Source: CNN News

By Patrick Goodenough

Reports claiming that U.S. aid money sent to Pakistan for anti-terror operations has been used for other purposes — including weapons systems designed to counter long-time foe India — are causing a stir in the region, and playing into Pakistan’s election campaign.

Pakistan’s government denied a Christmas Eve report in the New York Times alleging that much of the $5 billion in counter-terror aid sent to Islamabad in recent years had not gone to military units fighting al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq told Pakistani media the U.S. report, which cited unnamed administration and military officials, was baseless and concocted.

Officials cited in the report said the money, provided through the post-9/11 Coalition Support Funds (CSF) program, set up to reimburse key allies for conducting anti-terror military operations, was not reaching the troops who need it, especially in the restive tribal areas adjoining the border with Afghanistan.

The New York Times report has been carried widely this week in India, a longstanding rival that has fought three wars against Pakistan since winning independence from Britain in 1948.

Two of the three wars were over Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim territory divided between the two and claimed by both. Peace talks that began in 2004 have eased tensions between the two, but distrust still runs deep.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said the alleged squandering of U.S.-provided funds exposed corruption and the failure of oversight by what it called a “rubber stamp” parliament in place under the military government.

“This is an insult to the brave soldiers of Pakistan who have always upheld their commitment to safeguard the country’s borders,” PPP Information Secretary Sherry Rehman told Pakistani media.

“The PPP is clear in its anti-terrorism stand and will work towards empowering the parliament, the public and the military to work jointly against the menace of terrorism,” she said.

Pakistan is preparing for parliamentary elections on January 8, following a year marked by political turmoil, a now-lifted state of emergency and an unprecedented spate of suicide bombings.

Bhutto, who returned from exile to lead the PPP in the campaign, told an election rally on Tuesday that terrorism and extremism had spread across the country since Musharraf seized power eight years ago in a military coup.

If President Pervez Musharraf’s critics blamed the government over the New York Times report, others were furious at the suggestion that Pakistan wasn’t pulling its weight in the Americans’ eyes.

Pointing to the surge of violence against Pakistani civilians and troops in recent months, the Frontier Post of Peshawar said in an editorial, “This war might have secured the United States. But it has palpably made Pakistan a bleeding target of terrorism.”

The New York Times was not the first to make the allegations. Early last month, the Los Angeles Times carried a similar report, claiming “rather than use the more than $7 billion in U.S. military aid to bolster its counter-terrorism capabilities, Pakistan has spent the bulk of it on heavy arms, aircraft and equipment that U.S. officials say are far more suited for conventional warfare with India, its regional rival.”

That report focused on Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, which U.S. officials said were poorly equipped and armed as they faced well-armed Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.

Also last month, Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies discussed a new CSIS report on the issue in a National Public Radio interview.

“We found that the Pakistani military has been using that [CSF] money and the majority of our direct military assistance for the purchase of high-tech weaponry such as the F-16 fighters,” Barton said.

“It appears that the Pakistani military is continuing to arm more for its confrontation with India than it is for the war on terror because these weapons really don’t have that much application for the kinds of low-grade persistent Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda fighters that you find in the Northwest part of Pakistan.”

As of December 24, 54 suicide terrorism attacks had been reported in Pakistan this year, 34 of which were against military targets, ten against police and ten against civilians, according to security analyst Bahukutumbi Raman.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a press briefing last week that al-Qaeda “seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people.”

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Tags: al qaeda, election campaingn, military, misuse, Pakistan, Taliban, us aid