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Pakistan
Using US anti-terror Aid Against India: Report
Billions
of dollars in American aid given to the Pervez Musharraf regime for
anti-terrorism efforts have been wasted and much of it was diverted to
help finance weapons systems designed to counter India rather than fight
al-Qaeda and Taliban, US officials have said.
After
the US has spent more than USD 5 billion to bolster the Pakistani
military campaign against al-Qaeda and Taliban, some Bush administration
officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the
money and the strategy to improve the Pakistani military needs to be
completely revamped, the New York Times reported on December 24..
In
interviews in Islamabad and Washington with the paper, Bush
administration and military officials said they believed that much of
the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units.
Money
has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter
India, not al-Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said adding, the US
has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement
claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.
"I
personally believe there is exaggeration and inflation," a senior
American military official who has reviewed the programme, told the
paper referring to Pakistani requests for reimbursement.
"Then,
I point back to the United States and say we didn't have to give them
money this way," he added.
Pakistani
officials were quoted as saying that they are incensed at what they see
as American "ingratitude" for Pakistani counterterrorism
efforts that have left about 1,000 of its soldiers and police officers
dead.
The
Pakistan officials deny that any overcharging has occurred. The USD 5
billion was provided through a programme known as Coalition Support
Funds, which reimburses Pakistan for conducting military operations to
fight terrorism.
Civilian
opponents of President Musharraf said he used the reimbursements to prop
up his government.
One
European diplomat in Islamabad told the paper that the United States
should have been more cautious with its aid. "I wonder if the
Americans have not been taken for a ride."
Pakistani
military relies on Washington for roughly a quarter of its entire USD 4
billion budget, the Times said. American and Pakistani officials,
it said, acknowledged that they had never agreed on the strategic goals
that should drive how the money was spent, or how the Pakistanis would
prove that they were performing up to American expectations.
Early
last week, six years after President George W Bush began pouring
billions of dollars into Pakistan's military after 9/11, the Pentagon
completed a review that produced a classified plan to help the Pakistani
military build an effective counterinsurgency force, the paper added.
The
plan, which now goes to the US Embassy in Islamabad to carry out, seeks
to focus American military aid toward specific equipment and training
for Pakistani forces operating in the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas where Qaeda leaders and local militants hold sway, the Times
said.
For
their part, Pakistani officials, the paper said, angrily accused the
United States of refusing to sell Pakistan the advanced helicopters,
reconnaissance aircraft, radios and night-vision equipment it needs.
"There
have been many aspects of equipment that we've been keen on
getting," said Maj Gen Waheed Arshad, the Pakistani military's
chief spokesman. "There have been many delays which have hampered
this war against extremists."
But
US military officials told the paper that the American military was so
overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that it had no advanced
helicopters to give to Pakistan.
But
the paper noted that there is at least one area of agreement -- both
sides say the reimbursements have failed substantially to increase the
ability of Pakistani forces to mount comprehensive counterinsurgency
operations.
Today,
with several billion more in aid scheduled for the coming years,
American officials estimate it will take at least three to five years to
train and equip large numbers of army and Frontier Corps units, a
paramilitary force now battling militants, the paper said.
"I
don't forecast any noticeable impact," a Defence Department
official said. "It's pretty bleak."
The
programme's failures appear to be a sweeping setback for the
administration as it approaches its final year in office, the paper said
and quoted US intelligence officials as saying they believe that Bush is
likely to leave office in January 2009 with Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
still at large.
"We
haven't had a good lead on his exact whereabouts in two years,"
another senior American military official told the paper.
[Source:
Agencies]
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