-- Government Accountability Office, 2009
The White House said Sunday that it has put on hold $800 million in military aid to Pakistan given Islamabad’s continuing shaky response to the terrorism in its midst. “Until we get through these difficulties,” White House chief of staff William Daley told ABC, “we will hold back some of the money that the American taxpayers have committed to giving.”
The $800 million represents about a third of the $2 billion in military aid the U.S. is providing Pakistan this year. It includes about $300 million to help fund Pakistan’s efforts to deploy its troops along the Afghan border, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in assorted training and supply accounts, the New York Times reported. The suspension, at least in part, comes in response to Pakistan’s recent decisions to expel U.S. military trainers and limit visas issued to American personnel.
It also comes in the wake of a pair of notorious killings on Pakistani soil.
The U.S. military carried out the first May 2 against the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, and the second involved the slaying of Pakistani reporter Saleem Shahzad, whose death was linked to Pakistan’s spy agency last week by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In both cases, U.S. officials say, the Pakistani government was on the wrong side: just how did bin Laden manage to live in the middle of Abbottabad, a Pakistani military town, without being detected by the government, U.S. officials wonder. And Shahzad’s death shows just how far some elements of the government are willing to go to stifle inquiries into their actions.
Ever since 9/11, the U.S. and Pakistan have had what some call a “transactional” relationship — if Pakistan can been seen as working to reduce terrorism, the U.S. will keep the financial aid flowing. Washington has given Islamabad about $20 billion since 9/11, but much of it appears to have been wasted or stolen. While much of the aid is supposed to be for only “incremental” costs incurred in fighting terrorists in western Pakistan, that hasn’t stopped Pakistan from submitting dubious bills — nor Washington from paying them.
The Pentagon paid Pakistan $200 million for radar expenses, for example, despite the fact that “terrorists in the FATA did not have air attack capability,” a 2008 report from the Government Accountability Office found.The U.S. also was paying Pakistan $800 a month to feed its sailors, while only $200 a month to feed its soldiers. It paid the Pakistani navy $5,700 per vehicle per month for damage to its “passenger cars and SUVs that were not involved in combat.” In contrast, U.S. taxpayers also paid $100 per month for damage done to Pakistani army vehicles that “were used to conduct military operations in the FATA and border region.”
“Never before has security depended so much on mutual cooperation and support yet been so plagued by mutual mistrust and misgivings,” Pakistani army Brigadier Malik Zafar Iqbal noted in a study he did while a student at the U.S. Army War College and published in December. “If Pakistan is to emerge from this conflict as a stable, prosperous, culturally diverse, peaceful, and stabilizing influence within the region, the US and Pakistan must dispel their suspicions and reconcile their differences.”