By Arun Kumar,
Washington, March 9 (IANS) US officials admit that Pakistan's agreement with tribal leaders along the Afghan border is not working and Islamabad could do more, but the Bush administration is against linking aid to its counter-terror efforts.
Appearing before the Senate foreign relations committee Thursday, Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, responded with an emphatic "no" to a query whether President Pervez Musharraf's agreement is working.
"On the Waziristan agreement itself, it hasn't done what it was supposed to do. It was designed to be an agreement with the tribal elders where they would basically kick out the foreign fighters, they would stop the Taliban activity and would stop the Talibanization," he explained.
"They haven't done that for a variety of reasons, whether it's inability or unwillingness. But they have not effectively controlled those areas," Boucher told Republican senator Charles Hagel.
"And so the government, in recent months, has really moved again with them to try to establish more effective control and reassert itself again. We want them to be effective. There's more to do, and they recognise that," he added.
However, the State department is opposed to legislation linking aid with Islamabad's counter terror efforts, Boucher told the Senate panel as he had a House panel Wednesday.
"We think that there is already effort from the Pakistani side, and that conditioning aid-the implication is that they have to be forced into it. We think they're doing it for their own sake, as well as ours, and that we should look at them as partners," he said.
In response to another question from Democrat Robert Menendez, Boucher said, "I think Pakistan is enormously cooperative, is enormously engaged in this fight. No country has captured more Al Qaeda or lost more men doing it than Pakistan. They have also increased the effectiveness of their efforts in the border areas."
"We all have a long way to go, and there's a lot more that we're doing and that they're doing, that we're going to try to do with them. But I think overall if you look at Taliban and Al Qaeda, particularly on the Al Qaeda side, there's been an enormous effort from Pakistan. They have lost a lot of people in that fight," he said.
But if in fact Pakistan is doing everything it can, why were there reports of vice president Dick Cheney suggesting that a Democratic Congress might cut off assistance if Pakistan didn't do more, asked Menendez.
"Well, I don't quite want to say they're doing everything they can, because I don't think any of us are. I mean, we just came up to the Hill and asked for billions more," Boucher said adding, "I think they have been doing more and more, and there is more we all have to do, including Pakistan."
Pakistanis don't have effective control of the border areas, he said. "They have arrested some leaders; there are more to be tracked down and arrested. They have stopped some of the training camps; there are more to be tracked down and eliminated."
"But they're in this fight, and they're in this fight because Taliban is a threat to Pakistan as well as to us and the neighbours. And we want to help them; we want to work with them; we want to encourage them."
"And that's, I think, what really the vice president did. He expressed our support for their effort, our willingness to support their effort, but also our encouragement, and talked to them about how we can all be more effective," Boucher said.
"Again, the Taliban do operate from Pakistan. They find sanctuary there, they find sources of supply there. A lot of their command and control is on that side of the border. They're people that go back and forth. They're not under effective government control there, and we need to work with the Pakistanis to make it more effective."
Asked if US believed that the Pakistani intelligence service actually continues to collaborate with the Taliban, Boucher said, "We have seen, I think, a lot of effort from the Pakistani intelligence service against the Taliban. But there are those reports that say that some of their members might be keeping ties with their friends."
Pakistanis, he said, acknowledged that Taliban fighters are working from within their country and going across borders.
"I know that the question gets asked different ways and people answer it in different ways. But, I mean, they just announced-or just made public the fact that they just picked up a major Taliban leader inside Pakistan. President Musharraf has said frankly and point-blank that these people do operate from inside Pakistan and that he's determined to go after them."
Asked if US was satisfied with what the Pakistanis are doing, Boucher gave a qualified answer. "I think we're satisfied the Pakistanis are in the fight, and we're working with them to become more effective, as we are working with ourselves and the Afghans to become more effective on the other side of the border."
Asked by Democrat Russell Feingold about conditions on the ground that have permitted Al Qaeda to reinvigorate operations in Afghanistan, Boucher said, "I think it was the fact that there are large parts of this country(Afghanistan) that weren't effectively governed, including parts of Pakistan that were not effectively subject to government authority... during the last couple years."