WASHINGTON (May 13, 2009): President Barack Obama's administration lobbied hard on Tuesday for a giant Pakistan aid package, arguing that to abandon the embattled nation now would jeopardise vital US national interests.
Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the ambitious aid bill sponsored by senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar had a "talismanic quality" for Pakistanis.
"The words Kerry-Lugar have become a symbol of American support for Pakistan in the emergency," he told a hearing of Kerry's Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arguing many Pakistanis were still suspicious of US intentions.
"The only beneficiaries of a delay in this bill are the enemies of this nation," the veteran diplomat added, as the Pakistani military launches a ferocious counter-offensive against the encroaching Taliban militia.
He also said the US administration was prepared to extend new assistance to more than half a million people displaced from the Taliban stronghold in Swat valley, terming it a "major refugee crisis."
It would give a new emphasis to non-military aid with the aim of transforming Pakistani schools, clinics and roads -- especially in the insurgency-wracked west of the country administered by tribal leaders.
"That's the only way that we have a prayer here," Holbrooke said, underlining that development initiatives such as "microcredit" loans for women business owners were key to winning Pakistani hearts and minds.
Committee members from both sides of the political aisle expressed scepticism, noting that Obama's predecessor George W. Bush plowed more than 12 billion dollars into Pakistan with little now to show for it.
Holbrooke emphasised, however, that nearly all of that aid went to the Pakistani military and the Obama administration's goals encompassed improving Pakistan's counter-insurgency capacity.
Holbrooke said the Obama administration was crafting benchmarks to measure progress once the aid package is approved.
"But we cannot walk away from Pakistan right now without damaging our most vital national interests," he said.
