US-AID to Pakistan

KARACHI: As anger mounts over the degrading language and observations in the Kerry-Lugar Bill on Pakistan’s military services and intelligence agencies, the Army conveyed its part of protest to the United States when Commander of International Forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal met Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani at the GHQ on Tuesday, informed officials said.

These officials said that General Kayani told General McChrystal that like the Pakistani people, the military and intelligence services were furious at the observations made on Pakistan’s security establishment in the Kerry-Lugar Bill. Kayani also protested over the controversial statements made by some US officials in recent days.

“General McChrystal returned from the GHQ with an unambiguous message that the terms set in the Kerry-Lugar Bill on the national security interests of Pakistan are insulting and are unacceptable in their present formulation,” according to an official familiar with the content of the meeting.

Informed official sources said that the Army’s strong reaction to the Kerry-Lugar Bill was shared in detail with the government when General Kayani met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday.

In a related development, also on Tuesday, Gilani asked Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to convey Pakistan’s reservations in his meetings with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama’s Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and key members of the US Congress.

While Tuesday’s meeting with General McChrystal provided General Kayani with an opportunity to convey the Army’s serious objection to the controversial sections of the bill in detail, he had lodged an initial protest during his meeting with General McChrystal in Kabul, where he had gone last week toattend the tripartite military conference.

The Kerry-Lugar Bill and its impact on national security interests of Pakistan will be a key subject of discussion when the corps commanders and principal staff officers of the Army meet under General Kayani on Wednesday.

While the nation’s response is currently focused at the controversial content of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, the government is also concerned about a growing unregulated arrival and stay of American citizens in Pakistan.

Concerns grew when Pakistanís security agencies recorded various cases of illegal acquisition of weapons by security firms connected with the US Embassy in Pakistan. Prime Minister Gilani, sources said, has already ordered a complete record with specific details and pre-clearance of US citizens entering Pakistan on US government business.

Zardari asks party leaders to defend Kerry-Lugar

‘We have been elected by the people through a democratic and constitutional process and our legitimacy coupled with good governance should be the chief weapons to fight back the opponents,’ he said while addressing top party leadership at the Presidency during a discussion on the current domestic political situation on Monday night.

The meeting continued till early Tuesday morning and was attended by about 30 senior party leaders, including Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Syed Khursheed Ahmad Shah, Dr Zaheeruddin Babar Awan, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, Najmuddin Khan, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Faisal Karim Kundi, Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali, Syed Sumsam Ali Bukhari, Mohammad Afzal Sindhu, Senators Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, A. Rehman Malik, Jehangir Badr, Mir Lashkari Raisani and Zahir Shah.

Briefing the media, President’s spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said that the president rejected criticism that the conditions in the Kerry-Lugar Bill undermined the country’s sovereignty.

The president said the bill was the first Pakistan aid legislation that did not require presidential certifications every year. ‘It only required certification by the Secretary of State that Pakistan was moving along the path of democracy, nuclear non- proliferation and drugs control.

‘Who in Pakistan under the present democratic dispensation would disagree with these goals?’ he asked.

‘This was in contrast with the past aid bills that required presidential certification that Pakistan was moving towards restoration of democracy, human rights protection, nuclear non-proliferation and drugs control,’ President Zardari added.

He said the bill acknowledged Pakistan as a critical ally and its profound sacrifices in the war on terror.

The language of the bill relating to nuclear proliferation had also been toned down. In the original bill, he said the wording was to ‘ensure access of US investigators to individual suspected’.

‘This was changed to receiving cooperation ‘in efforts such as providing relevant information from or direct access to Pakistani nationals associated with such networks’,’ he said. —APP

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Zardari asks party leaders to defend Kerry-Lugar

US seeks greater cooperation from Pakistan army

WASHINGTON: The differences between the Pakistani military and the Asif Zardari government has placed the US administration in a difficult situation which is seeking greater cooperation from the army for destroying reported Al Qaeda safe havens in Fata.

The Obama administration held a meeting of its war council at the White House on Wednesday evening, which focussed primarily on Pakistan.

After the meeting, US officials told reporters that the war council was weighing a new role for Pakistan in the eight-year-old struggle in the region.

The new role, described in some details by powerful US newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times, stems from the so-called ‘Pakistan First’ theory championed by Vice President Joe Biden.

Officials who spoke to the US media said the Obama administration agreed with the assessment that the main threat to America’s security came from Al Qaeda, which was based in Pakistan’s tribal areas, not Afghanistan.

‘We want to destroy its leadership, its infrastructure and its capability,’ said one official while describing the new US approach.

To achieve this goal, Biden has suggested relying on drone attacks and US Special Forces. But the US administration realises that no such plan can be implemented ‘unless the Pakistani military is completely on board’, as one official said.

But unfortunately for the Obama administration, the Pakistani military and the civil administration got entangled in an embarrassing dispute over a bill that was supposed to improve US-Pakistan ties by tripling American aid to the country.

The central figure in this dispute is that of Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States who is blamed in the Pakistani media for using his influence to incorporate a clause in the bill that will enable the Zardari government to appoint the next army chief.

While Hussain Haqqani denies having done so, some researchers in the US capital are distributing excerpts from one of his books which say that 'Washington should no longer condone the Pakistani military’s support of Islamic militants, its use of its intelligence apparatus for controlling domestic politics, and its refusal to cede power to a constitutional democratic government.'

Haqqani notes that ‘as an aid donor, Washington has become one of Pakistan’s most important benefactors … the United States must use its aid as a lever to influence Pakistan’s domestic policies’.

The researchers point out that almost all these points are incorporated in the Kerry-Lugar bill.

Unfortunately, the Zardari government does not have many admirers in the Pakistani-American community to counter such moves. Instead of supporting the government, Pakistani-American activists are urging the US administration to distance itself from 'unpopular rulers' and not to take sides in the military-government dispute.

At official briefings, however, the Obama administration showed no desire of distancing itself from the government in Islamabad.

The US administration, as well as Pakistan’s foreign minister who was in Washington this week for talks with senior American officials, have rejected the suggestion that the dispute over the Kerry-Lugar bill could cause the demise of the Zardari government.

’No, there’s no conspiracy against the government,’ said Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi when asked if he saw the widespread reaction against the bill as aimed at unseating the present rulers.

Qureshi, however, had to leave Washington a day before his scheduled departure to wind up a debate on the Kerry-Lugar bill in National Assembly.

The foreign minister also rejected the suggestion that there was a clear division in Pakistan over the bill with the army and the opposition parties on one side and the government and the United States on the other.

‘No, I will not draw such conclusions,’ he said. ‘The army is part of the Pakistani state which has to look after the country’s security and we respect its views.’

At a separate briefing in Washington, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs also expressed strong support for the Zardari government.

‘I don’t think it is a threat to the civilian government in Pakistan,’ said the official when asked if the differences between the army and the Zardari government on the bill threatened the government.

Asked if the current imbroglio could bring down the Zardari government, Crowley said: ‘Quite the opposite. I think that actually what you are seeing is a government in Pakistan that is becoming more confident. It is becoming more assertive. It is doing things that are important to, you know, the Pakistani people.’

‘We are working very diligently, very closely with the Pakistani government. That’s why the secretary (of State) and the (Pakistani) foreign minister met yesterday. It’s why the secretary and President Zardari met in New York.’

Kerry-Lugar bill passed by Congress, sent to Obama

* Aid to stop if Pakistan does not help fight terrorists
* Monitoring of nuclear supplier networks necessary
* Conditions set for military aid

WASHINGTON: The US Congress on Wednesday approved tripling non-military aid to Pakistan to help fight extremism, sending the measure to President Barack Obama for signing into law.

Obama had urged the bill’s passage to promote stability in a crisis-ridden nation that is key to the US war in Afghanistan. The final action on the legislation came as the House of Representatives approved it.

The legislation authorises $1.5 billion a year for the next five years as part of a bid to build a new relationship with Pakistan that no longer focuses largely on military ties, but also on Pakistan’s social and economic development. The bill also stipulates that US military aid would cease if Pakistan does not help fight “terrorists”, including Taliban and Al Qaeda.

“We can’t allow Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group that threatens our national security interests to operate with impunity in the tribal regions or any other part of Pakistan,” said the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Representative Howard Berman. “Nor can we permit the Pakistani state – and its nuclear arsenal – to be taken over by the Taliban,” he added.

To keep military aid flowing, Pakistan must also cooperate to dismantle nuclear supplier networks, said the bill. Islamabad could do this by offering “relevant information from or direct access to Pakistani nationals associated with such networks”.

But some lawmakers expressed scepticism that Pakistan would ever become a real partner. “Both governments – the Chinese and the Pakistanis – plot and manoeuvre against our interests all the time,” said Representative Dana Rohrbacher, a Republican.

“The threat of radical Islam is real, but it’s not going to be solved by us being irresponsible” with billions in taxpayer money, he said. The House approved the bill by a voice vote. Its passage followed lengthy negotiations among lawmakers and the administration over what conditions to place on Pakistan, where officials had urged no strings be attached. reuters

Are Development Dollars in Pakistan Being Well Spent?

By Ken Stier

To development experts who have long called for a shift in strategy in the Muslim world, it would seem like cause for celebration. After years of devoting the bulk of U.S. aid to Pakistan to military assistance, Washington is about to shift that equation. Under legislation approved by the Senate last week and by the House on Wednesday, Pakistan can expect to receive $1.5 billion of non-military (or civilian) aid for each of the next five years, which triples previous levels and will roughly balance out the amount of military aid the U.S. gives to Pakistan.

But getting the money is only half the battle; how well it works — and whether it helps to change strong anti-American sentiment — depends on getting it to the right people and projects on the ground. That job principally falls to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and many critics say its performance isn't very encouraging. "When you are spending large amounts of money at arm's length, operating in hostile environments, it is very easy for money to get spent corruptly and/or badly, and that is what I have seen in our health programs," says Roger Bates of the American Enterprise Institute, a trenchant USAID critic.

One early effort in education already appears to be a cautionary tale. Improving schooling in the country has been a key focus of U.S. development efforts, both to undermine the need for and appeal of religious schools (or madrasahs) and to advance literacy, which is 43% among adults; two-thirds of Pakistani women cannot read or write. In long, jargon-filled reports, the principal USAID contractor on an $83 million, five-year education-sector reform project, North Carolina–headquartered RTI (also known as Research Triangle Institute), claims to have "positively impacted" more than 400,000 students (out of 70 million school-age kids) through strengthening policy and planning, teacher and school-administrator training, and youth and adult literacy. But when USAID's inspector general sent a team over in August 2007 to check on the progress, it could not validate the claims because the USAID mission in Islamabad "did not require RTI to adhere to reporting requirements critical to monitoring the program performance." The problem was serious enough for RTI, which derived close to 40% of its $710 million in revenues last year from USAID, to be disqualified from follow-on contracts on this particular project. (See pictures of Pakistan below the surface.)

Eighteen months since the IG report, USAID has also not adequately accounted for $16 million in project spending and has hired an outside auditor to track the money, according to Dona Dinkler, the USAID IG's chief of staff. USAID declined to comment, but it has blamed high staff turnover — four different USAID employees oversaw the project successively — and security concerns, which severely limited the number of hands-on visits to the remote Sindh and Baluchistan provinces, where the project was meant to have its greatest impact. "In that case, you have to find other ways to provide oversight to the extent necessary to protect American taxpayer dollars," says Dinkler. Unfortunately, similar shortcomings continue to plague the IG's work too; their own auditors never left the capital of Islamabad, also due to security concerns — an institutional blindness that was the focus of some pointed questions during a recent House National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, chaired by Democratic Representative John Tierney of Massachusetts. For its part, RTI says it is "proud" of what it insists was a successful project. "In retrospect, RTI and USAID could and should have done a better job in promoting its success," said a company statement. "We think in time these successes will be better understood and appreciated."

Well-informed Pakistanis say this dismal performance is all too typical. Worse, they insist, it hints at the structural problems that are plaguing America's aid programs. "I don't mean to be unnecessarily harsh on [US] AID, but I have spent the last eight years on the ground there in Pakistan and feel very disillusioned and extremely bitter that when American taxpayers and the public thought they were helping, their money was not put to good use. It did not reach the people — I saw it with my own eyes," says Nasim Ashraf, a Pakistani American who directs the Middle East Institute's Pakistan Studies Center in Washington. While living temporarily in Pakistan, Ashraf ran the National Commission for Human Development, a Cabinet-level post charged with raising key educational and health metrics; he gives higher marks to the World Bank's education effort in Punjab and to less well-funded efforts by other donor countries. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West Frontier Province.)

Part of USAID's problem is a "bunker mentality" that exaggerates genuine security concerns, he says, noting that agency regulations prevented key personnel from accompanying even members of Congress who traveled there to examine aid projects. But other observers say the problems go far beyond security issues. For Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistan security expert and director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, the core of USAID's shortcomings is that it has outsourced "its thinking, planning and local interactions with the recipients" to Beltway contractors who are more incentivized to keep money flowing than getting results on the ground. In one case, a firm that was contracted to provide special surgical lights and other advanced technology to hospitals and clinics in the country reportedly failed to take into account the fact that there was no source of electricity to power the new equipment. (See pictures of the Red Cross at work.)

Nawaz says USAID needs to work directly with local NGOs in identifying and designing projects that local communities will "own" and sustain. That, however, would require far more manpower than USAID currently has; over the years, funding cuts have eviscerated it down to little more than a contract-management agency. USAID officials, who did not make themselves available for this article, told Congress this past summer that they are rapidly staffing up for Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the agency may soon have its biggest footprint since Vietnam. Currently the dependence on highly paid consultants means at least half of every development dollar stays in the U.S.

The Obama Administration seems to recognize the problem. "Let's face it, we have devoted a smaller percentage of our government budget to development than almost any other advanced country, and too little of what we have spent has contributed to genuine and lasting progress," said Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in a July 15 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Too much of the money has never reached its intended target but stayed here in America to pay salaries or fund overhead in contracts." Ironically perhaps, one of the best things Clinton can do is to rebuild and finally install new leadership at USAID so it has a better chance of being able to handle all the money that's about to flow to crucial places like Pakistan.

Kerry-Lugar Bill is an insult, Army tells US military

Wednesday October 07, 2009


KARACHI: As anger mounts over the degrading language and observations in the Kerry-Lugar Bill on Pakistan’s military services and intelligence agencies, the Army conveyed its part of protest to the US when Commander of International Forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal met Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani at the GHQ on Tuesday.

These officials said that General Kayani told General McChrystal that like the Pakistani people, the military and intelligence services were furious at the observations made on Pakistan’s security establishment in the Kerry-Lugar Bill. Kayani also protested over the controversial statements made by some US officials in recent days.

“General McChrystal returned from the GHQ with an unambiguous message that the terms set in the Kerry-Lugar Bill on the national security interests of Pakistan are insulting and are unacceptable in their present formulation,” according to an official familiar with the content of the meeting.

Informed official sources said that the Army’s strong reaction to the Kerry-Lugar Bill was shared in detail with the government when General Kayani met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday.

In a related development, also on Tuesday, Gilani asked Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to convey Pakistan’s reservations in his meetings with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama’s Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and key members of the US Congress.

While Tuesday’s meeting with General McChrystal provided General Kayani with an opportunity to convey the Army’s serious objection to the controversial sections of the bill in detail, he had lodged an initial protest during his meeting with General McChrystal in Kabul, where he had gone last week toattend the tripartite military conference.

The Kerry-Lugar Bill and its impact on national security interests of Pakistan will be a key subject of discussion when the corps commanders and principal staff officers of the Army meet under General Kayani on Wednesday.

While the nation’s response is currently focused at the controversial content of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, the government is also concerned about a growing unregulated arrival and stay of American citizens in Pakistan.

Concerns grew when Pakistanís security agencies recorded various cases of illegal acquisition of weapons by security firms connected with the US Embassy in Pakistan. Prime Minister Gilani, sources said, has already ordered a complete record with specific details and pre-clearance of US citizens entering Pakistan on US government business.

The bill is an insult to Pakistani Army because, it stipulates that if Pakistani Army is found to sponsor terrorism, not act against the terrorists or to interfere and undermine the democratic institutions then the flow of AID will be stopped. So, how this is insulting?. Aren't american try to push democracy in Pakistan??. But Pakistani army as usual doesn't want its ultimate power to be undermined by democratic institutions. They want to be powers unto themselves not under any civilian institutes. Pathetic.

This article nails the criticism, lies and half-truths spewed by pakistani army regarding this bill.

Myths and facts about Kerry-Lugar bill

By Our Correspondent

Saturday, 10 Oct, 2009 | 11:20 AM PST |


WASHINGTON: US Senator John Kerry, one of the co-authors of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, has issued a list of 'myths and facts' about the proposed legislation also known as the Kerry-Lugar bill.

This is how he explained the bill:

Myth: The $7.5 billion authorised by the bill comes with strings attached for the people of Pakistan.

Fact: There are no conditions on Pakistan attached to these funds. There are, however, strict measures of financial accountability on these funds that Congress is imposing on the US executive branch — not the Pakistani government, to make sure the money is being spent properly and for the purposes intended.

Such accountability measures have been welcomed by Pakistani commentators to ensure that funds meant for schools, roads and clinics actually reach the Pakistani people and are not wasted.

Myth: The bill impinges on Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Fact: Nothing in the bill threatens Pakistani sovereignty.

Myth: The bill places onerous conditions on US military aid to Pakistan that interfere in Pakistan’s internal affairs and imply that Pakistan supports terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Fact: The conditions on military aid reinforce the stated policy of the government of Pakistan, major Pakistani opposition parties, and the Pakistani military and are the basis of bilateral cooperation between the United States and Pakistan.

Myth: The bill requires US oversight on promotions and other internal operations of the Pakistani military.

Fact: There is absolutely no such requirement or desire.

Myth: The bill expands the Predator programme of drone attacks on targets within Pakistan.

Fact: There is absolutely nothing in the bill related to drones.

Myth: The bill funds activities within Pakistan by private US security firms, such as Dyncorp and Blackwater/Xe.

Fact: The bill does not include any language on private US security firms. The issue of how private security firms operate in Pakistan has nothing to do with this bill. The laws governing such firms —which are employed by many US embassies and consulates throughout the world — are not affected by this bill in any way.

Myth: The bill aims for an expanded US military footprint in Pakistan.

Fact: The bill does not provide a single dollar for US military operations. All of the money authorised in this bill is for non-military, civilian purposes.

Myth: The United States is expanding its physical footprint in Pakistan, using the bill as a justification for why the US Embassy in Islamabad needs more space and security.

Fact: As the US Embassy in Islamabad works diligently over the next five years to properly distribute the $7.5 billion to the people of Pakistan, it will need to take into account its own personnel and security needs to make sure it has the right staff with the right expertise on hand. This is common sense.

There are many interesting things in this bill that still leave windows for diversion of funds. Firstly the bill seems to be a combination of domestic and military aid. The bill does not specify how much will be spent in each area. If there is nothing specific for example 50% domestic and 50% military how will the bill measure financial accountability?? The bill clearly implies Pakistan supports terrorism and nuclear proliferation but aid is still being given by USA , so if this is the case why even fight a war on terror or talk of punishing Iran??If the bill did not imply this the clauses would not be there. If the bill states USA will oversee the internal operations of the pakistani army how does Pakistan still claim to be a soveriegn country? If merecenary groups like blackwater and dyncorp are in pakistan is it still a sovereign country? these groups are usually active in war zones not there to guard embassies as they claim. USA is slowly taking control of Pakistan and with the army of pakistan accepting some of these harsh conditions they have literally sold out the nation of 150 million + people for this aid.

i don't think one needs to take it seriously- the PA's insult obsevation. they are just overtly taking that position to tell pakistani people that they are independant and that they can face upto to USA in pakistan's national interest and thus they are not party to a positive acceptance of the aid by GOP. thus playing hero and painting GOP as the irresponsible villain. it would play out like that in public eye.
even PA knows they can't do anything.

I'm of the belief that there will some changes in the final draft of Kerry-Lugar bill before being signed by Obama into a law. The most likely stipulation to go out of the door is - reigning in Indian specific terrorism.

No, no. The real takleef is caused by two clauses. One is the clause that says that Pakistan should go after terrorists attacking India. And second and more important clause causing enormous takleef to PA is the clause that says that Civil Govt must have highest authority and PA must be under it. Now, this clause will not be acceptable to Pakistan(because PA will not allow it) at any cost. So, as usual we will see dilution of this bill, just like we have seen many bills before them made toothless.
The skill of PA to hold begging bowl in one hand and a pistol in another is unmatched by any other organistion. They have taken begging to completely new heights!

Meanwhile, India gets attacked anyway. If not in India then in Afghanistan.

since when has USA taken care of india's terror problem? whether they dilute the already generalised clauses or not, it does not alter the reality. india will have to take care of herself.

Any pressure on Pakistan to act on LeT/JuD is a good thing. That is the reason the PA is objecting to the Kerry-Lugar bill's stipulations because it undermines their power and policy against India.

Of course, India has to take care of itself. But the problem is our politicians are not far sighted when it comes to foreign policy. It dithers in taking effective and resolute decisions pertaining to foreign policy leading to death of innocents at the hans of terrorists coming from across the border. When Mumbai 26/11 attacks happened and when pakistan was in turmoil it didn't take any action against them except for dossier diplomacy which has yielded nothing but a big zero.