BY SAEED SHAH
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
ISLAMABAD — ISLAMABAD-The Pakistan military declared Sunday that it doesn’t need U.S. aid, as the White House confirmed that United States is withholding about $800 million in aid to Pakistan’s armed forces.
Tense relations between Islamabad and Washington worsened in May after the unilateral U.S. raid in northern Pakistan, during which Osama bin Laden was killed. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is struggling to combat Islamic extremists, while its economy is lurching towards disaster.
“The Pakistani relationship is difficult but it must be made to work over time,” William Daley, the White House chief of staff, said on ABC television on Sunday. “But until we get through these difficulties we will hold back some of the money that the American taxpayers have committed to give them.” Daley said the figure amounted to about $800 million.
The cutback seemed to be a direct response to recent moves by Pakistan, which expelled U.S. military trainers from the country, limited the ability of U.S. diplomats and other officials to get visas and restricted CIA operations allowed on its territory.
There are also questions about U.S. civilian aid to Pakistan, about $1.5 billion a year.
Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the chief spokesman for the Pakistan armed forces, said the military was not officially notified that aid had been cut. He also pointed out that the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, had declared that U.S. cash reimbursements to the military, known as Coalition Support Funds, should go instead to the civilian government, which needed the money more.
“We have conducted our (anti-extremist) military operations without external support or assistance,” Abbas said. “Reports coming out of the U.S. are aimed at undermining the authority of our military organizations.”
The Obama administration often leaks stories critical of Pakistan to the American press, which riles Pakistani public and official opinion against the United States. Many in Pakistan believe that there is a concerted American effort to weakened Pakistan and its armed forces, among the largest in the world.
Since 2001, the U.S. has committed $21 billion in civilian and military assistance to Pakistan, including $4.5 billion in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. However, not all the of funds committed have been disimbursed, while Pakistan’s losses in the War on Terror amount to nearly $70 billion. Two bills in Congress in the past week, which were voted down, would have cut off aid to Pakistan altogether.
Washington has long been highly critical of the relationship that the Pakistan military maintains with Afghan insurgents and other jihadist groups. Pakistan’s refusal to launch an offensive against the Haqqani network and suspicions that bin Laden benefited from some kind of official support to live in Pakistan have further strained relations.
Accusations from U.S. officials, made public last week by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Pakistan’s military and its Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency was behind the murder of a journalist, Saleem Shahzad, have further damaged relations with Pakistan’s armed forces. Pakistan’s Military has rejected these allegations and compared them false U.S. Intelligence on Iraq’s WMD programme in the build up to Iraq’s occupation.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Saturday that he believes that bin Laden’s successor as al-Qaida chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is in Pakistan’s tribal area and that “he’s one of those we would like to see the Pakistanis target.” Pakistan responded Sunday by asking for the U.S. to share its intelligence on Zawahiri’s whereabouts.
Pakistan, meanwhile is fighting its homegrown extremists who are believed to have support from beyond Pakistan’s western borders, in its tribal area on the border with Afghanistan with a new offensive begin this month, though not the jihadists in its territory who are focused on Afghanistan.
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
