WASHINGTON: Pakistan assured US lawmakers on Thursday it was investigating a complaint that Pakistani security agencies asked by the CIA to act against two IED factories in Fata had instead alerted the militants and allowed them to escape.
The assurance conveyed to senior US lawmakers in a meeting with a Pakistani delegation headed by Ambassador Husain Haqqani, followed a series of congressional hearings that focused on the allegation.
During the meeting, US lawmakers asked the delegation to explain how Osama bin Laden could live in Pakistan for years in plain sight.
The delegation agreed that the episode was a moment of introspection for both Pakistan and the US.
The delegation assured the lawmakers that Pakistan was forming a high-level commission — along the lines of the 9/11 commission in the US — to examine all aspects of the episode.
The commission would probe how Bin Laden managed to live in Pakistan without detection and how the Pakistanis could improve their surveillance to root out other terrorists in Pakistan, if any.
The commission would also determine how a foreign force penetrated Pakistan’s airspace on May 2 and conducted a military operation without its knowledge.
The delegation, however, urged US lawmakers also to examine why they did not feel the need to inform the Pakistani leadership of the operation earlier.
The lawmakers asked the delegation to explain if Pakistan was with the US or not and if the US could trust Pakistan.
The delegation informed the lawmakers that for the first time in Pakistan’s history there was a popularly elected democratic government steering the bilateral relationship.
Pakistan was a functioning democracy for the last three-and-a-half years and it was not possible for a democracy to be against the US, the delegation said.
“There can be differences on specific issues but in terms of broad and long-term orientation Pakistan will be with the US.” The delegation argued that if the US sought a ‘normal’ relationship with Pakistan then it had no option but to “encourage, strengthen and bear with the democratic set-up in Pakistan”.
The delegation reminded the lawmakers that the US and Pakistan had had an extensive round of meetings to put the relationship back on track and re-establish trust after the Raymond Davis and Bin Laden episodes. The Pakistani delegation also asked US lawmakers to examine their claim that the US had given Pakistan $18-20 billion in assistance.
“We are grateful for every dime the US has given to Pakistan. At the same time this figure of $18 — 20 billion needs to be looked at closely,” the delegation said. According to a breakdown provided to the lawmakers, about $12 billion of this figure were the CSF reimbursements for expenses incurred by Pakistan in counter-terrorism operations.
These funds, strictly speaking, are not assistance. These cover the cost of fuel, ordnance, etc. used by Pakistan in counter-terrorism operations.
“The blood, sweat, effort, grit and guts are Pakistan’s,” the delegation said. It assured the Americans that Pakistan was not trying to minimise the importance of CSF as it provided the country with a useful financial cushion to conduct counter- terrorism operations.
Of the remaining $6-8 billion, nearly half the assistance was military assistance some of it to the previous government. This leaves about $3 billion which the present government has ostensibly received. Even here the monies appropriated under the Kerry Lugar Berman legislation in FY 2010 have not been fully disbursed.
At Pakistan’s end of the pipeline, the funds received amount to some hundreds of millions of dollars, the delegation pointed out.
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