Early last week, six years after president George W. Bush first began pouring billions of dollars into Pakistan’s military after the attacks of 11 September 2001, Pentagon completed a review that produced a classified plan to help the Pakistani military build an effective counter-insurgency force.
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. For their part, Pakistani officials angrily accused the US of refusing to sell Pakistan the advanced helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft, radios and the night vision equipment it needs. “There have been many aspects of equipment that we have been keen on getting,” said Major General Waheed Arshad, the Pakistani military’s chief spokesman. “There have been many delays which have hampered this war against extremists.”
US military officials said the American military was so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that it had no advanced helicopters to give to Pakistan.
American law also restricts the export of sophisticated drones, night-vision goggles and other equipment for security reasons.
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 counter-insurgency 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.
“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. American intelligence officials believe Bush is likely to leave office in January 2009 with the 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 lamented recently.
This spring, American intelligence officials said that the Qaeda leaders hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas had reconstituted their command structure and become increasingly active. Backed by al Qaeda, pro-Taliban militants have expanded their influence from the remote border regions into the more populated parts of Pakistan this year and mounted a record number of suicide bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Coalition Support Funds programme was intended to prevent that from happening. Under the programme, Pakistani military officials submit bills and are paid for supplies, wear and tear on equipment and other costs, as well as for the American use of three Pakistani air bases, according to American officials.