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WORLD At Security Conference, Tense Talk Between U.S. and Pakistan By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: July 28, 2012 ASPEN, Colo. - Tensions flared between the United States and Pakistan on
Friday, as two top officials traded accusations of doing too little to
combat Taliban sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The tart exchange between the officials, Douglas E. Lute, President
Obama's top adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Sherry Rehman,
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, took place during a
conference in this bucolic mountain setting. Under questioning from Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes," Ms. Rehman,
speaking on videoconference from Washington, said that Pakistani
Taliban fighters, who have taken refuge in two remote provinces in
eastern Afghanistan, were increasingly carrying out rocket attacks and
cross-border raids against Pakistan. "These are critical masses of people that come in; this is not just
potshots," Ms. Rehman said. She said that on 52 different occasions in the
last eight months Pakistan had provided to American and NATO
commanders in Afghanistan the locations from which the militants were
attacking, to no avail. Immediately, Mr. Lute, a retired three-star Army general and deputy
national security adviser who rarely speaks in public, fired back. "There's
no comparison of the Pakistani Taliban's relatively recent, small-in-scale
presence inside Afghanistan to the decades-long experience and
relationship between elements of the Pakistani government and the
Afghan Taliban," he said. "To compare these is simply unfair." Pakistani officials have long faced criticism from Americans and Afghans
for what they say is their failure to stop militant assaults originating
from safe havens in Pakistan, often with the complicity of Pakistan's
main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. But in the past several months, Pakistani officials have started accusing
American and allied officials of the same problem coming from
Afghanistan.
Published: July 28, 2012 ASPEN, Colo. - Tensions flared between the United States and Pakistan on
Friday, as two top officials traded accusations of doing too little to
combat Taliban sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The tart exchange between the officials, Douglas E. Lute, President
Obama's top adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Sherry Rehman,
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, took place during a
conference in this bucolic mountain setting. Under questioning from Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes," Ms. Rehman,
speaking on videoconference from Washington, said that Pakistani
Taliban fighters, who have taken refuge in two remote provinces in
eastern Afghanistan, were increasingly carrying out rocket attacks and
cross-border raids against Pakistan. "These are critical masses of people that come in; this is not just
potshots," Ms. Rehman said. She said that on 52 different occasions in the
last eight months Pakistan had provided to American and NATO
commanders in Afghanistan the locations from which the militants were
attacking, to no avail. Immediately, Mr. Lute, a retired three-star Army general and deputy
national security adviser who rarely speaks in public, fired back. "There's
no comparison of the Pakistani Taliban's relatively recent, small-in-scale
presence inside Afghanistan to the decades-long experience and
relationship between elements of the Pakistani government and the
Afghan Taliban," he said. "To compare these is simply unfair." Pakistani officials have long faced criticism from Americans and Afghans
for what they say is their failure to stop militant assaults originating
from safe havens in Pakistan, often with the complicity of Pakistan's
main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. But in the past several months, Pakistani officials have started accusing
American and allied officials of the same problem coming from
Afghanistan.
