what we are doing, with what is well close to $2bn a year in military assistance to the Pakistan military," Mr Berman says.




Asked if it is plausible that Pakistani authorities had no idea Mr bin Laden was in Abbottabad, former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice says top leaders might have been ignorant but leaves open the possibility lower-level people may have known.


"I am surprised that they found him where they did, so close to Islamabad, but it is to me conceivable that at least top- ranking people didn’t know that he was there.


"I think a lot is going to come out over the next several weeks about what Pakistani co-operation looked like; that’s an extremely important part of this," Ms Rice says. "We need to understand." Sapa-AP