Order Code RL33498
Pakistan-U.S. Relations
Updated August 25, 2008
K. Alan Kronstadt
Specialist in South Asian Affairs
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Pakistan-U.S. Relations
Summary
A stable, democratic, prosperous Pakistan is considered vital to U.S. interests.
U.S. concerns regarding Pakistan include regional and global terrorism; Afghan
stability; democratization and human rights protection; the ongoing Kashmir problem
and Pakistan-India tensions; and economic development. A U.S.-Pakistan
relationship marked by periods of both cooperation and discord was transformed by
the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the ensuing enlistment
of Pakistan as a key ally in U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts. Top U.S. officials have
praised Pakistan for its ongoing cooperation, although doubts exist about Islamabad’s
commitment to some core U.S. interests. Pakistan is identified as a base for terrorist
groups and their supporters operating in Kashmir, India, and Afghanistan. Pakistan’s
army has conducted unprecedented and largely ineffectual counterterrorism
operations in the country’s western tribal areas, where Al Qaeda operatives and their
allies are believed to enjoy “safe haven.” U.S. officials increasingly are concerned
that the cross-border infiltration of Islamist militants from Pakistan into Afghanistan
is a key obstacle to defeating the Taliban insurgency.
The United States strongly encourages maintenance of a bilateral cease-fire and
continued, substantive dialogue between Pakistan and neighboring India, which have
fought three wars since 1947. A perceived Pakistan-India nuclear arms race has been
the focus of U.S. nonproliferation efforts in South Asia. Attention to this issue
intensified following nuclear tests by both countries in 1998. The United States has
been troubled by evidence of transfers of Pakistani nuclear technologies and
materials to third parties, including North Korea, Iran, and Libya. Such evidence
became stark in 2004.
Pakistan’s macroeconomic indicators turned positive after 2001, with some
meaningful poverty reduction seen in this still poor country. However, economic
conditions have deteriorated sharply in 2008. President Bush seeks to expand U.S.-
Pakistan trade and investment relations. Democracy has fared poorly in Pakistan,
with the country enduring direct military rule for more than half of its existence. In
1999, the elected government was ousted in a coup led by then-Army Chief General
Pervez Musharraf, who later assumed the title of president. Musharraf retained the
position as army chief until his November 2007 retirement. International concerns
grew in late 2007 with Musharraf’s six-week-long imposition of emergency rule, and
with the assassination of former Prime Minister and leading opposition figure
Benazir Bhutto. However, February 2008 parliamentary elections were relatively
credible and seated a coalition led by Bhutto’s widower, Asif Zardari, and opposed
to Musharraf’s continued rule. The coalition’s August vow to launch impeachment
proceedings spurred Musharraf to resign the presidency and exit Pakistan’s political
stage. The Bush Administration has determined that a democratically elected
government is restored in Islamabad, thus permanently removing coup-related aid
sanctions. Pakistan is among the world’s leading recipients of U.S. aid, obtaining
more than $5 billion in overt assistance since 2001, including about $2.2 billion in
security-related aid. Pakistan also has received some $6 billion in military
reimbursements for its support of U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts. This report is
updated regularly.
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Key Current Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
New Pakistan-Specific Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Worsening Economic Circumstances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Deteriorating Relations With India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Fluid Political Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Election Results and Coalition Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Restoration of Deposed Judges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Impeachment Plans and Musharraf’s Resignation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Coalition Collapse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Role of the Pakistani Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
U.S. Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Increasing Islamist Militancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Multiple Armed Islamist Uprisings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Al Qaeda in Pakistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Conflict in Western Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency . . . . . . . . . . 21
Questions About Pakistan’s Main Intelligence Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Pakistani Military Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Pakistan’s New Dialogue With Tribal Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
U.S.-Pakistan Counterterrorism Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Cross-Border Coordination and U.S. Military Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Aerial Drone Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
F-16 Reprogramming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Other Notable Developments of the Past Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Setting and Regional Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Historical Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Political Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Regional Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Pakistan-India Rivalry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The “IPI” Pipeline Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Pakistan-U.S. Relations and Key Country Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Al Qaeda’s Resurgence in Pakistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Infiltration Into Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Infiltration into Kashmir and India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Domestic Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Other Security Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Pakistan-U.S. Security Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Nuclear Weapons and Missile Proliferation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
U.S. Nonproliferation Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Pakistan-India Tensions and the Kashmir Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Baluchistan Unrest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Narcotics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Islamization, Anti-American Sentiment, and Madrassas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Democratization and Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Democracy and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Human Rights Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Economic Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Trade and Investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
U.S. Aid and Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
U.S. Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Possible Adjustments to U.S. Assistance Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Coup-Related Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Proliferation-Related Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
9/11 Commission Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Selected Pakistan-Related Legislation in the 110th Congress . . . . . . . . . . . 96
List of Figures
Figure 1. Map of Pakistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Figure 2. District Map of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and Federally
Administered Tribal Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
List of Tables
Table 1. Overt U.S. Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan,
FY2002-FY2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Pakistan-U.S. Relations
Introduction
A stable, democratic, prosperous Pakistan actively working to counter Islamist
militancy is considered vital to U.S. interests. Current top-tier U.S. concerns
regarding Pakistan include regional and global terrorism; Afghan stability; domestic
political stability and democratization; nuclear weapons proliferation and security;
human rights protection; and economic development. Pakistan remains a vital U.S.
ally in U.S.-led anti-terrorism efforts. Yet the outcomes of U.S. policies toward
Pakistan since 9/11, while not
devoid of meaningful successes,
have seen a failure to neutralize
Pakistan in Brief
anti-Western militants and reduce
Population: 168 million; growth rate: 1.8% (2008
religious extremism in that country,
est.)
and a failure to contribute
Area: 803,940 sq. km. (slightly less than twice the
sufficiently to the stabilization of
size of California)
neighboring Afghanistan. According
Capital: Islamabad
to a former senior Clinton
Head of Government: Prime Minister Yousaf
Raza Gillani (Pakistan People’s Party);
Administration official, “Pakistan is
President Mohammedmian Soomro
the most dangerous country in the
Ethnic Groups: Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtun, Baloch,
world today. All of the nightmares
Muhajir (immigrants from India at the time of
of the twenty-first century come
partition and their descendants)
together in Pakistan: nuclear
Languages: Punjabi 58%, Sindhi 12%, Pashtu 8%,
Urdu 8%; English widely used
proliferation, drug smuggling,
Religions: Muslim 96% (Sunni 81%, Shia 15%),
military dictatorship, and above all,
Christian, Hindu, and other 4%
international terrorism.”1
Life Expectancy at Birth: female 65 years; male
63 years (2008 est.)
A months-long political crisis
Literacy: 50% (female 36%; male 63% 2005 est.)
Gross Domestic Product (at PPP): $410 billion;
and a November 2007 emergency
per capita: $2,265; growth rate 6.4% (2007)
proclamation severely undermined
Currency: Rupee (100 = $1.31)
the status of the military-dominated
Inflation: 24.3% (July 2008)
government of President Musharraf,
Defense Budget: $4.53 billion (3.1% of GDP;
who resigned his position as Chief
2007)
U.S. Trade: exports to U.S. $3.6 billion; imports
of Army Staff in November.2 A
from U.S. $2 billion (2007)
surge in domestic Islamist militancy
Sources: CIA, The World Factbook; Departments of
following the July 2007 denouement
Commerce and State; Government of Pakistan; Economist
Intelligence Unit; Global Insight; The Military Balance
of a standoff involving Islamabad’s
Red Mosque complex has
1 Bruce Riedel, “Pakistan and Terror: The Eye of the Storm,” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, 618, 31, July 2008.
2 See also CRS Report RL34240, Pakistan’s Political Crises.
CRS-2
contributed to this dynamic. The December assassination of former Prime Minster
and leading opposition figure Benazir Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan from
self-imposed exile only months earlier, plunged Pakistan and the Musharraf
government into further uncertainty. Developments in Pakistan in 2007 led many
Washington-based critics to more forcefully question the Bush Administration’s
largely uncritical support for President Musharraf as a key U.S. ally. Following
February 2008 parliamentary elections that seated a coalition of former opposition
parties vehemently opposed to Musharraf’s continued rule, the U.S. government
became more measured in its public posturing and — when Musharraf came under
imminent threat of impeachment in August — the Bush Administration called his
fate a matter of internal Pakistani politics. Abandoned by many political allies and
perhaps even by his military successor, Pervez Musharraf made the decision to resign
the presidency and exit Pakistan’s political stage on August 18. Within one week of
Musharraf’s resignation, Islamabad’s coalition government fractured.
There are indications that anti-American sentiments are widespread in Pakistan,
and that a significant segment of the populace has viewed years of U.S. support for
President Musharraf and the Pakistani military as an impediment to, rather than
facilitator of, the process of democratization there. Underlying the anti-American
sentiment is a widespread, but perhaps malleable perception that the United States
is fighting a war against Islam.3 The Bush Administration continued to proclaim its
ongoing support for Musharraf even after his imposition of emergency rule and the
later sweeping rejection of his parliamentary allies by Pakistani voters. However, in
2008, the Administration has shown signs of a shift in its long-standing Pakistan
policies, in particular on the issues of democratization and on Islamabad’s
counterterrorism policies in western tribal areas. As articulated by Deputy Secretary
of State John Negroponte in March:
The United States is committed to working with all of Pakistan’s leaders on the
full spectrum of bilateral issues, from fighting violent extremism to improving
educational and economic opportunities.... The United States looks forward to
engaging Pakistan’s new government on how best to promote economic growth
and reduce poverty. The United States will continue to help the Pakistani people
build a secure, prosperous, and free society.4
Still, many Pakistanis are resentful of perceived U.S. interference and pressure. In
the words of one senior Pakistani commentator and former army general,
In trying to impose its will against the wishes of Pakistani people, the Bush
administration further heightens anti-American sentiment; discredits the war on
terror; and makes it more difficult for the new civilian government to stabilize.
Air strikes by U.S. forces in the tribal belt, threats of more to follow, and
Washington’s fierce opposition to peace agreements also lead to widespread
resentment and instability.5
3 Kenneth Ballen, “Bin Laden’s Soft Support,” Washington Monthly, May 2008.
4 See [http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr_03272008.html].
5 Talat Masood, “Managing Pakistan-U.S. Relations” (op-ed), Hindu (Chennai), June 25,
(continued...)
CRS-3
On July 28, President George W. Bush hosted Prime Minister Yousaf Raza
Gillani at the White House, where the two leaders issued a joint statement
reaffirming the U.S.-Pakistan “Strategic Partnership.”6 Gillani’s visit was panned by
many analysts, who saw the new Pakistani leader failing to impress audiences in both
Washington and Islamabad, thus further straining already tense bilateral relations.7
Key Current Issues
Pakistan’s worsening economic conditions, unstable political setting, and
perilous security circumstances make the job of U.S. decision makers difficult. On
the economic front, the newly elected civilian government in Islamabad faces crises
that erode their options and elicit growing public resentment. On the political front,
an unprecedented ruling coalition including the country’s two leading mainstream
parties proved fragile and collapsed almost immediately upon the resignation of
President Musharraf, without having enacted any major policies. Key differences
over how to reinstate scores of senior judges deposed by Musharraf in 2007 could not
be overcome, creating political deadlock. On the security front, Pakistan is the
setting for multiple armed Islamist insurgencies, some of which span the border with
Afghanistan and contribute to the destabilization of that country. Al Qaeda forces
remain active on Pakistani territory, adding to the sensitive nature of the Pakistani
governments’ halting efforts to seek truces with tribal leaders in western regions.
Such efforts themselves alarm U.S. officials, who fear negotiations only allow
militant elements to grow stronger.
New Pakistan-Specific Legislation
On July 15, the Enhanced Partnership With Pakistan Act of 2008 (S. 3263) was
introduced in the Senate. The act would “affirm and build a sustained, long-term,
multifaceted relationship with Pakistan,” in part by tripling non-military U.S.
assistance to $1.5 billion per year for FY2009-FY2013, and by establishing a sense
of Congress that such aid levels should continue through FY2018. It also would
condition certain further military assistance and arms transfers to Pakistan on an
annual certification by the Secretary of State that the security forces of Pakistan are
making “concerted efforts” to prevent Al Qaeda, Taliban, and associated militant
groups from operating on Pakistani territory, and that such security forces are “not
materially interfering” in Pakistan’s political or judicial processes. In introducing the
act, the co-sponsoring Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee expressed a desire to move away from the “transactional”
dynamic they believe has characterized U.S.-Pakistan relations and to reverse a
5 (...continued)
2008.
6 See [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/07/20080728-5.html].
7 See, for example, “Gilani’s Poor Show in the US,” Jane’s Foreign Report, August 12,
2008.
CRS-4
pervasive Pakistani sentiment that the United States is not a reliable ally.8 On July
29, the bill was reported out of committee favorably by unanimous vote.
Worsening Economic Circumstances
Rising inflation and serious food and energy shortages have elicited
considerable economic anxieties in Pakistan. Such concerns are weighing heavily
on the new government. In June, the Finance Ministry released its annual Economic
Survey, which reported dismal economic performance, growing fiscal and current
account deficits, rising external debt, dwindling foreign exchange reserves, and a
depreciating currency. The country’s consumer prices are at their highest level since
1975, with an inflation rate of 24.3% in July. The rupee’s value is down more than
20% against the U.S. dollar in 2008, and net international reserves have declined by
nearly half in only one year to about $7.7 billion.9 Two major international investor
rating indices recently cut Pakistan’s sovereign debt rating to levels five steps below
investment grade. Also in June, the Islamabad government made a politically
sensitive decision to phase out fuel subsidies that amounted to about $2.4 billion in
the most recent fiscal year and caused a sharp increase in the federal budget deficit.
Pakistan’s central bank has sought to address rising inflation by boosting interest
rates, leading in turn to a nearly 5% loss in the Karachi stock market’s main index,
which hit an eight-month low in May. Hundreds of angry investors rioted in mid-
July when stock prices fell by another 2.7%. Musharraf’s resignation triggered a
brief reversal — the exchange was up nearly 4.5% on August 18 the rapidly sliding
value of the rupee was halted — but the ruling coalition’s collapse again damaged
confidence and led to further declines. Serious power shortages have led to
nationwide outages, triggering protests that turned violent at times and further
harmed the economy.10
Deteriorating Relations With India
Among the top goals of Indian officials in 2008 has been gauging the new
Pakistani government’s commitment to the bilateral peace process. Within this
8 “Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Sen. Richard G. Lugar Hold a News Conference on
Pakistan,” CQ Transcriptions, July 15, 2008.
9 See [http://www.finance.gov.pk/finance_survery_chapter.aspx?id=18]; “Rising Oil, Food
Prices Hurting Pakistan’s Poor,” World Bank Press Release, May 30, 2008; “Pakistan’s
Consumer Prices Hit 33-Year High,” Financial Times (London), June 11, 2008; IMF Press
Briefing, July 24, 2008. Consumer price inflation has been especially notable in the food
sector, where prices rose by more than one-third in 2007, far outpacing wage increases. A
2008 U.N. World Food Program report warned that nearly half of the country’s population
could face food shortages due to surging prices (“Price of Pakistan’s Economic Woes,” BBC
News, April 14, 2008).
10 “Pakistan to Phase Out Fuel Subsidies,” Financial Times (London), June 30, 2008;
“Moody’s Cuts Pakistan’s Ratings,” Daily Times (Lahore), May 22, 2008; “Karachi Shares
Fall on Rate Rise,” BBC News, May 23, 2008; “Pakistani Investors Stone Bourse as Markets
Slump,” Reuters, July 17, 2008; “Electricity Outages Anger, Frustrate Pakistanis,”
Associated Press, June 4, 2008. See also “Pakistan’s Economic Woes Pose New Threat,”
Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2008.
CRS-5
modest context, the outcome was viewed as generally positive. However, ensuing
months have seen a deterioration of Pakistan-India relations, and some in New Delhi
express frustration that the new civilian leaders in Islamabad have little influence
over Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence agencies.11 In May, India accused
Pakistan of committing multiple cease-fire and territorial violations along the
Kashmiri Line of Control (LOC); one incident left an Indian soldier dead. Reported
violations continue and Indian officials suspect the Pakistani military is renewing its
alleged practice of providing cover fire for militant infiltrations into Indian
Kashmir.12 June visits to Islamabad by the Indian foreign minister and later by
Foreign Minister Qureshi to New Delhi were cordial and appeared to get the peace
process back on track, but produced no new initiatives. Then, on July 7, a suicide car
bomb killed 58 people, including four Indian nationals, at the Indian Embassy in
Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan and Indian officials later claimed that Pakistan’s
intelligence agency was complicit, a charge later echoed by Washington.13
On July 21, Foreign Secretary Bashir met with his Indian counterpart in New
Delhi to launch the fifth round of the bilateral Composite Dialogue. Following the
meeting, the Indian diplomat warned that recent events — culminating in embassy
bombing — had brought the peace process “under stress.” Blunt language again
followed a high-level meeting in Sri Lanka, when the same Indian official suggested
that Pakistan-India relations were at a four-year low ebb.14 Along with the July 7
Kabul bombing, Indians widely suspect Pakistani complicity in late July terrorist
attacks inside India, and India’s prime minister has warned that such terrorism could
bring the bilateral peace process to a halt. Moreover, New Delhi’s progress in an
initiative that would allow India to purchase nuclear materials and technologies on
the international market spurred Islamabad to warn of a potential new nuclear arms
race on the Asian subcontinent.15
Renewed violence in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state has further exacerbated
bilateral tensions. When the Pakistani Senate passed a resolution on the increasingly
incendiary situation, an Indian official called the move “gross interference” in India’s
internal affairs. The exchange was soon repeated when the Foreign Minister Qureshi
decried “excessive and unwarranted use of force” in Kashmir by the Indian
government, a charge rejected as unhelpful by New Delhi. The Islamabad
11 “India Frustrated by a Rudderless Pakistan,” New York Times, August 12, 2008; “India
Yearns for Pakistan’s Musharraf Amid Turmoil,” Associated Press, August 12, 2008.
12 “India to Protest to Pakistan Over Border Shooting,” Reuters, May 19, 2008; “Skirmishes
Can Hurt India-Pakistan Peace Process,” Reuters, July 30, 2008; “Despite Warning, Pak
Violates Ceasefire Again,” Times of India (Delhi), August 14, 2008.
13 “Pakistan ‘Behind Afghan Attacks,’” BBC News, July 14, 2008; “India Blames Pakistan
in Embassy Bombing,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008; “Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul,
U.S. Officials Say,” New York Times, August 1, 2008.
14 “Briefing by Foreign Secretary After India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary-Level Talks,”
Indian Ministry of External Affairs, July 21, 2008; “India Official Sees Sinking Relations
With Pakistan,” New York Times, August 1, 2008.
15 “India Says Peace Talks With Pakistan Under Threat,” Associated Press, August 15, 2008;
“Pakistan Warns of New Nuclear Arms Race With India,” Associated Press, July 23, 2008.
CRS-6
government has expressed “deep concern” at reports of perceived human rights
violations in Indian Kashmir.16 In August, the Indian national security advisor
expressed worry at the possibly imminent removal from office of Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf, saying such a development would “leave radical extremist outfits
with freedom to do what they like” in the region.17
Fluid Political Setting
In February 2008, Pakistan held elections to seat a new National Assembly and
all four provincial assemblies. Analysts had foreseen a process entailing rampant
political-related violence and electoral rigging in favor of the incumbent, Musharraf-
friendly Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) faction. Despite weeks of bloodshed
leading up to the polls, the day itself was surprisingly calm. Moreover, fears of large-
scale rigging were proven unfounded, as the PML-Q was swept from power in a
considerable wave of support for Pakistan’s two leading opposition parties, the
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), now overseen by Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Asif
Zardari, and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of former Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif. The two largely secular, moderate parties proceeded to form a ruling
parliamentary coalition in Islamabad, and also took charge of coalition governments
in the two most populous of the country’s four provinces.
As a perceived referendum on President Musharraf’s rule, the polls reflected a
widespread popular rejection of his policies. They also forwarded arguments that the
Pakistani populace supports moderate political parties without explicitly religious
manifestos. At the same time, the results were seen by many analysts as
compounding difficulties for U.S. policy makers who may have placed too much
faith in the person of Musharraf, an increasingly isolated figure whose already
damaged status was further weakened.
With more than four months in office, the coalition increasingly was perceived
as deadlocked on political issues and largely inattentive to more concrete Pakistani
governance needs. During a July visit to Islamabad, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Richard Boucher reportedly urged Pakistan’s political leaders to concentrate their
energies on addressing critical issues such as religious militancy, rising food costs,
and energy shortages rather than fixating on efforts to remove President Musharraf.
Nawaz Sharif is said to have flatly rejected the advice, countering that Musharraf’s
impeachment was a necessary step toward consolidation of the country’s
democratization.18 By early August, the four-party ruling coalition was clear in its
intent to impeach the president. Musharraf’s political isolation increased and, on
August 18, his nearly nine-year era ended when he tendered his resignation. Withing
16 Indian Ministry of External Affairs Press Briefing, August 7, 2008; “India Reacts
‘Strongly’ to Pakistan Comments on Kashmir Violence,” BBC Monitoring South Asia,
August 12, 2008; Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement at
[http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2008/Aug/PR_247_08.htm].
17 “Q&A With Indian National Security Advisor MK Narayanan,” Straits Times (Singapore),
August 12, 2008.
18 See [http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/2008/106495.htm]; “Leave Musharraf Alone, Boucher
Tells Nawaz,” Daily Times (Lahore), July 2, 2008.
CRS-7
one week, the fragile Islamabad coalition collapsed when differences over judicial
restoration and Musharraf’s successor could not be reconciled.
Election Results and Coalition Politics.19 Pakistan’s February elections
saw the PPP win a clear plurality of seats (121 of 342) in the National Assembly.
The PML-N of Nawaz Sharif took another 91 seats. The incumbent PML-Q won
only 54. This outcome provided the country’s two main secular opposition parties
with a near two-thirds majority. They were joined in a new national ruling coalition
by the secular Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) and the Islamist
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam faction of Fazl-ur-Rehman (JUI-F), both of which find their
main strength in the Pashtun-majority North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The
PPP also won an outright majority in the provincial parliament of Sindh, the Bhuttos’
ancestral homeland, but still moved to form a ruling provincial coalition with the
regional Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), which dominates Karachi’s political
landscape. In the wealthy and densely populated Punjab province, Sharif’s PML-N
thrashed the PML-Q in the their heartland to take nearly half of the provincial
assembly seats there. Sharif’s brother Shabaz is serving again as chief minister of
that province, overseeing a coalition with the PPP. Voters in the NWFP roundly
rejected the previously incumbent Islamist coalition and awarded the ANP a
resounding comeback after its virtual shutout in 2002. The PPP and ANP agreed to
share power in the NWFP, with the chief minister and most cabinet ministers coming
from the ANP. Only in sparsely populated Baluchistan did the PML-Q win a
plurality of seats, but the Quetta-based assembly is managed by a grand alliance
under a PPP chief minister.
Musharraf’s Post-Election Status. Following the election of an opposition
alliance, President Musharraf rejected repeated calls for his resignation and claimed
to maintain the support of the powerful army. He expressed a willingness to work
with the new Parliament, even as he recognized the potential for a two-thirds
opposition majority to reverse many of the changes made during his rule. This might
in particular include parts of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which grants
presidential powers to dismiss the Prime Minister and dissolve Parliament. Such a
super-majority could even have moved to impeach him, but for months the PPP put
a damper on impeachment talk and instead appeared to seek a “dignified exit” for the
embattled Musharraf. Many analysts contended that Musharraf sought to manipulate
the transfer of power process by creating uncertainty and instability; some insisted
that he should follow “the logic of the people’s verdict” and resign. Although the
Pakistani president’s power and status were much eroded, he remained a potent
political player in Islamabad, given especially his continued support from the military
and from some foreign governments, including the United States. Many observers
suspected Musharraf engaged in behind-the-scenes efforts to weaken the new civilian
coalition with a special eye toward marginalizing Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N.20
19 See also CRS Report RL34449, Pakistan’s 2008 Elections.
20 Shafqat Mahmood, “Musharraf Should Give Up” (op-ed), News (Karachi), March 21,
2008; Ijaz Hussain, “Should Musharraf Quit?” (op-ed), Daily Times (Lahore), April 9, 2008;
“Sidelined Musharraf Still Exerts Influence,” Washington Post, May 18, 2008.
CRS-8
Coalition Building and Government Formation. In March, more than
one month after the elections, PPP leader Zardari and PML-N leader Sharif issued
a written declaration of their intention to share power at the center (along with the
ANP) under a PPP Prime Minister and in the Punjab under a PML-N Chief
Minister.21 In a major show of opposition unity, the accord notably vowed to seek
restoration of deposed judges to office within 30 days of the new government’s
seating. Many viewed this “Murree Declaration” as an historic rejection of military-
bureaucratic rule in Islamabad. Sindhi businesswoman Fahimda Mirza — a PPP
stalwart and close associate of Zardari — became Pakistan’s first-ever female
National Assembly Speaker.
Zardari announced the prime ministerial candidacy of Yousaf Raza Gillani, a
party stalwart from the Punjab province. Gillani was National Assembly Speaker
during Benazir Bhutto’s second government (1993-1996) and spent five years in
prison (2001-2006) after being sentenced by an anti-corruption court created under
President Musharraf.22 On March 24, Gillani became Pakistan’s 22nd Prime Minister.
Of his 24 cabinet ministers, 11 were from the PPP and 9 from the PML-N. Important
new federal ministers include Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who hails
from a land-owning family in southern Punjabi city of Multan and has been a PPP
lawmaker since 1985, serving as a Punjab provincial minister during the 1990s; and
Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, an industrialist from the Gujrat region
of Punjab, who served as federal commerce minister in Benazir Bhutto’s second
government and who won his parliamentary seat in 2008 by defeating PML-Q leader
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussein.
The PPP Co-Chair at times seemed to flirt with the idea of offering himself as
the PPP’s prime ministerial candidate, then later rule himself out for the job. Until
their teenaged son and political heir Bilawal Bhutto Zardari completes studies at
Oxford University, Zardari is to run the PPP. He is a controversial figure in Pakistan,
having spent many years in prison (without conviction) on charges ranging from
corruption to complicity in murder. Some of the cases stand unresolved. In March
2008, courts dismissed seven pending corruption cases, and the government later
withdrew as party to a Swiss money laundering case against Zardari (the Swiss
government later dropped all charges against Zardari).
Nawaz Sharif himself may eventually prove to be the greatest benefactor of
Pakistan’s political upheaval. There is little doubt he would serve a third time as
Prime Minister if given the opportunity. Some analysts speculate that Sharif is
angling for early new elections in which his party might overtake the PPP
nationally.23 Criminal convictions related to his overthrow by the army in 1999 stand
in the way of his future candidacy. With his past links to Pakistan’s Islamist parties
— his party’s 1990 poll win came only through alliance with Islamists and he later
21 Declaration text available at [http://thenews.jang.com.pk/updates.asp?id=39768].
22 Musharraf’s opponents say the court was established as a means of intimidating and
coercing politicians to join the PML-Q, which Gillani had refused to do (“Profile: Yusuf
Raza Gillani,” BBC News, March 23, 2008).
23 See, for example, “Moeed Yusuf, “Well Played, Mr Sharif” (op-ed), Friday Times
(Lahore), February 27, 2008.
CRS-9
pressed for passage of a Shariat (Islamist law) bill — and his sometimes strident anti-
Western rhetoric, Sharif is viewed warily by many in Washington.
Coalition Politics. Never before in Pakistan’s history had the country’s two
leading political parties come together to share power. While many observers praised
the Murree Declaration as representing what could be a new conciliatory style of
party politics, others noted that the PPP and PML-N spent most of the 1990s as bitter
enemies. The history of mutual party animosity in fact dates to 1972, when Benazir’s
father, then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, nationalized industries owned by
Nawaz Sharif’s father.24 Opposition to President Musharraf’s continued power
united these parties for a time, but with Musharraf fanning the flames of party
competition — and with his possibly imminent departure from power removing the
key unifying factor between them — many analysts were pessimistic that a PPP-
PML-N accommodation could last.
Several of Asif Zardari’s post-election moves reportedly alarmed some among
his newfound political partners and spurred further doubt about the coalition’s
longevity. These included gestures toward the MQM party formerly allied with
President Musharraf and historically a bitter rival of the PPP in Karachi. Moreover,
intra-party rumblings in the PPP triggered press reports of an impending split,
potentially to be led by Sindh party leaders unhappy with the Punjabi-heavy nature
of the new federal cabinet.25 Political instability grew in May, when PML-N chief
Sharif protested Musharraf’s appointment of Salman Taseer to be the new Punjab
Governor. Taseer is a PPP loyalist with a history of animosity toward Sharif. PML-
N officials expressed worry that Taseer might seek to obstruct the PML-N-led
provincial government and that his appointment reflected ongoing collusion between
the PPP and forces friendly to Musharraf.26
In May, Zardari announced that a constitutional reforms package had been
completed, saying this proposed “18th Amendment” would reverse changes to the
constitution made under Musharraf and so “walk [Musharraf] away rather than
impeach him away.” The PPP transmitted to the PML-N an 80-point draft proposal
that would restore the deposed judges while greatly reducing the power of the
presidency. Proposed amendments would, inter alia, remove the president’s powers
to declare war, dismiss the Parliament, and appoint governors and military service
chiefs. The bill faced a lengthy period of assessment before legislative action was
expected. Critics of the bill called it “malicious” in its alleged indemnification of
President Musharraf’s November 2007 actions and in its provisions that could make
the Pakistani judiciary subordinate to the executive.27 In mid-June, Zardari and
Sharif met to create a consensus on outstanding issues, including the judges’
24 “Decades of Enmity Threaten Pakistani Coalition, Say Analysts,” Agence France -Presse,
February 22, 2008.
25 See, for example, “Fahim, Ghinwa May Join Hands,” Post (Lahore), April 8, 2008; “Asif
Not Heir of Bhutto Legacy: PPP-SB,” Dawn (Karachi), May 2, 2008.
26 “Rift in Pakistan Government Widens as Sharif Protests Key Appointment,” Associated
Press, May 16, 2008.
27 Babar Sattar, “The PPP’s Malevolent Bill” (op-ed), News (Karachi), June 7, 2008.
CRS-10
restoration and the possible impeachment of the president, but no breakthroughs were
announced. Sharif reportedly refused to see his party lieutenants rejoin the federal
cabinet until the judicial benches were restored through executive order (see below).
Still, both leaders vowed to keep the coalition intact.
Restoration of Deposed Judges. During the six-week-long state of
emergency launched by President Musharraf on November 3, 2007, seven Supreme
Court justices, including the Chief Justice, and scores of High Court judges refused
to take a new oath of office and were summarily dismissed. The Supreme Court was
then reconstituted with justices appointed by Musharraf himself.28 The question of
whether and how to restore the Chief Justice and other deposed judges remained a
key divisive issue. In declaring an intention to restore the pre-November 3 Supreme
Court, the new civilian dispensation appeared to set itself on a collision course with
Musharraf. Reseating that court likely would have lead to Musharraf’s removal from
office, as the justices had appeared close to finding his October reelection
unconstitutional. Many Pakistanis suspect the U.S. government of hindering
restoration efforts.29 Asif Zardari has sought to assure those agitating for the judges’
reinstatement that restoration would come “in due course of time,” but that other
political variables dictate patience in this regard. Nawaz Sharif himself has accused
the U.S. government of actively discouraging such restoration.30
A parliamentary resolution voiding the judges’ November 2007 dismissal, if
passed by a simple majority, could allow the government to restore the judges to
office through an executive order. Such a resolution had been expected by the end
of April, but Zardari and Sharif were unable to agree on a specific plan, with the
former seeking “broad-based” agreement and the latter pushing for more rapid
movement.31 Some reports suggested that Zardari was keeping up his end of a
28 A judicial crisis began with President Musharraf’s March 2007 dismissal of the country’s
Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, on charges of nepotism and misconduct. Analysts widely
believe the action was an attempt by Musharraf to remove an impediment to his reelection
as president, given Chaudhry’s rulings that exhibited independence and went contrary to
government expectations. The move triggered outrage among Pakistani lawyers; ensuing
street protests by opposition activists grew in scale. By providing a platform upon which
anti-Musharraf sentiments could coalesce, the imbroglio morphed into a full-fledged
political crisis. The deposed Chief Justice became an overnight political celebrity, attracting
many thousands of supporters at rallies. In July 2007, in a major political defeat for
Musharraf, the Supreme Court unanimously cleared Chaudhry of any wrongdoing and
reinstated him.
29 “Judges Not Being Restored Due to American Pressure: APDM,” News (Karachi), June
19, 2008.
30 “Hold Your Horses, Zardari Tells Lawyers,” News (Karachi), May 24, 2008; “Pakistan
TV Show Discusses Judges’ Restoration Issue,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, March 18,
2008.
31 “Pakistan Coalition Fails to Agree on Restoring Judges: Sharif,” Agence France -Presse,
April 22, 2008. Many of Musharraf’s domestic allies rejected the new government’s plan
to reinstate the judges, saying their dismissal was constitutional and that efforts to reverse
it through executive order or parliamentary resolution would be futile. According to this
(continued...)
CRS-11
bargain struck by Musharraf and Bhutto in 2007. According to this narrative, Zardari
was not committed to seeing Musharraf removed from office, but rather was pursuing
a working relationship with the Pakistani president, perhaps in part to preserve his
own status under the 2007 National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). This
ordinance provides Zardari with amnesty from criminal prosecutions.32 The NRO
was made permanent only though Musharraf’s November 2007 Provisional
Constitutional Order (PCO) and so would no have the weight of law were that order
to be found unconstitutional by a Supreme Court restored to its pre-November 3
state. One line of argument portrays Zardari as reluctant to see Chief Justice
Chaudhry restored to office, as the judge had sought to closely examine the
constitutionality of both the PCO and the NRO.
The “Lawyers’ Movement”. The “lawyer’s movement” that arose in
response to Musharraf’s March 2007 dismissal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry
(who was reseated in July and dismissed again in November) was a vital facet of the
pro-rule of law, anti-Musharraf sentiment that spread in Pakistan during 2007. It has
not faded away: lawyers continue to boycott many courts and the movement remains
able to mobilize significant street protests, which Chaudhry continues to publicly
support. Aitzaz Ahsan, the Supreme Court Bar Association president who lead the
successful effort to have Chaudhry reseated in mid-2007, has been at the forefront of
the current effort to restore the pre-November judiciary.33 His post-emergency
detention attracted the attention of numerous U.S. Senators and others in Congress,
who called for his immediate release. Ahsan has criticized the U.S. government for
callousness regarding Musharraf’s crackdown on the Supreme Court, claiming that
U.S. policy is “deaf and oblivious to the voice of the Pakistani people.”34 With the
collapse of May talks between the PPP and PML-N, leaders of the lawyers’
movement vowed to stage massive street protests if the government fails to reinstate
31 (...continued)
argument, only an amendment to the Constitution can reverse Musharraf’s earlier actions.
Numerous legal experts cast doubt on this contention, however, claiming that because
Musharraf’s emergency imposition was inherently unconstitutional (as ruled by the Supreme
Court on November 3, 2007, just before its reconstitution), all actions taken under that
authority are invalid. A collection of 5 former Chief Justices and 16 other retired Supreme
Court judges issued a statement that “a simple resolution in the National Assembly would
provide more than sufficient backing for the executive” to reinstate the deposed judges
(“Fakhruddin Quits Judges Committee,” News (Karachi), May 6, 2008).
32 See, for example, “Pre-Election Deal Binds Zardari to Musharraf,” News (Karachi), April
30, 2008.
33 See “The Lawyers’ Crusade,” New York Times, June 1, 2008.
34 “Civil Rights Activist Criticizes U.S. as ‘Oblivious’” (interview), Washington Times, July
3, 2008. See also, Aitzaz Ahsan, “Pakistan’s Tyranny Continues” (op-ed), New York Times,
December 23, 2007. When asked during a Senate hearing about the status of judges
dismissed under Musharraf’s emergency proclamation, Deputy Secretary of State John
Negroponte conceded that the U.S. government had “been silent on the subject” (“Sen.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. Holds a Hearing on U.S. Policy Options in Post-Election Pakistan,” CQ
Transcripts, February 28, 2008).
CRS-12
the deposed judges. Nawaz Sharif and his party participated in this June “long
march” demonstration.35
Coalition Discord. The original April 30 deadline for the judge’s restoration
passed without action. Despite Sharif’s apparent optimism that a resolution would
be reached, subsequent meetings with Zardari in London again failed to break the
deadlock. On May 12, Sharif announced that his party would withdraw from its seats
in the federal cabinet while still supporting the PPP-led national coalition on an
“issue by issue basis.” Nine PML-N ministers subsequently handed in resignations,
but these were rejected by the prime minister, who, in concert with Zardari, decided
to keep the seats open in hopes that Sharif would reverse his withdrawal. A legal
advisor to Sharif reportedly held the Bush Administration partly responsible for the
negotiation’s breakdown, given an alleged U.S. concern that President Musharraf be
“protected” and allowed a “safe exit” sometime near the end of 2008. His claims
reflected widely held suspicions among Pakistanis about U.S. “meddling” in their
country’s coalition politics.36 A series of intensive meetings between Asif Zardari
and Nawaz Sharif sought to narrow the differences still hampering their coalition and
set a clear plan for future action. Sharif announced in early August that four of the
nine PML-N federal ministers who withdrew from the government in May would
rejoin the cabinet in a goodwill gesture to the PPP.
Impeachment Plans and Musharraf’s Resignation. On August 5, after
months of indecision, PPP leader Asif Zardari and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif
agreed in principle to seek the impeachment of President Musharraf. The
announcement spurred Musharraf to cancel plans to attend the opening ceremonies
of the Beijing Olympics. Three days later, the four-party ruling coalition said it
would launch impeachment proceedings “immediately.”37 Musharraf’s aides vowed
that the president would fight the effort, but some former political allies began urging
Musharraf to resign rather than further polarize the country. Prime Minister Gillani
expressed confidence that the military leadership was pro-democracy and would not
intervene top protect Musharraf.38 Cynical observers saw the two major party leaders
35 On June 9, some 4,000 lawyers began a protest in Karachi aimed at pushing the
government to restore the deposed judges. By June 13, an estimated 40,000 marchers had
come together for a rally in Islamabad. Many Pakistanis were disappointed that the “long
march” ended without creation of any plan for breaking the coalition government deadlock
on the restoration issue. The effort did, however, ramp up pressure on the PPP (“Long
March Ends Without Roadmap,” Daily Times (Lahore), June 15, 2008; “Pakistan Ruling
Party on Defensive After Rally,” Associated Press, June 14, 2008).
36 “Coalition Partner Leaves Pakistan’s Cabinet in Dispute Over Reinstating Judges,” New
York Times, May 13, 2008.
37 Under Pakistan’s Constitution, impeachment of the president requires a two-thirds
majority vote by the combined 442-seat membership of Parliament’s two chambers. Early
projections of parliamentary support found impeachment proponents coming up perhaps 10-
20 votes shy of the 295 required to remove the president, a gap potentially closed with the
addition of independent members (“Impeachment is All a Numbers Game,” Daily Times
(Lahore), August 8, 2008).
38 “Allies Call on Beleaguered Musharraf to Quit,” Reuters, August 10, 2008; “Pakistan
(continued...)
CRS-13
valuing their own political fortunes over the health of the Pakistani nation. Some
noted with irony that Zardari and Sharif, both unelected politicians without
constitutional positions who are not accountable to the people, were planning to
impeach Musharraf in the interests of “democracy.” Such cynicism only deepened
with the later news that Zardari would present himself as candidate to be Pakistan’s
next president.39
The first major aspect of the federal coalition’s plan to remove the president
involved passing anti-Musharraf resolutions in each of the country’s four provincial
assemblies. Such bills have no constitutional authority, but would represent no-
confidence votes and so ramp up considerable political pressure. On August 11, the
Punjab assembly overwhelmingly passed the first such resolution by a vote of 321-
25, with numerous PML-Q legislators joining the majority. The NWFP, Sindh, and
Baluchistan assemblies followed days later. With signs that the military brass would
not come to his aid, the besieged president appeared to have no allies remaining, and
a flood of reports indicated that Musharraf’s resignation was imminent.40
On August 18, President Musharraf delivered an address to the nation in which
he claimed responsibility both for turning around Pakistan’s economy and for
introducing the “essence of democracy” there. He blamed the new civilian
government for the country’s current economic and political instability, rejected the
“charge sheet” that had been brought against him, explained his decision to resign as
an effort to avoid confrontation and further instability, and placed his fate in the
hands of the Pakistani people.41 In Pakistan, the initial reaction to Musharraf’s exit
appeared to be one of optimism that greater stability would ensue. Some viewed the
process leading to his departure as a tightly scripted political play designed to protect
both Musharraf’s policies and the Pakistani military.42
Musharraf’s departure is not expected to meaningfully alter Pakistani
government policies in the near-term, and the command and control structure for
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal also is not expected to change. The National
Command Authority — created in 2000 and chaired by the president — will retain
control through military channels. The Pakistani Ambassador to the United States
is among those who insist that Musharraf’s August resignation can facilitate more
38 (...continued)
Army Won’t Support Musharraf - Government,” Reuters, August 12, 2008.
39 See, for example, “M.B. Naqvi, “While Rome Burns, Plain Words” (op-ed), News
(Karachi), August 6, 2008; S. Sathananthan, “Retrieving Democracy?” (Op-ed), Outlook
(Delhi), August 12, 2008; “The Zardari Card” (editorial), News (Karachi), August 22, 2008.
40 “Military Cuts Power From Under Musharraf,” Financial Times (London), August 13,
2008; “Musharraf Expected to Resign Within Days,” New York Times, August 15, 2008.
41 “Going, Going, Gone!,” Daily Times, (Lahore), August 19, 2008. Speech text at
[http://www.cfr.org/publication/16999/president_musharrafs_resignation_speech.html?b
readcrumb=%2Fregion%2F279%2Fsouth_asia].
42 “Pakistan Looks Ahead Without Musharraf,” New York Times, August 18, 2008; “Najam
Sethi, “Musharraf’s Legacy and Pakistan’s Future” (op-ed), Friday Times (Lahore), August
22, 2008.
CRS-14
vigorous Pakistani counterterrorism efforts by making it easier for the elected
government avoid accusations that it is “doing America’s bidding in return for
economic and military assistance.”43
In general terms, the PPP is seen to be pushing for indemnity for Musharraf,
while the PML-N insists on a trial. Some reports suggested that the PPP engaged in
secret negotiations to grant Musharraf immunity from future prosecution if he were
to step down. Such a deal reportedly was concluded just days before the president
resigned. Musharraf himself insists he intends to stay in Pakistan, but his future is
unclear. He is not known to have requested foreign asylum, but U.S. officials
express an openness to any potential application for such. Saudi Arabia, Britain, and
Turkey have also been named as possible future homes for the former president.44
Coalition Collapse. Only one day after Musharraf’s resignation, serious rifts
again appeared in the ruling coalition, with Nawaz Sharif reportedly delivering an
ultimatum to the PPP that the Chief Justice be restored to office within 72 hours or
the PML-N would withdraw support. Sharif explained that he had reluctantly gone
along with Zardari’s plan to seek Musharraf’s impeachment before reinstating the
judges with the understanding that such reinstatement would take place within 24
hours of Musharraf’s departure. Sharif also rejected Zardari’s “minus-one” plan that
would restore to the benches all judges except the Chief Justice. Moreover, the
PPP’s August 22 announcement that Zardari himself would stand as the party’s
candidate for the presidency violated Sharif’s understanding that the new president
would be a nonpolitical figure.45
On August 25, Sharif responded to what he saw as a series of broken promises
by withdrawing his party’s support for the ruling coalition and joining the opposition
benches in Parliament. The end of the five-month-long accommodation between the
PPP and PML-N likely will not lead to new elections, as Zardari’s party appears set
to collect enough smaller party support that it can remain in power. Yet the
development triggered a wide array of analysts to predict even more political
instability in Islamabad in the foreseeable future, and the fractiousness of Pakistan’s
governance setting cast a further pall over prospects for the country’s new civilian
leadership to deal directly and effectively with Pakistan’s urgent economic and
security problems.46
Zardari’s candidacy to replace Musharraf suggests that the presidency’s
constitutional powers will not be amended in the foreseeable future. With expected
43 “Analysis - Pakistani Security Policy Set to Follow Musharraf,” Reuters, August 19, 2008;
Husain Haqqani, “America is Better Off Without Musharraf” (op-ed), Wall Street Journal,
August 21, 2008.
44 “Musharraf is Offered Immunity If He Steps Down,” Wall Street Journal, August 11,
2008; “Deal is Done,” Daily Times (Lahore), August 15, 2008; “What’s Next for President
Musharraf?,” BBC News, August 23, 2008; “US Says Will Consider Any Asylum Bid by
Musharraf,” Agence France Presse, August 19, 2008.
45 “Interview With Nawaz Sharif,” Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2008.
46 “Fractious Coalition in Pakistan Breaks Apart,” New York Times, August 25, 2008.
CRS-15
support from the influential regional MQM party based in Karachi, Zardari became
the instant frontrunner to win the scheduled September 6 election, which would
require the support of a majority of the country’s Electoral College (comprised of the
total membership of the two chambers of Parliament plus the four provincial
assemblies). Projections indicate that Zardari can win such a majority without the
support of the PML-N or the PML-Q. Allegations of corruption still haunt Zardari,
and reports have arisen that cast doubt on his recent mental health (his supporters say
he is perfectly fit).47
Role of the Pakistani Military. The army’s role as a dominant and overt
political player in Pakistan may be changing. Following President Musharraf’s
November resignation as army chief, the new leadership showed signs of distancing
itself from both Musharraf and from direct involvement in the country’s governance.
The president’s handpicked successor, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, has issued orders
barring officers from holding unauthorized meetings with civilian leaders; dictated
that all active officers holding posts in civilian agencies resign from those positions;
and announced that the military’s only role in the electoral process would be
maintenance of security. He has since called for a “harmonized relationship between
various pillars of state, as provided in the Constitution.” In March, Kayani exerted
further influence by making his first major new appointments, replacing two of the
nine corps commanders appointed by Musharraf. Many analysts see Gen. Kayani as
motivated to improve the image of the military as an institution after a serious
erosion of its status under Musharraf. His dictates and rhetoric have brought
accolades from numerous commentators.48 According to Pakistan’s envoy to the
United States, the country’s “national consensus on democracy” is fully supported
by the Pakistani military, which is “scrupulously” avoiding any overt or covert role
in the country’s politics.49
U.S. Policy. Pakistan’s relatively credible 2008 polls allowed the Bush
Administration to issue an April determination that a democratically elected
government had been restored in Islamabad after a 101-month hiatus. This
permanently removed coup-related aid sanctions that President Bush had been
authorized to waive annually.50 The U.S. government recognizes Pakistan’s early
2008 political shift as a renewed opportunity to assist in efforts to consolidate the
country’s democratic institutions.51 Both before and after the elections, U.S. officials
expounded a desire to see “moderate forces” within Pakistani politics come together
47 “Numbers Game Tilts in Favor of People’s Party,” Daily Times (Lahore), August 22,
2008; “Zardari on the Hot Seat,” Newsweek (online), August 20, 2008; “Battle Scars On
Show as Zardari in Spotlight,” Financial Times (London), August 25, 2008.
48 “Pakistan Military Retreats From Musharraf’s Influence,” McClatchy Newspapers,
January 18, 2008; “Army Chief Urges Harmony Among Pakistan’s Leaders,” Reuters,
March 6, 2008; “Quiet General Tries to Keep Army Out of Politics,” Wall Street Journal,
August 22, 2008.
49 Remarks by Ambassador Husain Haqqani at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, Washington, D.C., August 20, 2008.
50 Federal Register 73, 69, p. 19276-19277, April 9, 2008.
51 See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/afdr/2008/104862.htm].
CRS-16
to sustain their country’s political and economic reforms and to carry on the fight
against religious extremism and terrorism. The White House anticipates Pakistan’s
“continued cooperation” in this regard.52 There are, however, concerns in
Washington that the new Islamabad government will curtail militarized efforts to
combat Islamist militants and instead seek to make peace deals with Pakistan’s pro-
Taliban extremist forces (see “Increasing Islamist Militancy” section below).
After meeting with myriad Pakistani officials Islamabad in March, Deputy
Secretary of State Negroponte said the U.S.-Pakistan partnership “remains strong”
and “we envision a continued close, productive alliance that benefits both countries.”
He insisted that the United States “is committed to working with all of Pakistan’s
leaders on the full spectrum of bilateral issues” and “will continue to help the
Pakistani people build a secure, prosperous, and free society.”53 By some accounts,
however, the U.S. government has sought and may continue seeking to influence
Islamabad’s internal political processes. Most Pakistanis expressed a keen sensitivity
to signs of U.S. attempts to influence the post-election coalition-building
negotiations. Some observers suspect the Bush Administration remained wedded to
a policy that would have keep the embattled Musharraf in power despite his
weakness and lack of public support.54 Speculation was rife in Pakistan that the
United States sought to keep Musharraf in power and steer the PPP leadership toward
implementing whatever agreements were made between Benazir Bhutto and
Musharraf in 2007.55 Some in Pakistan continue to believe that the U.S. government
has prevented the new coalition from restoring deposed judges.56
Still, by late March, when a new Parliament, Prime Minister, and federal cabinet
were being seated, senior Bush Administration officials appeared to be recognizing
the importance of a broader array of political figures in Islamabad and were vowing
to work with all of them. In what was taken to be a clear indication of shifting U.S.
policy, visiting Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte — who had in late 2007
described the Pakistani president as an “indispensable ally” of the United States —
offered little in the way of public defense for Musharraf, calling his future status a
matter to be determined by “the internal Pakistani political process.”57 When asked
about the coalition’s early August intention to proceed with impeachment, a State
Department spokesman said, “We have consistently said the internal politics of
52 See [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080325-3.html].
53 See [http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr_03272008.html].
54 See, for example, “Pressure on Asif, Nawaz to Work With President,” Dawn (Karachi),
February 23, 2008; M.B. Naqvi, “Untangling the Web of Intrigues” (op-ed), News (Karachi),
April 16, 2008.
55 See, for example, “Pakistan TV Show Discusses Continuing US, Army Support for
Musharraf,” and “Pakistan TV Show Discusses US Government’s Continuing Support to
Musharraf,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, June 1, 2008 and June 6, 2008, respectively.
56 “Judges Not Being Restored Due to American Pressure: APDM,” News (Karachi), June
19, 2008.
57 “Press Statement - Deputy Secretary John Negroponte,” U.S. Embassy Press Release,
March 27, 2008; “US Says No Meddling to Save Musharraf,” Associated Press, March 27,
2008; “US Offers Support for Pakistan’s Parties,” Associated Press, March 11, 2008.
CRS-17
Pakistan is an issue for the Pakistani people to decide. Our expectation is that any
action will be consistent with the rule of law and the Pakistani constitution.” The
White House also said the Pakistanis themselves must determine the outcome.58
By removing the single most important interlocutor in Islamabad, Musharraf’s
resignation presented yet another challenge for U.S. officials in their dealings with
Pakistan. Despite the Bush Administration’s official noninterference posture, many
reports had the U.S. government urging a “soft landing” for Musharraf. The
perception elicited vocal resentments from Nawaz Sharif, among others. Still, in the
end, the Bush Administration watched quietly as its key Pakistani ally was
marginalized, apparently concluding that Musharraf’s time was up and that any
further overt U.S. support for the discredited ex-general would only stoke visceral
anti-American sentiments in Pakistan.59 Upon Musharraf’s resignation, Secretary of
State Rice admitted Pakistan is going through “a difficult and fragile time,” but she
rejected the notion that there is any leadership vacuum there. Rice issued a statement
of strong and ongoing support for Pakistan’s democratic government, and she
expressed “deep gratitude” for Musharraf’s role as “one of the world’s most
committed partners in the war against terrorism and extremism. The White House
voiced confidence that Islamabad would continue in that effort. Both major party
U.S. presidential candidates welcomed Musharraf’s exit as a step toward ending
Pakistan’s political crisis.60
Increasing Islamist Militancy
Islamist extremism and militancy has been a menace to Pakistani society
throughout the post-2001 period, becoming especially prevalent in 2007. According
to U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, the loss of human life
related to Islamist militancy was greater in 2007 than in the previous six years
combined.61 The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center’s most recent annual report
found the incidence of terrorism in Pakistan in 2007 up by 137% over the previous
year, with 1,335 terrorism-related fatalities placing the country third in the world on
such a scale, after Iraq and Afghanistan.62 The myriad militant groups operating in
Pakistan — many of which have in the past displayed mutual animosity — may be
increasing their levels of coordination and planning. Moreover, a new generation of
58 See [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2008/aug/107990.htm]; “US Cautious Amid
Musharraf Resignation Reports,” Agence France Presse, August 15, 2008.
59 “US Wants ‘Honorable’ Stay for President of Pakistan,” Dawn (Karachi), August 11,
2008; “US Interfering in Pakistan Affairs: Nawaz,” Daily Times (Lahore), August 14, 2008;
“As Musharraf Faltered, U.S. Stayed at a Distance,” Washington Post, August 19, 2008;
“How Bush Was Persuaded to Let Musharraf Go,” Dawn (Karachi), August 19, 2008.
60 Secretary Condoleezza Rice, “Remarks En Route to Brussels, Belgium,” August 18, 2008;
[http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-08081801.html]; [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2008/08/20080818-1.html]; “McCain, Obama Welcome Musharraf Resignation,”
Agence France Presse, August 18, 2008; “Analysis - Pakistani Security Policy Set to Follow
Musharraf,” Reuters, August 19, 2008.
61 Statement before the House Committee on Intelligence, February 7, 2008.
62 See [http://wits.nctc.gov/reports/crot2007nctcannexfinal.pdf].
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militants is comprised of battle-hardened jihadis with fewer allegiances to religious
and tribal leaders and customs.63 One press report called the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA) “the most ungoverned, combustible region in the world.”64
In 2008, the influence of Islamist militants appears to be growing unchecked in
large parts of Pakistan beyond the FATA, bringing insecurity even to the NWFP
provincial capital of Peshawar, which reportedly is in danger of being overrun by
pro-Taliban militants. Other so-called “settled areas” of Pakistan beyond the tribal
regions have come under attack from pro-Taliban militants.65 Indeed, the
“Talibanization” of western Pakistan appears to be ongoing and may now threaten
the territorial integrity of the Pakistani state.66 Prime Minster Gillani has identified
terrorism and extremism as Pakistan’s most urgent problems. He vows that
combatting terrorism, along with addressing poverty and unemployment, will be his
government’s top priority. Recent surveys in Pakistan have found strong support for
the Islamabad government’s emphasis on negotiated resolutions. They also show
scant support for unilateral U.S. military action on Pakistani territory.67
Multiple Armed Islamist Uprisings. According to the U.S. intelligence
community, “Radical elements in Pakistan have the potential to undermine the
country’s cohesiveness.”68 One recent Pakistani newspaper editorial estimated that
only 30% of the country or less is under the effective writ of the state, down from
about half in the late 1990s. Another laments that “it is quite obvious that the
militants call the shots” in much of western Pakistan. According to the Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan, “Militancy is spreading and recruitment is in full
swing.” The group cites what it calls credible reports that “militants are being
handled with kid gloves while security forces are regularly using excessive force
against noncombatants.”69
A July 2007 siege at Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque appears to have
embittered Pakistani extremists and elicited acts of vengeance. The siege ended
when Pakistani commandos stormed the complex and, following a day-long battle,
63 “Jihadist Groups Bond on Battle Over Afghanistan,” Chicago Tribune, July 14, 2008;
“Pakistani Militants Teaming Up, Officials Say,” Washington Post, February 9, 2008.
64 “Like the Wild, Wild West, Plus Al Qaeda,” Washington Post, March 30, 2008.
65 “Taliban Spreading Across Pakistan,” McClatchy Newspapers, January 29, 2008; “In
Northwestern Pakistan, Where Militants Rule,” Christian Science Monitor, February 28,
2008; “Taliban Bring Vigilante Law to Pakistan’s Peshawar,” Reuters, June 27, 2008;
“Pakistan’s Deal With the Devil,” Salon, July 8, 2008.
66 Ziauddin Sardar, “Pakistan Must Cure Itself of the Taliban” (op-ed), New Statesman
(London), July 24, 2008; “NWFP May Be Lost, Coalition Leaders Warn,” News (Karachi),
July 25, 2008.
67 See [http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/PakistanPollReportJune08.pdf] and
[http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan/2008-07-16-Pakistan.asp].
68 See [http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20080227_testimony.pdf].
69 “Is There Peace Deal with the Terrorists or Not?” (editorial), Daily Times (Lahore), June
11, 2008; “Militant Menace” (editorial), News (Karachi), June 25, 2008; “HRCP Urges
Holistic Approach to Combating Militants,” HRCP Press Release, June 3, 2008.
CRS-19
defeated the well-armed Islamist radicals therein. Escalating steadily over the course
of 2007, an open Islamist rebellion of sorts had been taking place in Pakistan’s
relatively serene capital. Islamists at the Red Mosque and their followers in the
attached women’s Jamia Hafsa seminary had occupied illegally constructed religious
buildings, kidnaped and detained local police officers and alleged Chinese
prostitutes, battled security forces, and threatened to launch a violent anti-
government campaign unless Sharia (Islamic law) was instituted nationwide. Several
thousand people had been barricaded in the mosque complex, reportedly including
a small number of foreign militants. Some cynics in Pakistan suggested that the
government was complicit in allowing the standoff to fester, its alleged slow and
uncertain response being a purposeful effort to bolster its own standing as a bulwark
against spreading Islamist radicalism. In the months after the Red Mosque raid,
religious militants perpetrated scores of suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan, most of
them against security personnel. Moreover, upon reopening, the Red Mosque has
continued to be a gathering place for strongly anti-Musharraf and anti-Western
Islamist figures.70
Pakistan has also since late 2007 faced a “neo-Taliban” insurgency in the scenic
Swat Valley just 100 miles northwest of the capital, where radical Islamic cleric
Maulana Fazlullah and up to 5,000 of his armed followers seek to impose Sharia law.
Fazlullah, also known as “Maulana Radio” for his fiery (and unlicensed) FM
broadcasts, moved to create a parallel government like that established by pro-
Taliban militant Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan. The ability of Fazlullah and
his followers to impose their will on large swaths of Pakistani territory with apparent
impunity was widely viewed as evidence that the Islamabad government’s campaign
against indigenous extremists had faltered. In October, some 2,500 Frontier Corps
soldiers were deployed to the Swat Valley. The army soon took charge of the
counterinsurgency effort at the request of the provincial governor, massing about
15,000 regular troops. By December, most militant elements in the area were
reported to be in retreat, and the Pakistani government claimed victory in the region,
saying Fazlullah’s loyalists had been routed.71 In 2008, with militants still active in
Swat, government officials apparently struck a peace deal. Such deals appear to have
failed by the summer, with heavy fighting in Swat leaving scores of militants,
soldiers, and civilians dead in the first week of August alone, and battles continuing
there throughout the month. Civilians caught up in the fighting are sometimes killed
by errant artillery fire.72
Fighting between government security forces and religious militants also flared
anew in South Waziristan. Shortly after Bhutto’s assassination the Pakistan army
70 “Pakistan’s Embattled Mosque Reopens With Fresh Momentum,” Washington Post,
October 14, 2007; “1 Year Later, Pakistan’s Mosque Spirit Lives On,” Associated Press,
July 2, 2008.
71 “Pakistan Claims Win in Crucial NW Valley,” Washington Post, December 15, 2007;
“Forces Launch New Offensive in Swat,” Dawn (Karachi), January 6, 2008; “Army Vows
to Clear Swat of Militants,” News (Karachi), February 26, 2008.
72 “Pakistan Clashes Take Heavy Toll,” BBC News, August 4, 2008; “Pakistan Army Kills
Swat Rebels,” BBC News, August 23, 2008; “18 Civilians Killed by Mortar Shells,” Dawn
(Karachi), August 1, 2008.
CRS-20
undertook a major operation against militants there assumed loyal to Baitullah
Mehsud. Several hundred Mehsud fighters retaliated by attacking and briefly
occupying an army fort northeast of Wana, where two dozen Pakistani soldiers were
killed in a January battle. The ensuing counterattack by government forces killed up
to 150 militants and led to the capture of scores more.73 According to one report,
nearly half of the estimated 450,000 residents of the Mehsud territories were driven
from their homes by the fighting and live in makeshift camps.74 The NWFP governor
has claimed Mehsud oversees an annual budget of up to $45 million devoted to
perpetuating regional militancy. Most of this amount is thought to be raised through
narcotics trafficking, although pro-Taliban militants also sustain themselves by
demanding fees and taxes from profitable regional businesses such as marble
quarries. Mehsud and his top lieutenants reportedly are being used by the
government as conduits for the payment of compensation to locals who have been
negatively affected by fighting in South Waziristan. The apparent impunity with
which Mehsud is able to act has caused serious alarm in Washington, where
numerous officials worry that his power and influence are only growing.75
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) emerged as a coherent grouping in late
2007 under the Bailtullah Mehsud’s leadership. This “Pakistani Taliban” is said to
have representatives from each of Pakistan’s seven tribal agencies, as well as from
many of the “settled” districts abutting the FATA. Mehsud himself is believed to
command some 5,000 militants. In August, the Islamabad government formally
banned the TTP due to its involvement in a series of suicide attacks in Pakistan. The
move will allow for the freezing of all TTP bank accounts and other assets (though
these are not known to exist in any official context) and for the interdiction of printed
and visual propaganda materials.76
Al Qaeda in Pakistan. U.S. officials remain concerned that Al Qaeda
terrorists operate with impunity on Pakistani territory. Such concern surged
following the July 2007 release of a National Intelligence Estimate on terrorist threats
to the U.S. homeland, which concluded that Al Qaeda “has protected or regenerated
key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including a safehaven in the FATA,
operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.” Numerous press reports indicate Al
Qaeda has reestablished terrorist training camps in the border region. In December,
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “Al Qaeda right now seems to have turned its
face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistan people.”77
73 “Pakistan Says Army Forcing Out Militants,” Reuters, January 25, 2008.
74 “Pakistan Lifts Veil on Not-So-Secret Waziristan War,” Reuters, May 20, 2008.
75 “Mehsud Spending Up to 3bn on Militancy Annually: Ghani,” Daily Times (Lahore), May
30, 2008; “Pakistan Marble Helps Taliban Stay in Business,” New York Times, July 14,
2008; “Baitullah Now Govt’s Trusted Ally,” News (Karachi), May 31, 2008; “Taliban
Leader Flaunts Power Inside Pakistan,” New York Times, June 2, 2008.
76 Hassan Abbas, “A Profile of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” CTC Sentinel, January 2008;
“Pakistan Government Bans Taliban,” BBC News, August 25, 2008.
77 NIE at [http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070717_release.pdf]; “News Briefing with
Secretary Gates and Gen. Cartwright From the Pentagon,” December 21, 2007.
CRS-21
In his February 2008 threat assessment for a Senate committee, Director of National
Intelligence McConnell offered the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community:
Al Qaeda has been able to retain a safehaven in Pakistan’s FATA that provides
the organization many of the advantages it once derived from its base across the
border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale. The FATA
serves as a staging area for Al Qaeda’s attacks in support of the Taliban in
Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks
in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States.... Using the
sanctuary in the border area of Pakistan, Al Qaeda has been able to maintain a
cadre of skilled lieutenants capable of directing the organization’s operations
around the world.78
The number of Al Qaeda suspects estimated killed or captured in Pakistan —
approximately 700 — has remained essentially unchanged since 2004. Al Qaeda
appears to be increasing its influence among the myriad Islamist militant groups
operating along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Some Pakistani and Western
security officials see Islamabad losing its war against religious militancy and Al
Qaeda forces enjoying new areas in which to operate, due in part to the Pakistan
army’s poor counterinsurgency capabilities and to the central government’s eroded
legitimacy. At a recent House hearing on Al Qaeda, a panel of nongovernmental
experts agreed that the ongoing hunt for Al Qaeda’s top leaders was foundering.79
Conflict in Western Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency.80 An
ongoing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and its connection to developments in
Pakistan are matters of increasingly serious concern. It is widely held that success
in Afghanistan cannot come without the close engagement and cooperation of
Pakistan, and that the key to stabilizing Afghanistan is to improve the longstanding
animosity between Islamabad and Kabul.81 Most analysts appear to agree that, so
long as Taliban forces enjoy “sanctuary” in Pakistan, their Afghan insurgency will
persist. According to the Pentagon, the existence of militant sanctuaries inside
Pakistan’s FATA represents “the greatest challenge to long-term security withing
Afghanistan.” The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan asserts that
Pakistan’s western tribal regions provide the main pool for recruiting insurgents who
fight in Afghanistan.82 Afghan officials continue to accuse Pakistani officials of
aiding and abetting terrorism inside Afghanistan.
78 See [http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20080227_testimony.pdf].
79 “Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent Bolster Taliban,” New York Times, October 30, 2007;
Transcript: House Select Committee on Intelligence Holds Hearing on Al Qaeda, April 9,
2008.
80 See also CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S.
Policy.
81 See, for example, statements made at a January 23, 2008, House Armed Services
Committee hearing on U.S. strategy and operations in Afghanistan.
82 U.S. Department of Defense, “Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in
Afghanistan,” June 2008; NATO commander quoted in “Ragtag Taliban Show Tenacity in
Afghanistan,” New York Times, August 4, 2008.
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In July 2007, pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan announced their
withdrawal from a controversial September 2006 truce made with the Islamabad
government, claiming the accord had been violated by army deployments and attacks
on tribals. Simultaneously, U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley stated
that Washington had determined Islamabad’s policies in the region to be ineffective
and he said the United States was fully supporting new efforts to crack down on
Pakistan’s pro-Taliban militants. The U.S. commander of counterterrorism
operations in Afghanistan subsequently blamed a growing Al Qaeda presence in
Pakistan for a large increase in the number of foreign fighters infiltrating into
Afghanistan.83 CIA Director Hayden said in March 2008 that the situation on the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border “presents a clear and present danger to Afghanistan, to
Pakistan, and to the West in general, and to the United States in particular.” He
agreed with other top U.S. officials who believe that possible future terrorist attacks
on the U.S. homeland likely would originate from that region.84
An April 2008 letter to President Bush signed by 47 U.S. Senators expressed
“deep concern over the deteriorating situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan” and
urged the Administration to work with Congress on creating a comprehensive new
strategy to address what was called a “failure to recognize this region as the central
battlefield in the war against Al Qaeda.”85 One senior Senator returned from a May
2008 visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan with a strong sense of doubt that the
Islamabad government was undertaking to end the Taliban’s presence in places like
Quetta and to end the cross-border movement of “terrorists” who launch attacks in
Afghanistan. However, another Senator came away from Pakistan reassured that
government officials there understand the need for any truce agreements to require
a halt to cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.86
Pakistani officials have sought to allay Afghan leaders’ fears that truces in the
tribal regions would lead to more cross-border attacks, assuring them that Islamabad
makes no distinction between Pakistani and Afghan interests on this issue.87 Yet
Afghan President Karzai has asserted his country’s right to defend itself and “cross
the border and destroy terrorist nests.” He has specifically named Baitullah Mehsud
and Maulana Fazlullah among the anti-Afghan militants he wishes to see neutralized.
Islamabad rejected the “regrettable” comments and vowed to defend its sovereign
territory. When asked about the exchange, President Bush said, “Our strategy is to
deny safe haven to extremists who would do harm to innocent people. And that’s the
strategy of Afghanistan; it needs to be the strategy of Pakistan.” The U.S. President
83 “Pakistan Army Action Has Slight Effect: U.S. General,” Reuters, July 25, 2007.
84 “CIA: Pakistan Border’s Clear and Present Danger,’” Associated Press, March 30, 2008.
85 See [http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=295679&].
86 “Sen. Carl Levin Holds a News Teleconference on His Travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan,
and Israel,” CQ Transcriptions, May 27, 2008; “US Senator Reassured Over Pakistani Peace
Deals,” Reuters, May 28, 2008.
87 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2008/June/PR_156_08.htm]. Some
nongovernmental commentators in Pakistan openly insist that Pakistan’s domestic security
is the primary goal and helping Afghanistan is a secondary objective, only (see, for example,
Khalid Aziz, “Has Waziristan Stabilized?” (op-ed), News (Karachi), June 7, 2008).
CRS-23
offered that improved dialogue between Islamabad and Kabul, revival of the cross-
border jirga process, and better intelligence cooperation among all concerned
countries could ameliorate the situation.88
Pakistan’s mixed record on battling Islamist extremism includes an ongoing
apparent tolerance of Taliban elements operating from its territory. The “Kandahari
clique” reportedly operates not from Pakistan’s tribal areas, but from populated areas
in and around the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta. Many analysts believe
that Pakistan’s intelligence services know the whereabouts of these Afghan Taliban
leadership elements and likely even maintain active contacts with them at some level
as part of a hedge strategy in the region. Reports continue to indicate that elements
of Pakistan’s major intelligence agency and military forces aid the Taliban and other
extremists forces as a matter of policy. Such support may even include providing
training and fire support for Taliban offensives (see also “Questions About Pakistan’s
Main Intelligence Agency” below).89 Other reports indicate that U.S. military
personnel are unable to count on the Pakistani military for battlefield support and do
not trust Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, whom some say are active facilitators of militant
infiltration into Afghanistan. At least one senior U.S. Senator has questioned the
wisdom of providing U.S. aid to a group that is ineffective, at best, and may even be
providing support to “terrorists.”90
As pressure on Islamabad to curtail the cross-border attacks increases, Pakistani
officials more openly contend that the problem is essentially internal to Afghanistan
and has its roots in the inability of the Kabul government to effectively extend its
writ, and in the lack of sufficient Afghan and Western military forces to defeat the
Taliban insurgents. This view is supported by some independent analyses.91
Pakistani leaders insist that Afghan stability is a vital Pakistani interest. They ask
interested partners to enhance their own efforts to control the border region by
undertaking an expansion of military deployments and checkposts on the Afghan side
of the border, by engaging more robust intelligence sharing, and by continuing to
supply the counterinsurgency equipment requested by Pakistan. Islamabad touts the
expected effectiveness of sophisticated technologies such as biometric scanners in
reducing illicit cross-border movements, but analysts are pessimistic that such
88 “Karzai Threatens to Send Soldiers Into Pakistan,” New York Times, June 15, 2008;
[ h t t p : / / w w w . m o f a . g o v . p k / P r e s s _ R e l e a s e s / 2 0 0 8 / J u n e / P R _ 1 7 6 _ 0 8 . h t m ] ;
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/06/20080616-1.html].
89 See, for example, Ashley Tellis, “Pakistan’s Mixed Record on Anti-Terrorism”
(interview), February 6, 2008, at [http://www.cfr.org/publication/15424]; “Killing Ourselves
in Afghanistan,” Salon.com, March 10, 2008.
90 “Border Complicates War in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, April 4, 2008; “Democrat
Questions US Aid to Pakistan,” Associated Press, May 27, 2008.
91 See, for example, “As ISAF Command Changes, Time for a Reality Check on the Conflict
in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, June 4, 2008;
“American Failure in Afghanistan & Need for a New Social Contract in the FATA,” Center
for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, July 2008.
CRS-24
measures can meaningfully address militant infiltration, as such elements generally
skirt border checkposts, in any case.92
With three-quarters of supplies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan moving either
through or over Pakistan, Pentagon officials have studied alternative routes in case
further political instability in Pakistan disrupts supply lines. The Russian
government has agreed to allow non-lethal NATO supplies to Afghanistan to cross
Russian territory, but declines to allow passage of troops as sought by NATO.
Taliban efforts to interdict NATO supplies as they cross through Pakistan to
Afghanistan have included a March 2008 attack that left 25 fuel trucks destroyed.
Interdiction incidents reportedly increased in mid-summer 2008, but U.S. officials
say only about 1% of the cargo moving from the Karachi port into Afghanistan is
being lost.93
Questions About Pakistan’s Main Intelligence Agency. The Inter-
Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) is Pakistan’s main foreign intelligence agency.
Close U.S. links with the ISI date back at least to the 1980s, when American and
Pakistani intelligence officers oversaw cooperative efforts to train and supply Afghan
“freedom fighters” who were battling the Soviet Army. Yet mutual mistrust has been
ever-present and, in the summer of 2008, long-standing doubts about the activities
and aims of the ISI have compounded.94 Some analysts label the ISI a “rogue”
agency driven by Islamist ideology that can and does act beyond the operational
control of its nominal administrators. Yet many informed observers conclude that
the ISI, while sometimes willing to “push the envelope” in pursuing Pakistan’s
perceived regional interests, is a disciplined organization that obeys the orders of its
commanders in the Pakistani military.95 In an episode that only brought
embarrassment for Pakistan’s newly seated civilian government, a July effort to bring
the ISI under the formal control of the Interior Ministry was reversed only hours after
it was announced, fueling speculation that the Pakistani military does not intend to
relinquish its traditionally primary role in foreign and national security policy
making. U.S. officials reportedly continue to quietly criticize the new civilian
government for its alleged “lack of supervision” of the ISI.96
92 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2008/July/PR_208_08.htm]; “Stopping
Terrorists” (editorial), News (Karachi), June 10, 2008.
93 “Pakistan Unrest Threatens Supply Lines,” Associated Press, November 14, 2007; “Bush
Pledges More Troops for NATO Afghan Force,” Reuters, April 4, 2008; “Fuel Trucks For
U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Destroyed,” New York Times, March 23, 2008; “Attacks on
Khyber Trucking Threaten US Supply Line,” Associated Press, May 20, 2008; “Taliban is
Seizing, Destroying More NATO supplies,” Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2008.
94 “When Spies Don’t Play Well with their Allies,” New York Times, July 20, 2008.
95 See, for example, “The ISI and Terrorism: Beyond the Accusations,” Council on Foreign
Relations Backgrounder, July 9, 2008.
96 “Spy Agency Confusion in Pakistan,” BBC News, July 27, 2008; “How Decision Was
Reversed So Soon,” News (Karachi), July 28, 2008; “Pakistan’s ‘Rogue’ Spy Agency
Attacked,” Financial Times (London), August 19, 2008.
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The Kabul government claims to have evidence of ISI complicity in both an
April assassination attempt on Afghan President Karzai and in the July bombing of
India’s Kabul Embassy. The New Delhi government joined Kabul in issuing
accusations of ISI involvement in the latter event. Islamabad counters that, despite
repeated Pakistani demands, neither Kabul nor New Delhi have provided any
evidence supporting their “unsubstantiated allegations.”97 A June 2008 think-tank
report on insurgency in Afghanistan included the finding that, “There is some
indication that individuals within the Pakistan government — for example, within the
Frontier Corps and the ISI — were involved in assisting insurgent groups” inside
Afghanistan.98 In July 2008, a top U.S. intelligence official reportedly presented
evidence to the Islamabad government that ISI agents were providing assistance to
militant elements who undertake attacks in Afghanistan. Specifically mentioned was
an alleged relationship between ISI agents and members of the Haqqani network
believed based in FATA and named as responsible the July embassy bombing in
Kabul. Islamabad angrily rejected such reports as “baseless and malicious,” but, in
only days later, Pakistan’s federal information minister conceded that some
individuals within ISI “probably” remain “ideologically sympathetic to the Taliban”
and act out of synch with government policy.99
President Bush himself was reported to have bluntly asked the visiting Pakistani
Prime Minister who was controlling the ISI, and also to have expressed concern that
Pakistani intelligence officers were leaking operational information to militants
which could allow those elements to evade militarized efforts against them.100 When
asked about the ISI’s command structure, Prime Minister Gillani assured an
American audience the agency “is under the Prime Minister” and “will do only what
I want them to do.” The claim was met with scepticism and U.S. pressure on
Islamabad to control the ISI persists.101 Some observers see an increasingly frustrated
Bush Administration’s “venting” of anger against the ISI as counterproductive and
97 “Pakistan ‘Behind Afghan Attacks,’” BBC News, July 14, 2008; “India Blames Pakistan
i n E m b a s s y B o m b i n g , ” A s s o c i a t e d P r e s s , J u l y 2 1 , 2 0 0 8 ;
[http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Spokesperson/2008/Aug/Spokes_13_08_08.html].
98 Seth Jones, “Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan,” RAND Counterinsurgency Study 4,
2008, at [http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG595/index.html], p. xiv. A spokesman
for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations rejected the report’s findings as “misleading,
factually incorrect, and based on propaganda,” saying it was part of a “smear campaign”
aimed at disrupting Pakistan’s relations with its partners in fighting terrorism
([http://www.ispr.gov.pk/Archive&Press/CurrentMonth/10-Jun-2008.htm]).
99 “C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants,” New York Times, July 30, 2008;
“Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say,” New York Times, August 1, 2008;
“Pakistan Denies ‘Malicious’ Report on CIA Confrontation,” Agence France Presse, July
30, 2008; “Pakistan Concedes Some ISI Spies Sympathetic to Taliban,” Los Angeles Times,
August 2, 2008.
100 “Bush Voices Concern Over ISI Role,” News (Karachi), July 31, 2008.
101 “A Conversation With Yousaf Raza Gillani,” Council on Foreign Relations transcript,
July 29, 2008; “U.S. Presses Pakistani Government to Place Its Spy Agency Under Civilian
Control,” New York Times, August 2, 2008.
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disrespectful of a generally efficient and professional organization that has worked
closely and effectively with U.S. government agencies.102
Pakistani Military Operations. The Pakistan army has deployed upwards
of 100,000 regular and paramilitary troops in western Pakistan in response to the
surge in militancy there. Their militant foes appear to be employing heavy weapons
in more aggressive tactics, making frontal attacks on army outposts instead of the hit-
and-run skirmishes of the past. The army also has suffered from a raft of suicide
bomb attacks and the kidnaping of hundreds of its soldiers. Such setbacks damage
the army’s morale, and have caused some to question the organization’s loyalties and
capabilities.103 Pakistan reportedly has told U.S. military officials that it will send
major regular army units to replace Frontier Corps soldiers near the Afghan border
and that it may deploy elite, U.S.-trained and equipped Special Services Group
commandos to the tribal areas.104
In June, Pakistani paramilitary forces launched offensive operations against
Islamist militants in the Khyber tribal agency near Peshawar, with some 700 Frontier
Corps troops attacking positions held by fighters loyal to Mangal Bagh. U.S.
officials were encouraged by the more energetic Pakistani military action. Within
days, the government units had been reinforced to number more than 1,000 and were
reporting major gains in pushing militants out of previous strongholds. Other
militant groups reacted by cutting off peace negotiations with government
interlocutors. By early July, however, authorities were claiming to have reached a
peace agreement with Khyber tribal elders.105 In mid-July, government forces
launched another offensive, this time in the Hangu region of the NWFP, where
regular and paramilitary troops targeted militant hideouts and reportedly cleared two
towns. By month’s end, a senior Islamist commander was being reported killed in
ongoing fighting and the still nominally obtaining truce was teetering on the brink of
failure.106 Some observers called the government offensives a staged drama designed
to placate both a nervous Pakistani public and a Washington audience that seeks
more forceful action against religious militancy.107
More recently, Pakistani ground troops have undertaken operations against
militants in the Bajaur agency, where at least 100 militants and 9 soldiers were
102 See, for example, Eric Margolis, “U.S. Vilifies Faithful Old Ally” (op-ed), Toronto Sun,
August 3, 2008.
103 “Battles Raging in Remotest Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2007;
“Kidnapings and Suicide Attacks Shake Morale of Pakistan’s Armed Force,” Times of
London, September 20, 2007.
104 “Pakistan May Step Up Action Against Insurgents,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2008.
105 “Troops Take Control in Pakistan’s North,” Washington Post, June 29, 2008; “Swat
Taliban Reject Peace Negotiations,” Daily Times (Lahore), June 30, 2008; “Pakistan Says
Peace Deal Reached in Khyber Region,” Associated Press, July 9, 2008.
106 “Pakistan Army Drives Militants From Two Towns,” Reuters, July 17, 2008; “Pakistani
Militant Leader Killed As Accord Falters,” Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2008..
107 See, for example, “The Bara Operation is a Lie, Plain and Simple” (editorial), News
(Karachi), July 1, 2008.
CRS-27
reported killed in fierce battles in the first week of August. A Taliban spokesman
claimed that up to 100 Pakistani soldiers had been killed and government officials
conceded that at least 55 were missing. In mid-month, Pakistani Taliban commander
Maulana Faqir Mohammed was reported killed in a helicopter gunship attack near
Damadola in the Bajaur tribal agency. The military effort has included airstrikes on
residential areas occupied by suspected militants who may be using civilians as
human shields. The use of fixed-wing aircraft continued and reportedly has killed
some women and children along with scores of militants. The strife is causing a
serious humanitarian crisis, with up to 300,000 area residents fleeing. In August, the
U.S. government provided emergency assistance to displaced families.108
Subsequent terrorist attacks in other parts of western Pakistan were linked to the
Bajaur fighting. On August 12, an apparent remote-controlled bomb exploded near
a bridge in Peshawar, killing 13 occupants of a Pakistan Air Force bus. On August
19, a suicide bomb attack apparently targeting Shia Muslims killed at least 25 people
outside a hospital in Dera Ismail Khan, NWFP. Both attacks were undertaken by the
local Taliban in retaliation for the Bajaur airstrikes.109 The government turned down
a unilateral Taliban cease-fire offer in late August and fighting in Bajaur continues.
Meanwhile, violent sectarian and inter-tribal conflict in the Kurram agency reportedly
caused more than 400 deaths over an 18-day period in August.110
Pakistan’s New Dialogue With Tribal Elements. For the first time in
more than eight years, the United States has had to deal with a political dispensation
in Islamabad that has fundamentally differing views not on the need to combat
religious extremism, but on the methods by which to do so. In their first official
meetings with the new government, visiting U.S. officials received a reported
“dressing down,” in particular from Nawaz Sharif, who declined to give them “a
commitment” on fighting terrorism.111 Pakistan’s new civilian leaders called for
renewed efforts at negotiating with the country’s Pashtun tribal leaders and Islamist
militants, claiming a strategy reliant on military confrontation had backfired and
allowed the militants to become stronger and more influential. Prime Minster Gillani
insists that his government will not negotiate with “terrorists” nor with “anyone
refusing to lay down arms.” In a conversation with Secretary of State Rice, Foreign
Minister Qureshi vowed that Pakistan would “continue its role in the international
struggle against terrorism,” and he emphasized a need to facilitate this effort through
economic development in the FATA. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry asserts that the
new government’s approach takes full cognizance of international concerns, saying
a strong implementation mechanism is part of the negotiations and that Pakistan’s
108 “Pakistan Troops Withdraw From Taliban Stronghold,” Los Angeles Times, August 10,
2008; “100 Reported Killed in Pakistan Tribal Region,” Associated Press, August 10, 2008;
“Air Strikes Kill 22 in Bajaur Agency,” News (Karachi), August 19, 2008; “Pakistanis
Displaced by Fighting in ‘Dire Need,’” Reuters, August 25, 2008;
[http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-08082003.html].
109 “13 Killed in Attack on Pakistan Air Force Bus,” New York Times, August 12, 2008;
“Pakistan Hospital Bomb Kills Many,” BBC News, August 19, 2008.
110 “42 More Die in Kurram Clashes,”Dawn (Karachi), August 24, 2008.
111 “Pakistanis Signal Shift in Relationship With U.S.,” New York Times, March 25, 2008.
CRS-28
armed forces are not being withdrawn, but rather are being “repositioned in order to
enhance logistic agility and effectiveness of action.” Pakistani military officials insist
that “common objectives” in battling terrorism dictate that U.S.-Pakistan defense
relations will remain strong.112
Most Pakistani analysts appeared to welcome the new government’s policy of
shifting away from President Musharraf’s militarized approach and hold some
optimism that representatives of the people can succeed where past efforts have
failed. In the words of one editorial,
Whereas the 2005-07 agreements were signed by the former NWFP governor at
the behest of the army and bypassing the then [Islamist coalition] government in
the Frontier, the latest initiative comes from a duly elected provincial
government with a strong public mandate behind it. Also the signatories from
the other side will not be the militants but Mehsud tribesmen.113
Yet other commentators are less sanguine, warning that without assurances the
militants will end attacks across the Durand Line, peace agreements will not serve
Pakistan’s core interests and are bound to fail. One senior Pakistani commentator
called a May truce deal in Swat “the most abject surrender of state sovereignty in
Pakistani history.” This type of sentiment is echoed by some American editorialists,
as well.114 In a characteristic response to the escalating violence, one English-
language Pakistani daily opined that, “Peace had its chance, but the Taliban blew it”
and “the state is left with no choice other than to crack down with all the resources
at its disposal.”115
The Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party, which oversees a new coalition
government in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), reportedly plays a central
role in negotiations with tribal elders and militant groups. The ANP has urged the
federal government to engage in direct negotiations with FATA militants through
jirgas, and there are indications that an ongoing dialogue with the FATA’s Islamist
elements is being conducted by the Pakistan army, itself, and predates the February
elections. The military’s covert deal-making with extremist elements may cause
friction with Pakistan’s new civilian leadership.116
Status of Negotiations. On April 21, the NWFP government released Sufi
Mohammed, the militant Pakistani leader of a banned Islamist group who had spent
112 Yousaf Raza Gillani, “Pakistan’s Moment” (op-ed), Washington Post, April 30, 2008;
[ h t t p : / / w w w . m o f a . g o v . p k / P r e s s _ R e l e a s e s / 2 0 0 8 / A p r i l / P R _ 0 8 7 _ 0 8 . h t m ] ;
[http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Spokesperson/2008/June/Spokes_05_06_08.htm]; “Pakistan and
U.S. Ties to Remain Close - Military Official,” Reuters, May 31, 2008.
113 “Engaging the Mehsuds” (editorial), Dawn (Karachi), April 25, 2008.
114 “Truce With Taliban Won’t Last” (editorial), Daily Times (Lahore), April 25, 2008;
Najam Sethi, “No Man’s Land” (op-ed), Friday Times (Lahore), May 23, 2008; “Pakistan
Gives In to Terror” (editorial), Chicago Tribune, June 7, 2007.
115 “Peace Had Its Chance” (editorial), Dawn (Karachi), June 26, 2008.
116 “Pakistan Regime, Military at Odds,” McClatchy News, May 1, 2008.
CRS-29
six years in detention after commanding thousands of pro-Taliban troops in
Afghanistan. His release was part of an agreement between the Peshawar
government and extremist leaders in which militants reportedly vowed to halt their
propaganda efforts and cooperate with government agencies in the Malakand District
bordering the FATA. One month later, Pakistani authorities reportedly inked a 15-
point peace pact with pro-Taliban militants in the Swat Valley in which government
forces would “gradually” withdraw from the region and Sharia law would be
enforced. In return, the militants loyal to Maulana Fazlullah agreed to end attacks,
allow girls to attend school, and stop carrying weapons in public. Only days later,
local militants and tribal elders in the Mohmand tribal agency struck a deal that
included the government releasing from detention pro-Taliban extremists loyal to a
regional commander known as Omar Khalid in return for militants’ vows to refrain
from attacks on security forces.117
Meanwhile, on April 23, South Waziristan-based militant leader Baitullah
Mehsud — named as a prime suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and in
numerous other suicide bomb attacks inside Pakistan — issued a directive banning
“provocative acts” by his loyalists in the tribal areas and neighboring regions. The
directive fueled speculation that a peace agreement between government forces and
militants was imminent; a 15-point draft truce accord reportedly was near conclusion.
The truce would require the tribes to end all anti-government attacks and respect the
state’s writ while allowing security forces full freedom of movement in the region.
While the draft accord would require the tribes to expel all foreign militants from
their territory, it reportedly lacked any mention of ending cross-border attacks in
Afghanistan. On April 28, Mehsud announced his disengagement from the talks after
the government refrained from ordering army units to withdraw from Waziristan.
Yet, on May 16, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan was freed three months after
being kidnaped by pro-Taliban militants in the Khyber tribal agency.
Within the FATA itself, Pakistani forces apparently continued to block certain
roads as a means of pressuring militants, Mehsud in particular. Ongoing dialogue
apparently led the Pakistan army to engage in prisoner swaps with militants and to
begin “thinning” its troop deployments in parts of South Waziristan in preparation
for an expected truce. The Islamabad government insists it will maintain the army’s
presence in “restive areas” and is negotiating only with elements willing to lay down
arms, and not with terrorists or militants. Pakistani military officials have sought to
reassure skeptics that their forces are merely “adjusting their positions” to allow
refugees to return to the region and that the army will continue to maintain control.
They claim that “monitoring mechanisms” not included in past peace deals will
ensure the success of present efforts.118
117 “Pakistan Signs Peace Pact With Militants in Swat,” Reuters, May 21, 2008; “‘Peace
Deal Depends on Shariah Enforcement,’” Daily Times (Lahore), May 23, 2008; “Mohmand
Militants, Tribal Elders Ink Peace Accord,” News (Karachi), May 26, 2008.
118 “Pakistan ‘Thins Out’ Troops in Waziristan,” Reuters, May 14, 2008; “Cabinet Decides
Not to Withdraw Army From FATA,” Daily Times (Lahore), May 22, 2008; “Pakistan Seeks
to Allay West’s Fears of Army Pull Out,” Reuters, May 18, 2008.
CRS-30
In June, a senior advisor to the Pakistani prime minister claimed the truce deal
in Swat had been scrapped due to militant intransigence and continued attacks on
security forces there. His claim apparently came as a surprise to the Pakistan army,
which expressed ignorance about the alleged development, and the NWFP
government subsequently denied that the peace deal had been dismantled. However,
in mid-month, pro-Taliban militants in Swat were reported to have “suspended” all
contacts with the government. Fierce combat then continued through the summer.119
U.S. Response to Pakistani Deal-Making. The Bush Administration at
first issued mixed messages about Pakistani government negotiations with religious
extremists. Following the April release of Sufi Mohammed, the White House
expressed concern and encouraged Pakistan to “continue to fight against the
terrorists.” Yet, on the same day, Assistant Secretary of State Boucher said “we’re
supportive” of a dialogue process that could put a stop to violence. Boucher
downplayed the newsworthiness of the development, calling dialogue a core aspect
of any successful counterinsurgency effort and reminding reporters that past such
efforts failed not because the agreements themselves were flawed, but because they
were not enforceable. He also conceded that U.S. government knowledge of the
details of Islamabad’s negotiations has been limited.120 In ensuing discussions with
Pakistani officials, the Bush Administration has sought to be clear in conveying the
importance of reaching agreements that end cross-border attacks in Afghanistan, as
well as those within Pakistan itself. U.S. officials believe that regional stability
depends on such conditions.121
Islamabad and Washington may increasingly be at odds over counterterrorism
strategy. An emphasis on negotiation alarms U.S. officials, who are concerned that
such a tack would only allow extremist elements the space in which to consolidate
their own positions, as appeared to be the case when truces were struck in 2005 and
2006. Secretary of Defense Gates has cautioned Islamabad against negotiating with
pro-Taliban militants, saying past efforts had failed. However, Gates later suggested
that the new Islamabad government should be given time to “get its feet on the
ground” and assess the full nature of the militant threat.122 During his March visit to
Islamabad, Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte averred that “irreconcilable
elements” cannot be dealt with through negotiation. In May, Negroponte was
emphatic about U.S. apprehensions:
119 “Peace Deal in With Swat Militants Scrapped,” Daily Times (Lahore), June 9, 2008;
“Rehman Malik Shocks Army This Time,” News (Karachi), June 11, 2008; “Pakistan
Militants ‘Suspend’ Deal,” BBC News, June 17, 2008.
120 “U.S. Unhappy With Pakistani Plan for Militant Peace Deal,” CNN.com, April 23, 2008;
See Boucher’s April 23, 2008, comments at [http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/2008/
104042.htm].
121 “Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on the President’s Trip to
Europe,” June 4, 2008; “U.S. is Uneasy as Pakistan Bargains With Militants,” Los Angeles
Times, June 15, 2008.
122 “Pakistan’s Planned Accord With Militants Alarms U.S.,” New York Times, April 30,
2008; “Pakistan Needs More Time to Tackle Militants: US,” Daily Times (Lahore), May 31,
2008.
CRS-31
Let me be clear: we will not be satisfied until all the violent extremism
emanating from the FATA is brought under control. It is unacceptable for
extremists to use those areas to plan, train for, or execute attacks against
Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the wider world.123
CIA Director Hayden himself has said the United States “would not look kindly”
upon any agreements that do not bring the writ of the Pakistani state into the tribal
region. The senior U.S. diplomat for South Asia said in June that the United States
supports and agrees with Islamabad’s efforts to “negotiate with the tribes and not
with terrorists,” but conceded that there are certain unspecified “misgivings” about
how the dialogue has progressed in both Swat and Waziristan. Some analysts are
concerned that the targeted killings of more than 100 pro-government tribal elders
in the FATA in recent years has made current efforts to drive a wedge between the
militants and the local tribes extremely difficult.124
Top U.S. officials have identified a direct link between increasing violence in
Afghanistan and decreasing Pakistani pressure on militants in border areas as
Islamabad negotiates peace pacts with local tribes. Violent attacks against Afghan
and NATO troops in Afghanistan reportedly have increased significantly in 2008.125
The outgoing commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill,
said he was “troubled” by Pakistan’s negotiations with insurgent groups, noting that
violence in eastern Afghanistan increases significantly when truces are arranged on
the Pakistani side of the Durand Line. NATO’s top commander echoed the
concerns.126 While the Islamabad government offers explicit assurances that Pakistani
territory will not be used for launching attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials
remain adamant in their rejection of U.S. proposals for more direct U.S. military
action on Pakistani territory.127
Many independent analysts counsel U.S. patience that would allow the
demoralized Pakistan army to recover from past setbacks as well as allowing the new
civilian dispensation in Islamabad to win more broad public support for the battle
against terrorism. A fundamental respect for Pakistan democracy would, from this
perspective, seem to require U.S. government tolerance for Islamabad’s approach, at
123 See [http://www.state.gov/s/d/2008/104366.htm]. Waziri militant commander Baitullah
Mehsud himself refuses to recognize the Durand Line as a legitimate frontier, and he
explicitly rules out any end to the “jihad in Afghanistan (“Pakistani Taliban Leader Vows
Jihad in Afghanistan,” Reuters, May 24, 2008).
124 “CIA Watching for Al Qaeda Succession Crisis,’” Associated Press, May 27, 2008;
[http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/2008/105901.htm]; “Militants’ Rise in Pakistan Points to
Opportunity Lost,” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 2008.
125 “U.S. Hopes for Pakistani Crackdown on Militants,” Reuters, June 26, 2008; “U.S.
Blames Pakistan as Afghanistan Incursions Rise,” Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2008. In
June, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said insurgent attacks in eastern
Afghanistan were up by 40 percent during the first five months of 2008 as compared to the
previous year (“Attacks in Afghanistan Up 40 Percent, U.S. Says,” Reuters, June 24, 2008).
126 “ISAF Commander ‘Troubled’ by Pakistan Negotiations,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, May
21, 2008; “Nato ‘Concerned’ Over Pakistan,” BBC News, May 27, 2008.
127 Pakistanis ‘Won’t Allow’ Attacks Into Afghanistan,” Reuters, June 25, 2008.
CRS-32
least in the near-term.128 Even some former Bush Administration policy makers are
urging the U.S. government to ease military pressure in the short term so as to give
space for Pakistani democracy to develop and so bring long-term benefits.129 One
former Bush State Department official favors U.S. support for Pakistan’s deal-
making efforts, at least in the short term, offering that Islamabad appears to have
learned from past mistakes, that the new civilian government there needs the
“breathing space” that cease-fires could bring, that Pakistani security forces need
time to recover from a recent series of setbacks, and that truces could open the space
to initiate new development projects.130
U.S.-Pakistan Counterterrorism Cooperation
Increasing Islamist militancy in Pakistan has elicited acute U.S. government
attention and multiple high-level visits. Some of President Bush’s top military and
intelligence aides reportedly seek his authorization for more energetic direct U.S.
military action on Pakistani soil, perhaps to include sending special forces units into
the FATA. Pentagon officials are said to be increasingly frustrated by the allegedly
feckless counterinsurgency efforts of the internally squabbling Islamabad
government.131 Some reports suggest that U.S. officials are frustrated by signs that
the Pakistani military is slow to shift away from a conventional war strategy focused
on India, and they have made clear the United States stands ready to assist Pakistan
in “reorienting” its army for counterinsurgency efforts. Top U.S. military
commanders in Afghanistan are reported to be deeply skeptical that Islamabad will
use future U.S. military assistance for its intended purposes.132 Further reported
concerns in Washington are rooted in a perception that Pakistani Army Chief Gen.
Kayani is more interested in boosting his institution’s damaged morale than he is in
dealing with the Taliban threat.133 The now explicit U.S. readiness to increase
bilateral counterterrorism cooperation is described by some as being expressed to
Islamabad in the form of “pressure.” Former President Musharraf rejected
suggestions that U.S. troops could be more effective than Pakistanis in battling
Islamist militants, asserting that a direct U.S. military presence in Pakistan is neither
necessary nor acceptable. Instead, he urged the United States to increase its troop
levels in Afghanistan.134
128 See, for example, Ashley Tellis, “Pakistan’s New Tack on Fighting Terror,” YaleGlobal
Online, May 9, 2008.
129 See, for example, Xenia Dormandy, “The Path Through Pakistan to a Shorter War on
Terror” (op-ed), Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 2008.
130 Daniel Markey, “Why Pakistan Plays ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’” Foreign Policy, May 2008.
131 “US Weighs Tougher Forays Into Pakistan,” Associated Press, August 9, 2008; “U.S.
Debates Going After Militants in Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2008.
132 “Sen. Carl Levin and Sen. Bob Casey Hold a News Conference on Their Trip to Pakistan
and Afghanistan,” CQ Transcriptions, June 3, 2008.
133 “After Musharraf, U.S. Struggles to Find New Pakistan Ally Against Taliban,” New York
Times, August 23, 2008.
134 “Special Ops Chief See Opportunities to Assist Pakistani Military,” Inside the Pentagon,
(continued...)
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In January, America’s two top intelligence officials undertook a “secret” trip to
Islamabad. Director of National Intelligence McConnell and CIA Director Hayden
reportedly made an effort to convince then-President Musharraf to allow expanded
direct U.S. military presence in his country.135 At month’s end, the Chairman of the
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, was in Islamabad to meet with top
Pakistani officials to discuss new ways to bolster joint counterterrorism cooperation,
such as offers to Pakistan of expanded counterinsurgency training, and vital
equipment such as transport helicopters and communications and surveillance gear.136
In May, the Acting Commander of the U.S. Central Command, Lt. Gen. Dempsey,
met with top Pakistani military leaders in Islamabad in a visit some analysts saw as
part of increasing U.S. pressure on Pakistan to maintain a vigorous counterterrorism
posture that includes use of force. In June, Adm. Mullen was in Islamabad for the
third time this year to engage Pakistani military leaders on further defense
cooperation. Mullen said Pakistan remains a “steadfast ally” and “is fighting bravely
against terrorism.” He also urged Islamabad to take further action against Al Qaeda
elements in Pakistan.137 During the same week, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense
Eric Edelman met with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad to discuss ongoing U.S.-
Pakistan defense and security cooperation, particularly in the areas of intelligence
sharing and counterterrorism. In August, State Department Coordinator for
Counterterrorism Dell Dailey was in Islamabad for a fifth meeting of the U.S.-
Pakistan Joint Working Group on Counterterrorism and Law Enforcement.
The United States has built two new coordination and intelligence-sharing
centers on the Afghan side of the shared border near the Khyber Pass. Four more
such sites reportedly are being considered. Some $400 million in U.S. aid is slated
to go toward training and equipping more than 8,000 paramilitary Frontier Corps
(FC) troops by mid-2010. The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
Senator Carl Levin, who returned from a May 2008 trip to the region with serious
doubts about the intentions of the Pakistani government, may seek to condition future
FC aid funds on Pakistan’s demonstrated commitment to halting cross-border
infiltration. Several fellow Senators are said to support such conditionality. Some
reports suggest that distrust aggravated by the June airstrike on Pakistani territory has
jeopardized the FC program.138
134 (...continued)
February 7, 2008; “Pakistan’s Musharraf Says No to US Troops,” Associated Press, January
24, 2008.
135 “Top U.S. Intel Officials in Secret Trip to Pakistan,” Associated Press, January 29, 2008.
136 “U.S. to Step Up Training of Pakistanis,” Washington Post, January 24, 2008. The
British government also is assisting Pakistan’s military with counterinsurgency training
(“UK Helps Pakistan Fight Militants,” BBC News, March 3, 2008). See also CRS Report
RS21048, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF).
137 “US Steps Up Pressure on Pakistan to Continue ‘War on Terror,’” Jane’s Defence
Weekly, May 15, 2008; “Top US Officer Says Pakistan Army ‘Fighting Bravely’ Against
Terrorism,” Associated Press, June 5, 2008; “Mullen Urges Pakistan to Act on Al Qaeda,”
Washington Post, June 10, 2008
138 “Sen. Carl Levin and Sen. Bob Casey Hold a News Conference on Their Trip to Pakistan
(continued...)
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Congressional analysts have identified serious shortcomings in the
Administration’s FATA policy to date. In April, the U.S. Government
Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in response to congressional requests
for assessment of progress in meeting U.S. national security goals related to
counterterrorism efforts in Pakistan’s FATA. Combating Terrorism: The United
States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe
Haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas found that, “The United
States has not met its national security goals to destroy terrorist threats and close safe
haven in Pakistan’s FATA,” and, “No comprehensive plan for meeting U.S. national
security goals in the FATA has been developed.” The Chairman of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Howard Berman, called the report’s
conclusions “appalling.”139
Cross-Border Coordination and U.S. Military Action. American
commanders in Afghanistan reportedly seek greater leeway to attack indigenous
Pakistani militants on Pakistani soil. Permission for U.S.-led attacks on forces under
the command of militant leaders such as Sirajuddin Haqqani and Baitullah Mehsud
is not forthcoming to date, but Islamabad’s potential shift away from militarized
responses in the region may lead to a deepening of direct U.S. involvement there.140
Afghanistan’s state-run media has urged greater direct U.S. military action against
militants in western Pakistan and calls on the Islamabad government to reconsider
its policy of negotiating with destabilizing elements such as Mehsud. Reported U.S.
deployments in Pakistan include some 30 military trainers, a number that may grow
to 100. The trainers are said to be restricted to training compounds.141 By one
account, top Bush Administration officials in late 2007 drafted a secret plan to
facilitate U.S. Special Operations force missions in western Pakistan, but the plan has
yet to be approved.142
On June 10, a unit of Pakistani paramilitary soldiers was caught up in a firefight
between Taliban militants and U.S.-led coalition forces at the border Pakistan-
138 (...continued)
and Afghanistan,” CQ Transcriptions, June 3, 2008; “Pakistani Fury Over Airstrikes
Imperils Training,” New York Times, June 18, 2008; “U.S. Debates Going After Militants
in Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2008.
139 See [http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08622.pdf]; [http://internationalrelations.house.gov/
press_print.asp?id=504].
140 “U.S. Commanders Seeking to Widen Pakistan Attacks,” New York Times, April 20,
2008. U.S. military forces operating in the FATA would likely face significant resistance
from well-armed tribesmen with a proud martial history. The military strength of the FATA
tribes is unclear, but one estimate counts some 200,000 young, unemployed males who
could be considered potential fighters, especially against what was perceived to be a foreign
invasion. Also among the radical Islamist militants operating in the FATA are an estimated
2,000 battle-hardened Uzbeks (Brian Cloughley, “Insurrection in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas,”
Pakistan Security Research Unit Brief 29, January 24, 2008; “Open Borders and the Militant
Uzbeks of Pakistan,” Jane’s Intelligence Digest, January 25, 2008).
141 “U.S. Urged to Target Militants in Pakistan,” Reuters, May 26, 2008; “U.S. Plan Widens
Role in Training Pakistani Forces,” New York Times, March 2, 2008.
142 “Amid Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan,” New York Times, June 30, 2008.
CRS-35
Afghanistan border in the Mohmand tribal agency. U.S. air assets, apparently
targeting fleeing insurgents, delivered 12 gravity bombs on Pakistani territory and
killed 11 Frontier Corps soldiers. Islamabad strongly condemned the airstrike,
calling it “unprovoked” and “a gross violation of the international border” that “tends
to undermine the very basis of our cooperation.” A Pakistani military statement
called the airstrike “cowardly,” and some in Pakistan believe the country’s troops
were intentionally targeted.143 On June 13, Secretary of State Rice met with Foreign
Minister Qureshi following a Afghanistan aid conference in Paris, where both
officials supported the idea of a joint military investigation. Secretary Rice expressed
regret for the deaths of Pakistani soldiers.144 The findings of what in the end were
separate investigations reportedly were incompatible, with U.S. analysts claiming the
border post in question was erroneously omitted from an American database used to
prevent accidental attacks on friendly forces, a claim was rejected by the Pakistani
military.145 The NWFP Provincial Assembly passed multiple resolutions condemning
the airstrikes, and the incident served to inflame already sensitive bilateral relations
and could lead to a diminution in cooperative efforts to stem cross-border attacks.146
U.S.-led coalition forces at times come under artillery fire launched on the
Pakistani side of the border.147 Mid-July reports of a major buildup of U.S.-led
coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan triggered alarm in Pakistan, where fears of a
“foreign invasion” are exacerbated by cross-border military action. Members of
Congress visiting Pakistan earlier in the month reportedly were briefed on plans for
stepped-up U.S. military operations in the region. According to a NATO spokesman,
“There is no planning for, no mandate for, an incursion of NATO troops into
Pakistan.”148 Airstrikes and rumors of potential U.S. ground incursions are “seriously
undermining” the Pakistani people’s support for the Islamabad government,
according to the NWFP governor.149
Aerial Drone Attacks. Missile strikes in Pakistan launched by armed,
unmanned American Predator aircraft have been a controversial, but sometimes
effective tactic against Islamist militants in remote regions of western Pakistan.
143 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2008/June/PR_164_08.htm]; “Pakistan
Says U.S. Airstrike Killed 11 of Its Soldiers,” New York Times, June 10, 2008.
144 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2008/June/PR_173_08.htm].
145 “Pakistan Post Was Not in U.S. Records,” New York Times, July 16, 2008; “Pakistan
Disputes U.S. Air Strike Due to Database Gap,” Reuters, July 17, 2008.
146 “Pakistan’s Provincial Assembly Condemns US Air Strikes in Tribal Area,” BBC
Monitoring South Asia, June 20, 2008; “US Strikes Undercut Efforts on Pakistan-Afghan
Border,” Associated Press, June 11, 2008; “Air Strike Damages Trust in Pakistan-US
Alliance,” Reuters, June 12, 2008.
147 See, for example, ISAF Press Release #2008-277, June 21, 2008.
148 “US Troops Poised to Cross Afghan Border for Raid on Bases,” Times (London), July
16, 2008; “U.S. May Conduct Raids in Pakistan,” Houston Chronicle, July 9, 2008; “Afghan
NATO Force Hits Targets Inside Pakistan,” Reuters, July 16, 2008.
149 “Pakistan Fears Over US Air Raids,” BBC News, July 14, 2008. See also “Unilateral
Action by U.S. a Growing Fear in Pakistan,” New York Times, July 22, 2008.
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Pakistani press reports suggest that such drones “violate Pakistani airspace” on a
daily basis. By some accounts, U.S. officials reached a quiet January understanding
with then-President Musharraf to allow for increased employment of U.S. aerial
surveillance and Predator strikes on Pakistani territory. With the defeat of
Musharraf-allied parties in Parliament and Musharraf’s subsequent resignation, many
in Washington are concerned that this policy will be curtailed.150 Three Predators are
said to be deployed at a secret Pakistani airbase and can be launched without specific
permission from the Islamabad government (Pakistan officially denies the existence
of any such bases).151 Pentagon officials eager to increase the use of armed drones
in Pakistan reportedly meet resistance from State Department diplomats who fear that
Pakistani resentments built up in response to sovereignty violations and to the deaths
of women and children are harmful to U.S. interests, outweighing potential gains.
Neither Washington nor Islamabad offers official confirmation of Predator strikes on
Pakistani territory; there are conflicting reports on the question of the Pakistani
government’s alleged tacit permission for such operations.
A January 2008 strike reportedly was planned and executed without the
involvement of Pakistani authorities, who were notified only when the attack was
underway. After some two years without scoring a notable success against Al Qaeda
forces in Pakistan, a dozen alleged militants were killed in a reported missile strike
in a remote area of North Waziristan. Among the dead in the apparent Predator
attack was Abu Laith al-Libi, a Libyan national said to be an Al Qaeda commander.
In May, at least 14 people were reported killed in a dual missile strike on a house in
Damadola, Bajaur. Among the dead in this possible Predator drone attack were a
number of Islamist militants, as well as several civilians. Algerian national and
suspected Al Qaeda figure Abu Sulaymen Jazairi may have been the main target.
Prime Minister Gillani strongly condemned the attack, calling the killing of “innocent
people” “absolutely wrong” and “unfair.” Pakistani officials disavowed any
knowledge of the missile strike and their military issued a strong protest. In July, just
as the Pakistani Prime Minister was beginning an official visit to the United States,
missiles hit a building in South Waziristan close to the Afghan border. Among the
six suspected militants killed in this possible Predator attack was Abu Khabab al-
Masri, an Egyptian said to be one of Al Qaeda’s leading bomb-making and poisons
experts. Prime Minister Gillani said the strike, if launched by a U.S.-operated drone,
represented a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.152
150 “US Helicopters Violate Pak Airspace,” Daily Times (Lahore), May 31, 2008; “Pakistan
Shift Could Curtail Drone Strikes,” New York Times, February 22, 2008; “US Launches
Waziristan UAV Strike With Tacit Pakistani Approval,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, March 19,
2008.
151 “Unilateral Strike Called a Model for U.S. Operations in Pakistan,” Washington Post,
February 19, 2008.
152 “U.S. Won’t Say Who Killed Militant,” Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2008; “Key Al
Qaeda Figure Apparently Died in U.S. Strike in Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, May 23,
2008; “Anger After Apparent U.S. Missile Strike in Pakistan,” Reuters, May 15, 2008;
“Pakistan Army Takes Issue Over U.S. Missile Attack,” Reuters, May 17, 2008; “Al Qaeda
Man Reported Killed in Missile Strike,” Associated Press, July 28, 2008.
CRS-37
On August 12, four missiles possibly launched from Predator drones struck
another residential compound in South Waziristan, reportedly killing nine suspected
militants, including a number of foreigners. The targeted camp was linked to Afghan
warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Eight days later, missiles destroyed another
suspected militant hideout in South Waziristan, where up to 12 people including
several Arabs, were reported killed.
F-16 Reprogramming. In mid-July, the State Department notified Congress
of its intention to shift $227 million in FY2008 FMF funds toward supporting
Pakistan’s F-16 mid-life update program. The Islamabad government had in 2006
vowed to use its own national funds for the bulk of such upgradations. The proposal
was met with anger and dismay by some in Congress who said the move would do
little to enhance Pakistan’s counterterrorism capabilities. A State Department
spokesman asserted that Islamabad sought and was granted the consideration so as
to provide much-needed financial relief to the Pakistani government. Two senior
House Members, concerned that the proposal would “divert funds from more
effective counterterrorism tools,” requested a hold be placed on the planned
reprogramming and proposed that Congress provide $200 million in budgetary
support to Pakistan.153 The hold request was not honored and $116 million in
reprogrammed funds was disbursed in August. More such reprogramming of FMF
funds may come in FY2009.
Other Notable Developments of the Past Month
! On August 25, the PNL-N of Nawaz sharif formally withdrew from
the ruling PPP-led coalition government.
! Also on August 25, State Department Coordinator for
Counterterrorism Dell Dailey was in Islamabad for a fifth meeting
of the U.S.-Pakistan Joint Working Group on Counterterrorism and
Law Enforcement.
! Also on August 25, the Islamabad government formally banned the
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan group.
! On August 23, a suicide car bomb killed at least six policemen in
Swat.
! On August 22, the Commander of the U.S. Special Operations
Command, Adm. Eric Olsen, was in Islamabad for meetings with
top Pakistani military officials.
! On August 21, a pair of suicide bombers killed some 78 people
when the attacked Pakistan’s largest weapons manufacturing
complex in Wah on the outskirts of Islamabad.
! On August 19, a suicide bomb attack apparently targeting Shia
Muslims killed at least 25 people outside a hospital in Dera Ismail
Khan, NWFP.
153 “Plans Would Use Antiterror Aid on Pakistani Jets,” New York Times, July 24, 2008;
[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2008/july/107436.htm]; the July 27, 2008, Lowey-
Berman statement is at [ ht tp://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/
press_display.asp?id=540].
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! On August 18, President Musharraf announced his decision to resign
from office effective immediately.
! On August 14, Pakistani Taliban commander Maulana Faqir
Mohammed was reported killed in a helicopter gunship attack near
Damadola in the Bajaur tribal agency.
! On August 12, four missiles possibly launched from Predator drones
struck a residential compound in South Waziristan, reportedly
killing nine suspected militants, including a number of foreigners.
! Also on August 12, an apparent remote-controlled bomb exploded
near a bridge in Peshawar, killing 13 occupants of a Pakistan Air
Force bus.
! On August 11, the U.S.-Pakistan Economic dialogue was held in
Islamabad, where Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
Daniel Sullivan met with Pakistani officials to discuss deepening the
bilateral economic “partnership.”154
! On August 8, suspected Islamist militants stormed a police station
in the Swat Valley and killed eight policemen.
! On August 5, PPP leader Asif Zardari and PML-N leader Nawaz
Sharif agreed in principle to launch impeachment proceedings
against President Musharraf.
! On July 28, President Bush hosted Prime Minister Gillani at the
White House.
! Also on July 28, the Acting Commander of U.S. Central Command,
Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, made what apparently was the first visit
by a senior U.S. commander to Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Setting and Regional Relations
Historical Setting
The long and checkered Pakistan-U.S. relationship has its roots in the Cold War
and South Asia regional politics of the 1950s. U.S. concerns about Soviet
expansionism and Pakistan’s desire for security assistance against a perceived threat
from India prompted the two countries to negotiate a mutual defense assistance
agreement in 1954. By 1955, Pakistan had further aligned itself with the West by
joining two regional defense pacts, the South East Asia Treaty Organization and the
Central Treaty Organization (or “Baghdad Pact”). As a result of these alliances,
Islamabad received nearly $2 billion in U.S. assistance from 1953 to 1961, one-
quarter of this in military aid, making Pakistan one of America’s most important
security assistance partners of the period. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously
called Pakistan America’s “most allied ally in Asia.” Differing expectations of the
security relationship long bedeviled bilateral ties, however. During and immediately
after the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965 and 1971, the United States suspended military
assistance to both sides, resulting in a cooling of the Pakistan-U.S. relationship and
a perception among many in Pakistan that the United States was not a reliable ally.
154 See [http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-08081103.html].
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In the mid-1970s, new strains arose over Pakistan’s efforts to respond to India’s
1974 underground nuclear test by seeking its own nuclear weapons capability. U.S.
aid was suspended by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 in response to Pakistan’s
covert construction of a uranium enrichment facility. However, following the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan later that year, Pakistan again was viewed as a frontline ally
in the effort to block Soviet expansionism. In 1981, the Reagan Administration
pledged for Islamabad a five-year, $3.2 billion aid package. Pakistan became a key
transit country for arms supplies to the Afghan resistance, as well as home for
millions of Afghan refugees, many of whom have yet to return.
Despite this renewal of U.S. aid and close security ties, many in Congress
remained troubled by Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. In 1985, Section 620E(e)
(the Pressler amendment) was added to the Foreign Assistance Act, requiring the
President to certify to Congress that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive
device during the fiscal year for which aid is to be provided. With the Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s nuclear activities again came under
intensive U.S. scrutiny and, in 1990, President George H.W. Bush again suspended
aid to Pakistan. Under the provisions of the Pressler amendment, most bilateral
economic and all military aid ended, and deliveries of major military equipment
ceased. In 1992, Congress partially relaxed the scope of sanctions to allow for food
assistance and continuing support for nongovernmental organizations. Among the
notable results of the aid cutoff was the nondelivery of F-16 fighter aircraft purchased
by Pakistan in 1989. Nine years later, the United States agreed to compensate
Pakistan with a $325 million cash payment and $140 million in goods, including
surplus wheat, but the episode engendered lingering Pakistani resentments.
U.S. disengagement from Pakistan (and Afghanistan) after 1990 had serious and
lasting effects on Pakistani perceptions. Even retired Army Chief and U.S. ally
President Musharraf himself repeatedly has voiced a narrative in which Pakistan
joined the United States to “wage a jihad” in Afghanistan in the 1980s, only to see
“disaster” follow when the “military victory was bungled up” and the United States
then left the region “abandoned totally.” When combined with ensuing sanctions on
U.S. aid, this left many Pakistanis with the sense they had been “used and ditched.”155
During the 1990s, with U.S. attention shifted away from the region, Islamabad
further consolidated its nuclear weapons capability, fanned the flames of a growing
separatist insurgency in neighboring Indian-controlled Kashmir, and nurtured the
Taliban movement in Afghanistan, where the radical Islamist group took control of
Kabul in 1996. After this more than one decade of alienation, U.S. relations with
Pakistan were once again transformed in dramatic fashion, this time by the
September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the ensuing enlistment of
Pakistan as a pivotal ally in U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts. A small trickle of
foreign assistance to Pakistan again became a prodigious flow and, in a sign of
renewed U.S. recognition of the country’s importance, President George W. Bush
designated Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally of the United States in 2004. A
Congressional Pakistan Caucus was formed the same year to facilitate dialogue
155 See “President’s Address at Royal United Services Institute, London,” January 25, 2008,
at [http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/SpeechAddressList.aspx].
CRS-40
among Pakistani-Americans and their political representatives in Congress, and to
improve and strengthen bilateral relations between Pakistan and the United States.
Today, U.S. diplomatic engagement with Pakistan continues to be deep and
multifaceted. President Bush traveled to Pakistan in March 2006 for the first such
presidential visit in six years, and numerous high-level governmental meetings have
ensued. During the visit, President Bush and President Musharraf issued a Joint
Statement on the U.S.-Pakistan “strategic partnership” that calls for a “strategic
dialogue” and “significant expansion” of bilateral economic ties, including mutual
trade and investment, as well as initiatives in the areas of energy, peace and security,
social sector development, science and technology, democracy, and
nonproliferation.156
Political Setting157
Pakistan’s political history is a troubled one, marked by tripartite power
struggles among presidents, prime ministers, and army chiefs. Military regimes have
ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 60 years of existence, interspersed with
periods of generally weak civilian governance. From 1988 to 1999, Islamabad had
democratically elected governments, and the army appeared to have moved from its
traditional role of “kingmaker” to one of power broker. Benazir Bhutto (leader of the
Pakistan People’s Party) and Nawaz Sharif (leader of the Pakistan Muslim League)
each served twice as prime minister during this period. The Bhutto government was
dismissed on charges of corruption and nepotism in 1996 and Sharif won a landslide
victory in ensuing elections, which were judged generally free and fair by
international observers. Sharif moved quickly to bolster his powers by curtailing
those of the president and judiciary, and he emerged as one of Pakistan’s strongest-
ever elected leaders. Critics accused him of intimidating the opposition and the press.
Many observers hold Pakistan’s civilian political leaders at least as responsible as the
army for the anemic state of the country’s governance institutions.158 A structural
weakness of Pakistani politics is found in the status of the country’s political parties,
which can be “clientalist” in their offers of direct compensation to supporters as
opposed to taking “principled ideological stands that emerge out of consensus-
building activity among state and societal actors.”159
In October 1999, in proximate response to Prime Minister Sharif’s attempt to
remove him, Chief of Army Staff General Musharraf overthrew the government,
dismissed the National Assembly, and appointed himself “chief executive.” In the
wake of this military overthrow of the elected government, Islamabad faced
considerable international opprobrium and was subjected to automatic coup-related
U.S. sanctions under section 508 of the annual foreign assistance appropriations act
(Pakistan was already under nuclear-related U.S. sanctions). Musharraf later
156 See [http://usembassy.state.gov/pakistan/h06030404.html].
157 See also CRS Report RL32615, Pakistan’s Domestic Political Developments.
158 See, for example, “Ghosts That Haunt Pakistan,” New York Times, January 6, 2008.
159 Mariam Mufti, “Political Parties and Street Power,” Friday Times (Lahore), December
7, 2007.
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assumed the title of president following a controversial April 2002 referendum.
National elections were held in October of that year, as ordered by the Supreme
Court. A new civilian government was seated — Prime Minister M.Z. Jamali was
replaced with Musharraf ally Shaukat Aziz in August 2005 — but it remained weak.
In apparent contravention of democratic norms, Musharraf continued to hold the dual
offices of president and army chief. Many figures across the spectrum of Pakistani
society at first welcomed Musharraf, or at least were willing to give him the benefit
of the doubt, as a potential reformer who would curtail both corruption and the
influence of religious extremists. Yet his domestic popularity suffered following
multiple indications that, as with Pakistan’s previous president-generals, expanding
his own power and that of the military would be his central goal.
In September 2007, President Musharraf promoted Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani,
a highly-regarded, pro-Western figure, to the position of Vice Chief of Army Staff.
Kayani succeeded Musharraf in the powerful role of army chief upon Musharraf’s
subsequent resignation from the army. In assuming his new office, Kayani vowed
to press ahead with Pakistan army efforts to root out extremists from western
Pakistan. He appears to have become a new locus of U.S. hopes for Pakistani
democratization, with U.S. officials reportedly seeing an opportunity for him to
oversee a peaceful transition to civilian rule while maintaining a disinterest in
pursuing his own political power.160
Pakistan’s most recent parliamentary elections took place in February 2008.
President Bush had predicted the polls would be “an important test of Pakistan’s
commitment to democratic reform” and, during his 2006 visit to Islamabad, said
President Musharraf understood the elections “need to be open and honest.”161 In
October 2007, Secretary of State Rice repeated the admonition, saying the expected
polls would be “a real test” of the Islamabad government’s commitment to
democratization and that the U.S. government was “pressing that case very hard.”
The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joe Biden, later
warned Musharraf there would be “consequences” if slated elections were not fair
and open, saying U.S. aid levels could be decreased.162 Musharraf himself stood for
(and controversially won) reelection as president in October 2007. Under the
Pakistani system, the president is indirectly elected by an Electoral College
comprised of the membership of all national and provincial legislatures.
Regional Relations
Pakistan-India Rivalry. Three full-scale wars — in 1947-1948, 1965, and
1971 — and a constant state of military preparedness on both sides of their mutual
border have marked six decades of bitter rivalry between Pakistan and India. The
160 “In Musharraf’s Shadow, a New Hope for Pakistan Arises,” New York Times, January 7,
2008.
161 See [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060222-2.html] and
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060304-2.html].
162 Rice interview with the New York Post editorial board, October 1, 2007; “Biden Warns
Musharraf of Consequences for Poor Elections,” Associated Press, December 17, 2007.
CRS-42
acrimonious partition of British India into two successor states in 1947 and the
unresolved issue of Kashmiri sovereignty have been major sources of tension. Both
countries have built large defense establishments at significant cost to economic and
social development. The Kashmir problem is rooted in claims by both countries to
the former princely state, divided since 1948 by a military Line of Control (LOC) into
the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-held Azad [Free] Kashmir.
India blames Pakistan for supporting a violent separatist rebellion in the
Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley that has taken up to 66,000 lives since 1989.
Pakistan admits only to lending moral and political support to the rebels, and it
criticizes India for human rights abuses in “Indian-occupied Kashmir.” New Delhi
continues to blame Pakistan for maintaining an “infrastructure of terror” and for
actively supporting terrorist groups that are held responsible for attacks inside
India.163 For many analysts, efforts to ameliorate Pakistan’s “obsession” with India
could be key to normalizing South Asian politics and ending Islamabad’s historic and
ambivalent links to religious extremism.164 Some call on New Delhi to reach out to
the new Islamabad government with conciliatory gestures that could facilitate the
consolidation of democratization in Pakistan.165
India held Pakistan responsible for late 2001 terrorist attacks in Kashmir and on
the Indian Parliament complex in New Delhi. The Indian response, a massive
military mobilization, was mirrored by Pakistan and within months some one million
heavily-armed soldiers were facing-off at the international frontier. During an
extremely tense 2002 another full-scale war seemed a real and even likely possibility,
and may have been averted only through international diplomatic efforts, including
multiple visits to the region by top U.S. officials. A spring 2003 peace initiative
brought major improvement in the bilateral relationship, allowing for an autumn
cease-fire agreement initiated by Pakistan. The process led to a January 2004 summit
meeting in Islamabad and a joint agreement to re-engage a “Composite Dialogue” to
bring about “peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and
Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.”166
Since this new peace effort was launched, numerous mid-level meetings,
normalized diplomatic relations, and increased people-to-people contacts have
brought modest, but still meaningful progress toward stable relations. Regular
dialogue continued in 2005 and a third round of Composite Dialogue talks was held
in 2006. Notable confidence-building measures have been put in place, in particular
travel and commerce across the Kashmiri LOC for the first time in decades, and
bilateral trade has increased. Yet militarized territorial disputes over Kashmir, the
Siachen Glacier, and the Sir Creek remain unresolved, and Pakistani officials
163 While levels of violence in Kashmir declined significantly in 2007 as compared to the
previous year, some Indian analysts see signs that Islamist militants will seek to reverse this
trend, perhaps with the urging and even support of Pakistani government elements (see, for
example, “Negotiating War,” Outlook (Delhi), May 28, 2008).
164 See, for example, Bruce Riedel, “Pakistan and Terror: The Eye of the Storm,” Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 618, 31 July 2008.
165 See, for example, Praful Bidwai, “Changing Pakistan,” Frontline (Chennai), July 4, 2008.
166 [http://www.indianembassy.org/press_release/2004/jan/07.htm].
CRS-43
regularly express unhappiness that more substantive progress, especially on the “core
issue” of Kashmir, is not occurring.
Following July 11, 2006, terrorist bombings in Mumbai, India, New Delhi
postponed planned foreign secretary-level talks, bringing into question the continued
viability of the already slow-moving process. However, after meeting on the
sidelines of a Nonaligned Movement summit in Cuba, President Musharraf and
Indian Prime Minister Singh announced a resumption of formal peace negotiations
and also approved implementation of a joint anti-terrorism mechanism. The
Composite Dialogue then resumed after a four-month hiatus. No progress was made
on outstanding territorial disputes, and India is not known to have presented evidence
of Pakistani involvement in the “7/11” bombings, but the two officials did give shape
to the proposed joint anti-terrorism mechanism. A notable step came in late 2006,
when the two sides agreed to conduct a joint survey of the disputed Sir Creek region.
In January 2007, then-Foreign Minister Kasuri hosted his Indian counterpart,
Pranab Mukherjee, in Islamabad for the first such visit in more than a year. The two
men gave a favorable review to past progress and planned a fourth Composite
Dialogue round. In February, two bombs exploded on an Indian segment of the
Samjhauta [Friendship] Express train linking Delhi, India, with Lahore, Pakistan.
Resulting fires killed 68 people, most of them Pakistanis. Days later, Kasuri traveled
to New Delhi, where he and Mukherjee reaffirmed a bilateral commitment to the
peace process despite the apparent effort to subvert it.
The new joint anti-terrorism mechanism met for the first time in Islamabad in
March 2007, producing a joint statement in which both governments agreed to use
the forum for exchanging information about investigations of and/or efforts to
prevent terrorist acts on either side of the shared border. Hopes that the Samjhauta
train bombing would provide a fitting “test case” were dashed, however, when India
declined to share relevant investigative information. Moreover, Indian officials were
unhappy with Islamabad’s insistence that the “freedom struggle” underway in
Kashmir should not be treated as terrorism under this framework. Still, the
engagement even after a major terrorist attack was widely viewed as evidence that
the bilateral peace process had gained a sturdy momentum. A new round of dialogue
was then initiated when the two foreign ministers met again in Islamabad. No new
agreements were reached, but both officials lauded improved bilateral relations and
held “the most sustained and intensive dialogue” ever on the Kashmir problem.167
Political turmoil and uncertainty arose in Islamabad around that same time, however,
and led to slowed progress in the bilateral peace process.
A fourth round of bilateral talks on economic and commercial cooperation
ended in August 2007 with agreements to facilitate importation of cement from
Pakistan and tea from India, among others. Pakistani and Indian officials also held
technical-level talks on the modalities of cross-border movement, and separate talks
on the Tubal navigation project/Wullar barrage water dispute ended without progress.
In September, Pakistan issued a formal protest and expressed “deep concern” in
167 See Pakistan Foreign Ministry Press Release No. 81/2007 at [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/
Press_Releases/2007/March/PR_81_07.htm].
CRS-44
response to the Indian government’s announced intention to open the disputed
territory of the Siachen Glacier to tourism, saying the region was “illegally occupied”
by Indian troops in 1984 and its final status has yet to be determined due to an
“inflexible Indian attitude.”168 In a more positive sign in October, trucks carrying
tomatoes from India to Pakistan crossed the international border for the first time in
60 years. October also saw mid-level Pakistani and Indian officials meet to discuss
both conventional and nuclear confidence-building measures, but no new initiatives
were announced. The countries also held a second meeting of their Joint Anti-
Terrorism Mechanism in New Delhi, where the two sides shared new information on
terrorism and agreed to continue mutual investigatory cooperation.
With President Musharraf’s November 2007 imposition of a state of emergency
and growing instability and insecurity in Pakistan, the bilateral peace process ground
to a seemingly temporary halt. India has watched Pakistan’s turmoil with great
interest, but little public comment. A destabilized Pakistan represents a major
security concern for New Delhi, but at the same time history shows that as Pakistan’s
internal difficulties grow, Pakistani interference in Indian affairs tends to decrease.
Moreover, interstate relations may be sufficiently improved and “de-hyphenated” that
acute Indian concerns shown in the past are no longer elicited.169
In February 2008, the head of Pakistan’s new coalition-leading PPP, Asif
Zardari, caused a stir when he suggested that Pakistan-India relations should not be
hindered by differences over Kashmir, thus appearing to contradict a long-standing
Pakistani position that Kashmir represents the “core issue” in bilateral relations.
Zardari was quoted as saying, “people-to-people contacts should be improved, then
trade” and Kashmir “is a situation [on which] we can agree to disagree.” India’s
leadership, for its part, has offered to work with the new Pakistani government in the
interests of collective security and prosperity.170 In May, Pakistani Foreign Secretary
Salman Bashir hosted his Indian counterpart, Shivshankar Menon, in Islamabad,
where the two men expressed satisfaction with the progress of the bilateral peace
process. The next day, Foreign Minister Qureshi sat with his Indian counterpart,
Pranab Mukherjee, to review the fourth round of the Composite Dialogue. Both
ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the process and made plans to launch a
fifth round of negotiations in July 2008.171
The “IPI” Pipeline Project.172 Islamabad insists it is going forward with a
proposed joint pipeline project to deliver Iranian natural gas to Pakistan and possibly
on to India. In February 2007, officials from the three countries resolved a long-
168 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Spokesperson/2007/Sep/Spokes_17_09_07.htm].
169 “As Pakistan Boils, India Watches,” Chicago Tribune, December 30, 2007; “Pakistan
Turmoil Draws Muted Concern in India,” Washington Post, January 19, 2008; Indian
Ministry of External Affairs Press Statement, February 20, 2008.
170 “Benazir Bhutto’s Widower Wants Improved Relations With India,” Associated Press,
February 29, 2008; “India PM Wants to Meet Pakistan’s Leaders Halfway,” Reuters, March
5, 2008.
171 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2008/May/PR_134_08.html].
172 See also CRS Report RS20871, The Iran Sanctions Act.
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running price-mechanism dispute, opening the way for further progress. The fourth
meeting of the Pakistan-India Joint Working Group on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI)
pipeline subsequently was held in Islamabad, where the two countries agreed to split
equally expected gas supplies. In June 2007, Pakistani and Indian officials reportedly
reached an agreement in principle on transportation charges. New Delhi’s
willingness to participate appeared to wane in the later half of 2007, but an April
2008 visit to Islamabad by India’s oil minister led to a reiteration of New Delhi’s
commitment to the project, and the Iranian president’s subsequent South Asia visit
included stops in both Islamabad and New Delhi, where more positive signals were
issued. Top Pakistani officials have described the pipeline as being critical to
Pakistan’s economic growth and political stability. Doubts about financing the
approximately $7 billion project combined with concerns about security in Pakistan’s
Baluchistan province have some analysts skeptical about fruition. Some independent
observers and Members of Congress assert that completion of the pipeline would
represent a major confidence-building measure in the region and could bolster
regional energy security while facilitating friendlier Pakistan-India ties (see, for
example, H.Res. 353 in the 109th Congress).
As part of its efforts to isolate Iran economically, the Bush Administration
actively seeks to dissuade the Islamabad and New Delhi governments from
participation in this project, and a State Department official has suggested that
current U.S. law dictates American opposition: The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (P.L.
107-24) requires the President to impose sanctions on foreign companies that make
an “investment” of more than $20 million in one year in Iran’s energy sector. The
109th Congress extended this provision in the Iran Freedom Support Act (P.L. 109-
293). No firms have been sanctioned under this act to date.
Afghanistan. Pakistani leaders have long sought access to Central Asia and
“strategic depth” with regard to India though friendly relations with neighboring
Afghanistan. Such policy contributed to President-General Zia ul-Haq’s support for
Afghan mujahideen “freedom fighters” who were battling Soviet invaders during the
1980s and to Islamabad’s later support for the Afghan Taliban regime from 1996 to
2001.173 British colonialists had purposely divided the ethnic Pashtun tribes
inhabiting the mountainous northwestern reaches of their South Asian empire with
the 1893 “Durand Line.” This porous, 1,600-mile border is not accepted by Afghan
leaders, who have at times fanned Pashtun nationalism to the dismay of Pakistanis.174
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan play central roles as U.S. allies in global efforts to
combat Islamic militancy. Ongoing acrimony between Islamabad and Kabul is thus
deleterious to U.S. interests.
173 Documentary evidence indicates that Islamabad provided military and economic support,
perhaps including the combat troops, to the Afghan Taliban during the latter half of the
1990s (see “Pakistan: ‘The Taliban’s Godfather’?,” National Security Archive Briefing
Book 227, August 14, 2007).
174 Pakistan is home to some 28 million Pashto-speaking people, most of them living near
the border with Afghanistan, which is home to another 13.5 million ethnic Pashtuns (also
known as Pakhtuns or Pathans). A hardy people with a proud martial history (they are
disproportionately represented in the Pakistani military), Pashtuns played an important role
in the anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s.
CRS-46
Following Islamabad’s major September 2001 policy shift, President Musharraf
consistently vowed full Pakistani support for the government of Afghan President
Hamid Karzai and insisted that Pakistan is playing a “totally neutral role” in
Afghanistan. Islamabad claims to have arrested many hundreds of Taliban militants
and remanded most of them to Afghan custody, and it reportedly has provided $300
million in economic assistance to Kabul since 2001. Nevertheless, Musharraf and
Karzai have exchanged public accusations and recriminations about the ongoing
movement of Islamic militants in the border region, and U.S. officials have issued
increasingly strong claims about the problems posed by Taliban insurgents and other
militants who are widely believed to enjoy safehaven on the Pakistani side of the
Durand Line. Moreover, Pakistan is wary of signs that India is pursuing a policy of
“strategic encirclement,” taking note of New Delhi’s past support for Tajik and
Uzbek militias which comprised the Afghan Northern Alliance, and the post-2001
opening of numerous Indian consulates in Afghanistan.
After fleeing Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s, an estimated 3 million
refugees have returned home since 2002, but Pakistan remains the setting for more
than 80 encampments and about 2.4 million Afghan refugees. Islamabad plans to
repatriate these people by the end of 2009, citing extremism and economic stresses.
In August 2007, an unprecedented joint “jirga,” or tribal assembly, was held in
Kabul and included nearly 700 delegates from both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The
meeting was endorsed by the United States as a means of bringing stability to
Afghanistan. President Musharraf, after initially declining to participate (a perceived
snub to both Afghan President Karzai and to the U.S. government), attended the
jirga’s final session. He offered a rare admission that support for militants emanating
from Pakistan has caused problems for Afghanistan, saying “There is no doubt
Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil. The problem that you have in
your region is because support is provided from our side.” The jirga ended with a
declaration that included plans for dialogue with “the opposition,” i.e., the Taliban.175
In December 2007, Musharraf met with Karzai in Islamabad for a relatively cordial
meeting after which the two men issued a joint statement reaffirming their
commitment to intensifying counterterrorism cooperation.176
Still, bilateral relations have worsened in 2008. The Kabul government claimed
to have evidence of Pakistani complicity in both an April 2008 assassination attempt
on Karzai and in a July 2008 bombing of India’s Kabul Embassy. Afghan resentment
over these incidents led the Karzai government to suspend its participation in
bilateral and regional meetings that include Pakistan until such time as “bilateral trust
is restored.”177 In August, the Kabul government agreed to resume talks with
Pakistan and Pakistan substantively re-engaged the Tripartite Commission when
175 “Pakistan Leader Snubs Afghan Meeting,” Reuters, August 8, 2007; “Afghan Rebels Find
Haven in Pakistan, Musharraf Says,” New York Times, August 12, 2007. Declaration text
at [http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=2007\08\13\story_13-8-2007_pg7_48].
176 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2007/Dec/PR_306_07.htm].
177 “Pakistan ‘Behind Afghan Attacks,’” BBC News, July 14, 2008; “Kabul Pulls Out of
Talks With Pakistan,” Daily Times (Lahore), July 14, 2008.
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Army Chief Gen. Kayani traveled to Kabul to meet with his Afghan counterpart and
ISAF Commander U.S. Gen. David McKiernan.
China. Pakistan and China have enjoyed a generally close and mutually
beneficial relationship over several decades. Pakistan served as a link between
Beijing and Washington in 1971, as well as a bridge to the Muslim world for China
during the 1980s. China’s continuing role as a major arms supplier for Pakistan
began in the 1960s and included helping to build a number of arms factories in
Pakistan, as well as supplying complete weapons systems. After the 1990 imposition
of U.S. sanctions on Pakistan, the Islamabad-Beijing arms relationship was further
strengthened.178 Pakistan continues to view China as an “all-weather friend” and
perhaps its most important strategic ally.
Islamabad may seek future civil nuclear assistance from Beijing, including
potential provision of complete power reactors, especially in light of Washington’s
categorical refusal of Pakistan’s request for a civil nuclear cooperation similar to that
being planned between the United States and India. The Chinese government has
assisted Pakistan in constructing a major new port at Gwadar, near the border with
Iran. Islamabad and Beijing aspire to make this port, officially opened in March
2007, a major commercial outlet for Central Asian states. Some Western and Indian
analysts are concerned that the port may be used for military purposes and could
bolster China’s naval presence in the Indian Ocean region.
Analysts taking a realist, power political perspective view China as an external
balancer in the South Asian subsystem, with Beijing’s material support for Islamabad
allowing Pakistan to challenge the aspiring regional hegemony of a more powerful
India. Many observers, especially those in India, see Chinese support for Pakistan
as a key aspect of Beijing’s perceived policy of “encirclement” or constraint of India
as a means of preventing or delaying New Delhi’s ability to challenge Beijing’s
region-wide influence. Indian leaders have called the Islamabad-Beijing nuclear and
missile “proliferation nexus” a cause of serious concern in New Delhi, and U.S.
officials remain seized of this potentially destabilizing dynamic.
In 2005, the Chinese prime minister visited Islamabad, where Pakistan and
China signed 22 accords meant to boost bilateral cooperation. President Musharraf’s
five-day visit to Beijing in early 2006 saw bilateral discussions on counterterrorism,
trade, and technical assistance. Chinese President Hu’s late 2006 travel to Islamabad
was the first such visit by a Chinese president in ten years; another 18 new bilateral
pacts were inked, including a bilateral Free Trade Agreement and plans for joint
development of airborne early warning radars. In mid-2007, then-Prime Minister
Aziz visited Beijing, where Pakistan and China signed 27 new agreements and
memoranda of understanding to “re-energize” bilateral cooperation in numerous
areas, including defense, space technology, and trade. No public mention was made
regarding civil nuclear cooperation. President Musharraf’s April 2008 travel to
Beijing produced ten new memoranda of understanding and a reiteration of the two
countries “special relations.”
178 See CRS Report RL31555, China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and
Missiles: Policy Issues.
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Pakistan-U.S. Relations and Key Country Issues
U.S. policy interests in Pakistan encompass a wide range of issues, including
counterterrorism, nuclear weapons and missile proliferation, South Asian and Afghan
stability, democratization and human rights, trade and economic reform, and efforts
to counter narcotics trafficking. Relations have been affected by several key
developments, including proliferation- and democracy-related sanctions; a continuing
Pakistan-India nuclear standoff and conflict over Kashmir; and the September 2001
terrorist attacks against the United States. In the wake of those attacks, President
Musharraf — under intense U.S. diplomatic pressure — offered President Bush
Pakistan’s “unstinted cooperation in the fight against terrorism.” Pakistan became
a vital ally in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition. U.S. sanctions relating to
Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests and 1999 military coup quickly were waived and, in
October 2001, large tranches of U.S. aid began flowing into Pakistan.
Direct U.S. assistance programs include training and equipment for Pakistani
security forces, along with aid for health, education, food, democracy promotion,
human rights improvement, counternarcotics, border security and law enforcement,
as well as trade preference benefits. The United States also supports grant, loan, and
debt rescheduling programs for Pakistan by the various major international financial
institutions. In June 2004, President Bush designated Pakistan as a major non-NATO
ally of the United States under Section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
Revelations in 2004 that Pakistan has been a source of nuclear proliferation to North
Korea, Iran, and Libya complicated Pakistan-U.S. relations and attracted
congressional attention as a serious security issue.
Terrorism
After the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Pakistan
pledged and has provided major support for the U.S.-led global anti-terrorism
coalition. According to the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, Pakistan has
afforded the United States unprecedented levels of cooperation by allowing the U.S.
military to use bases within the country, helping to identify and detain extremists,
tightening the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and blocking terrorist
financing.179 Top U.S. officials regularly praise Pakistani anti-terrorism efforts.
In a landmark January 2002 speech, President Musharraf vowed to end
Pakistan’s use as a base for terrorism of any kind, and he banned numerous militant
groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, both blamed for terrorist
violence in Kashmir and India, and both designated as terrorist organizations under
U.S. law. In the wake of the speech, thousands of Muslim extremists were detained,
though most of these were later released. In the spring of 2002, U.S. military and law
enforcement personnel began engaging in direct, low-profile efforts to assist
Pakistani security forces in tracking and apprehending fugitive Al Qaeda and Taliban
179 See, for example, “Pakistan Key Partner in War on Terror, Defense Department Says,”
U.S. Department of State Washington File, March 6, 2006; “Pakistan ‘Indispensable’ in
Global Anti-Terrorism Fight,” U.S. Department of State Washington File, July 25, 2007.
CRS-49
fighters on Pakistani territory. Pakistani authorities claim to have captured some 700
Al Qaeda suspects and remanded most of these to U.S. custody.180
Important Al Qaeda-related arrests in Pakistan have included Abu Zubaydah
(March 2002), Ramzi bin al-Shibh (September 2002), Khalid Sheik Mohammed
(March 2003), and Abu Faraj al-Libbi (May 2005). Other allegedly senior Al Qaeda
figures were killed in gunbattles and missile attacks, including in several apparent
U.S.-directed attacks on Pakistani territory from armed aerial drones. Yet Al Qaeda
fugitives and their Taliban allies remain active in Pakistan, especially in the
mountainous tribal regions along the Afghan border. Meanwhile, numerous banned
indigenous groups continue to operate under new names. For example, Lashkar-e-
Taiba became Jamaat al-Dawat (banned under U.S. law in April 2006) and Jaish-e-
Mohammed was re-dubbed Khudam-ul Islam.
President Musharraf repeatedly has vowed to end the activities of religious
extremists in Pakistan and to permanently prevent banned groups from resurfacing
there. His policies likely spurred two lethal but failed attempts to assassinate him in
2003. Islamabad has declared a four-pronged strategy to counter terrorism and
religious extremism, containing military, political, administrative, and development
aspects. Nonetheless, some analysts have long called the Islamabad government’s
post-2001 efforts cosmetic, ineffective, and the result of international pressure rather
than a genuine recognition of the threat posed. Moreover, there are indications that
Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have over time lost control of some of the religious
militants it previously had groomed to do its foreign policy bidding. In recent years,
some Pakistani nationals and religious seminaries have been linked to Islamist
terrorism plots in Western countries, especially the United Kingdom.181 Reports also
indicate that terrorist training camps operate on Pakistani soil.182
In early 2007, Vice President Cheney, along with the Deputy Director of the
CIA, made an unannounced four-hour visit to Islamabad, where he reportedly warned
President Musharraf that a Democratic-controlled Congress could cut U.S. aid to
Pakistan unless that country takes more aggressive action to hunt down Al Qaeda and
Taliban operatives on its soil.183 The unusually strong admonition came after U.S.
intelligence officials concluded that a “terrorist infrastructure” had been rebuilt in
western Pakistan, that Islamabad’s counterterrorism efforts had been feckless to date,
180 “Musharraf: Bhutto Knew of Risks” (interview), CBS News, January 6, 2008.
181 Some more critical observers — many of them Indian — identify a Pakistani connection
to nearly all major jihadi terrorist attacks worldwide; a few even seek to link elements of
Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment to most jihadi terrorist attacks in the South
Asia region (see, for example, Wilson John, “Pakistan’s Drift Into Extremism and Its
Impact,” Observer Research Foundation (Delhi), January 8, 2008; K.P.S. Gill, “The ISI
Mark,” Outlook (Delhi), June 11, 2008).
182 “In Pakistan’s Mountains, Jihadis Train for War,” Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2008.
One report claims that more than 100 “terror camps” are operating in western Pakistan,
nearly a third of these in the Waziristan agencies (“‘More Than 100 Terror Camps’ in
Operation in Northwestern Pakistan,” Long War Journal, July 11, 2008).
183 “Cheney Warns Pakistan to Act on Terrorism,” New York Times, February 26, 2007.
CRS-50
and that the Bush Administration was recognizing that current U.S. and Pakistani
policies were not working.
When asked during a February 2007 Senate hearing about the possible source
of a hypothetical future Al Qaeda attack on the United States, the incoming Director
of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, stated his belief that such an attack “most
likely would be planned and come out of the [Al Qaeda] leadership in Pakistan.”184
According to then-Under Secretary of State Burns in July 2007 testimony before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
We know that the tribal areas of the mountainous border regions inside Pakistan
have never been within the effective control of any central government. We
know that the regions of North and South Waziristan have become safehavens
for violent extremist and terrorist activity.... [W]e would like to see a more
sustained and effective effort by the Pakistani government to defeat terrorist
forces on its soil.
Although the United States lauded Islamabad’s anti-terrorism financing efforts earlier
this decade, Burns also encouraged more energetic Pakistani action in this area,
expressing particular concern about terrorist groups exploiting charitable donations,
and about their tactic of re-forming under new names to evade international
prohibitions on donations to terrorist organizations. Burns urged Pakistan to pass an
Anti-Money Laundering bill that meets international standards, and to establish a
Financial Intelligence Unit within the State Bank of Pakistan.185
In June 2007, Pakistan’s National Security Council reportedly warned President
Musharraf that Islamist militancy was rapidly spreading beyond western tribal areas
and that a “policy of appeasement” had emboldened the Taliban. The Council was
said to have formulated new plans to address the issue, including deployment of
pilotless reconnaissance drones, bolstering local law enforcement capabilities, and
shifting more paramilitary troops to the region from other parts of Pakistan.186 From
the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 (released April 2008):
The United States remained concerned that the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (FATA) of Pakistan were being used as a safe haven for Al Qaeda
terrorists, Afghan insurgents, and other extremists.... Extremists led by Baitullah
Mehsud and other Al Qaeda-related extremists re-exerted their hold in areas of
South Waziristan.... Extremists have also gained footholds in the settled areas
bordering the FATA.
184 Statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 27, 2007. A July 2007
National Intelligence Estimate on the terrorist threat included the assessment that Al Qaeda
has “protected or regenerated” its capability to attack the United States, in part due to its
enjoying “safehaven” in Pakistan’s tribal areas (see [http://www.dni.gov/
press_releases/20070717_release.pdf]).
185 See [http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2007/89418.htm].
186 “Pakistani President Reviews Political, Economic, Anti-Terrorism Measures,” BBC
Monitoring South Asia, June 4, 2007.
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The report noted that the trend and sophistication of suicide bombings grew in
Pakistan during 2007, when there was more than twice as many such attacks (at least
45) as in the previous five years combined.187
Pakistani officials resent criticism and doubt about their commitment to the
counterterrorist fight. They aver that Western pressure on Pakistan to “do more”
undermines their effort and has in fact fueled instability and violence.188 Some argue
that their “Waziristan problem” is largely traceable to U.S. policies in the region.
From this perspective, the United States essentially abandoned the region after
infusing it with money and arms during the 1980s, thus “leaving the jihadi baby in
Pakistan’s lap.” Furthermore, a U.S. failure to decisively defeat Afghan Taliban
remnants in 2002, a diversion of key resources to the war in Iraq and the recruiting
boon that war provided to jihadi groups, and a perceived over-reliance on allegedly
ill-equipped NATO troops all combined to build and sustain in western Pakistan a
religious extremist movement that did not previously exist.189
Al Qaeda’s Resurgence in Pakistan. Pakistani authorities reportedly have
remanded to U.S. custody roughly 500 wanted Al Qaeda fugitives to date, including
some senior alleged operatives. However, despite clear successes in disrupting Al
Qaeda and affiliated networks in Pakistan since 2001, there are numerous signs that
Al Qaeda is resurgent on Pakistani territory, with anti-U.S. terrorists appearing to
have benefitted from what some analysts call a Pakistani policy of appeasement in
western tribal areas near the Afghan border. By seeking accommodation with pro-
Taliban leaders in these areas, the Musharraf government may inadvertently have
allowed foreign (largely Arab) militants to obtain safe haven from which they can
plot and train for terrorist attacks against U.S. and other Western targets. Moreover,
many observers warn that an American preoccupation with Iraq has contributed to
allowing Al Qaeda’s reemergence in Pakistan.190 More recently, however, the head
of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Michael Hayden, has portrayed Al Qaeda
as being on the defensive in South Asia, claiming that its leadership is losing the
battle for hearts and minds in the Muslim world. Some independent analysts agree
that Al Qaeda’s “grand project” of establishing a militant Islamic caliphate has been
a resounding failure, but warn that the group remains potent and serves as a model
for jihadi groups around the world.191
187 See [http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/103709.htm].
188 “Cheney Warns Pakistan to Act on Terrorism,” New York Times, February 25, 2007; “US
May Be ‘Undermining’ Pakistan,” BBC News, March 1, 2007; “UK’s War ‘Failure Sparked
Pakistan Violence,’” Telegraph (London), March 26, 2008; author interviews with Pakistani
government officials.
189 See, for example, Ali Abbas Rizvi, “American Connection to the Waziristan Problem”
(op-ed), News (Karachi), January 29, 2008. Author discussions with Pakistani nationals
commonly touch upon this historical narrative.
190 See, for example, Bruce Riedel, “Al Qaeda Strikes Back,” Foreign Affairs, May 2007;
“Influx of Al Qaeda, Money Into Pakistan Is Seen,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2007.
191 “U.S. Cites Big Gains Against Al Qaeda,” Washington Post, May 30, 2008; “Peter
Bergen, Al qaeda at 20 Dead or Alive?” (op-ed), Washington Post, August 17, 2008.
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Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and his lieutenant, Egyptian Islamic radical
leader Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed by many to be hiding somewhere in
Pakistan’s western border region. Pakistani officials reject such suspicions and
generally insist there is no evidence to support them, but numerous U.S. officials
have suggested otherwise. While some 2006 reports placed the Al Qaeda founder in
the remote Dir Valley of northwestern Pakistan, the country’s prime minister said
those hunting Bin Laden had no clues as to his whereabouts, a claim bolstered by
Western press reports indicating that the U.S. and other special forces tasked with
finding Bin Laden had not received a credible lead in years.192 President Bush has
said he would order U.S. forces to enter Pakistan if he received good intelligence on
Osama Bin Laden’s location.193 At an April 2008 House hearing on Al Qaeda, a
panel of nongovernmental experts agreed that the ongoing hunt for Al Qaeda’s top
leaders was foundering.194
Infiltration Into Afghanistan. Tensions between the Kabul and Islamabad
governments — which stretch back many decades — have at times reached alarming
levels in recent years, with top Afghan officials accusing Pakistan of manipulating
Islamic militancy in the region to destabilize Afghanistan. Likewise, U.S. military
commanders overseeing Operation Enduring Freedom have since 2003 complained
that renegade Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters remain able to attack coalition troops in
Afghanistan, then escape across the Pakistani frontier. They have expressed dismay
at the slow pace of progress in capturing wanted fugitives in Pakistan and urge
Islamabad to do more to secure its rugged western border area. U.S. government
officials have voiced similar worries, even expressing concern that elements of
Pakistan’s intelligence agency might be assisting members of the Taliban. In 2006,
the State Department’s top counterterrorism official told a Senate panel that elements
of Pakistan’s “local, tribal governments” are believed to be in collusion with the
Taliban and Al Qaeda, but that the United States had no “compelling evidence” that
Pakistan’s intelligence agency is assisting militants.195 Later that year, the
Commander of the U.S. European Command told the same Senate panel it was
“generally accepted” that the Taliban headquarters is somewhere in the vicinity of
Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province.196
192 See, for example,”The Ongoing Hunt for Osama bin Laden,” Newsweek, September 3,
2007.
193 “Bush Would Send Troops Inside Pakistan to Catch bin Laden,” CNN.com, September
20, 2006.
194 Transcript: House Select Committee on Intelligence Holds Hearing on Al Qaeda, April
9, 2008.
195 Statement of Henry Crumpton before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 13,
2006. After conducting interviews with numerous active and retired Pakistan army and
intelligence officials, an American reporter concluded in 2007 that “many officers of
Pakistan’s covert security agencies remain emotionally committed to jihad and hostile to the
U.S. role in the region” (“Role of Pakistan’s ‘Captain’ Shows Enduring Taliban Ties,”
Newsday, October 14, 2007).
196 Statement of Gen. James Jones before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
September 21, 2006. See also “In the Land of the Taliban,” New York Times, October 22,
(continued...)
CRS-53
The more than 100,000 Pakistani troops operating in the border region are
hampered by limited communications and other counterinsurgency capabilities,
meaning their response to provocations can be overly reliant on imprecise, mass
firepower. This has contributed to a significant number of civilian casualties.
Simultaneously, tribal leaders who cooperate with the federal government face dire
threats from the extremists — as many as 200 were the victims of targeted killings
in 2005 and 2006 — and the militants have sought to deter such cooperation by
regularly beheading accused “U.S. spies.” Combat between Pakistani troops and
militants in the two Waziristan agencies reportedly has killed roughly 1,000 Islamist
extremists (many of them foreigners), along with a similar number of Pakistani
soldiers and many hundreds of civilians. Some reporting indicates that elements of
Pakistan’s military and intelligence services may by providing active assistance to
Taliban militants.197
Pakistan Launches Internal Military Operations. During late 2003,
President Musharraf made an unprecedented show of force in moving 25,000
Pakistani troops into the traditionally autonomous FATA on the Afghan frontier.
The first half of 2004 saw an escalation of Pakistani army operations, many in
coordination with U.S. and Afghan forces just across the international frontier. U.S.
forces have no official authorization to cross the border into Pakistan.198 The battles,
which continued sporadically throughout 2005 and again became fierce in the spring
of 2006, exacerbated volatile anti-Musharraf and anti-American sentiments held by
many Pakistani Pashtuns.
Kabul’s October 2004 elections were held without major disturbances,
apparently in part due to Musharraf’s commitment to reducing infiltrations. Yet
concerns sharpened in 2005 and, by the middle of that year, Afghan leaders were
openly accusing Islamabad of actively supporting insurgents and providing their
leadership with safe haven. Islamabad adamantly denied the charges and sought to
reassure Kabul by dispatching additional troops to border areas, bringing the total to
196 (...continued)
2006; “Next-Gen Taliban,” New York Times, January 6, 2008. The Pakistani Taliban differ
from their Afghan brethren in several respects, perhaps most significantly in a lack of
organization and cohesion, and they possess no unified leadership council. Moreover, the
Pakistani Taliban appear to have more limited objectives, in contrast with the Afghan
Taliban who are struggling to regain national power in Kabul. At the same time, however,
both groups pledge fealty to a single leader — Mullah Omar — and both share fundamental
policy objectives with regard to U.S. and other Western government roles in the region (see
“The Emergence of the Pakistani Taliban,” Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, January 1, 2008).
197 See, for example, Seth Jones, “Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan,” RAND
Counterinsurgency Study 4, 2008.
198 One U.S. press report claimed that Pentagon documents from 2004 gave U.S. special
forces in Afghanistan authority to enter Pakistani territory — even without prior notice to
Islamabad — while in “hot pursuit” of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters or to take direct action
against “the Big 3”: Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahri, or Mullah Omar. A Pakistani
military spokesman called the report “nonsense” and denied there was any such arrangement
(“U.S. OK’d Troop Terror Hunts in Pakistan,” Associated Press, August 23, 2007).
CRS-54
80,000. Still, 2006 was the deadliest year to date for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and,
at year’s end, there were growing indications that Islamabad’s efforts to control the
tribal areas were meeting with little success.
President Musharraf’s “carrot and stick” approach of offering amnesty to those
militant tribals who “surrendered,” and using force against those who resisted, clearly
did not rid the region of indigenous Islamic militants or Al Qaeda operatives. Late
2005 and early 2006 missile attacks on suspected Al Qaeda targets, apparently
launched by U.S. aerial drones flying over Pakistani territory, hinted at more
aggressive U.S. tactics that could entail use of U.S. military assets in areas where the
Pakistanis are either unable or unwilling to strike. Yet the attacks, in particular a
January 2006 strike on Damadola in the Bajaur tribal agency that killed women and
children along with several alleged Al Qaeda suspects, spurred widespread
resentment and a perception that the country’s sovereignty was under threat.
Islamabad Shifts Strategy. As military operations failed to subdue the
militants while causing much “collateral damage” and alienating local residents,
Islamabad in 2004 began shifting strategy and sought to arrange truces with Waziri
commanders, first at Shakai in South Waziristan in April 2004, then again in
February 2005. Officials in Islamabad recognized that the social fabric of the FATA
had changed following its role as a staging and recruiting area for the war against the
Soviet Army in Afghanistan during the 1980s: the traditional power base was eroded
as the influence of religious elements had greatly increased. President Musharraf
lambasts the creeping “Talibanization” of the tribal areas and has sought to
implement a new scheme, shifting over time from an almost wholly militarized
approach to one emphasizing negotiation and economic development in the FATA,
as well as (re-)elevating the role of tribal maliks who would work in closer
conjunction with federal political agents. The aim, then, became restoration of a kind
of enhanced status quo ante with a limited state writ (maliks would enjoy more pay
and larger levies), and the reduction and ultimately full withdrawal of army troops.
The U.S. government offered cautious initial support for the new strategy.199
Cease-Fire and North Waziristan Truce. In June 2006, militants in North
Waziristan announced a unilateral cease-fire to allow for creation of a tribal council
seeking resolution with government forces. The Islamabad government began
releasing detained Waziri tribesmen and withdrawing troops from selected
checkposts in a show of goodwill. Hundreds of Pashtun tribesmen and clerics later
held a tribal council with government officials, and the cease-fire was extended.
Then, on September 5, 2006, the Islamabad government and pro-Taliban militants
in Miramshah, North Waziristan, signed a truce to ensure “permanent peace” in the
region. A representative of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) governor
agreed on behalf of the government to end army operations against local tribesmen;
release all detainees; lift all public sanctions, pay compensation for property damage,
return confiscated vehicles and other goods; and remove all new army checkposts.
199 Author interview with senior advisor to Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Islamabad, September
2006; “President General Pervez Musharraf’s Address to the Nation,” July 20, 2006, at
[http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/SpeechAddressList.aspx]; “White House Backing
New Plan to Defuse Insurrection in Pakistan,” McClatchy , August 16, 2006.
CRS-55
In turn, two representatives of the North Waziristan “local mujahideen students”
(trans. “Taliban”) agreed to end their attacks on government troops and officials; halt
the cross-border movement of insurgents to Afghanistan; and evict all foreigners who
did not agree to live in peace and honor the pact.200
News of the truce received lukewarm reception in Washington, where officials
took a “wait-and-see” approach to the development. Within weeks there was
growing concern among both U.S. government officials and independent analysts that
the truce represented a Pakistani “surrender” and had in effect created a sanctuary for
extremists, with the rate of Taliban activities in neighboring Afghanistan much
increased and the militants failing to uphold their commitments. Still, Islamabad
pressed ahead with a plan to extend a similar truce to the Bajaur tribal agency. Only
hours before such a deal was to be struck on October 30, 2006, 82 people were killed
in a dawn air attack on a madrassa in Chingai, Bajaur. The Pakistani military
claimed to have undertaken the attack after the school’s pro-Taliban leader continued
to train terrorists and shelter “unwanted foreigners,” yet many observers speculated
that the attack had in fact been carried out by U.S. Predator drones, perhaps after
intelligence reports placed fugitive Al Qaeda lieutenant al-Zawahri at the site. Nine
days later, after a local pro-Taliban militant leader vowed to retaliate against
Pakistani security forces, a suicide bomber killed 42 army recruits at a military
training camp at Dargai in the NWFP, not far from the sight of the Chingai attack.
The bombing was the most deadly attack on the Pakistani military in recent memory.
The FATA in 2007. Instability in the FATA only increased in 2007, with a
large trust deficit between government forces and tribal leaders, and a conclusion by
top U.S. officials that President Musharraf’s strategy of making truce deals with pro-
Taliban militants had failed. In January, the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, told a Senate panel that tribal leaders in
Waziristan had not abided by most terms of the September 2006 North Waziristan
agreement.201 In March, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman reported
to the same panel that there was “an almost immediate and steady increase of cross-
border infiltration and attacks” just after that agreement had been reached. Some
reports even describe anecdotes of the Pakistani military providing fire support for
Taliban units operating in Afghanistan.202 The now-defunct September 2006
Waziristan peace deal clearly failed to curb violence and religious militancy in the
region and had no apparent effect on the continued cross-border movement of pro-
Taliban forces into Afghanistan. Many analysts insist that any such future
agreements of this nature are doomed to similar failure in the absence of substantive
changes in Pakistan’s fundamental regional and domestic policies.203
200 A translated version of the pact is at [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/
etc/nwdeal.html].
201 Statement before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, January 11, 2007.
202 “U.S. Pays Pakistan to Fight Terror, But Patrols Ebb,” New York Times, May 20, 2007.
203 See, for example, Evangoras Leventis, “The Waziristan Accord,” Middle East Review of
International Affairs 11,4, December 2007.
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In March 2007, battles erupted between tribal forces and Uzbek militants in
South Waziristan. Heavy arms — including mortars, large-caliber machineguns, and
rockets — were used by both sides, and some 300 people, most of them Uzbeks,
were reported killed. President Musharraf later acknowledged that the Pakistani
army had provided fire support for what essentially were pro-Taliban tribal forces.
The fighting was touted by Islamabad as a sign that its new strategy was paying
dividends. Yet such conflict may well have been more about long-brewing local
resentments toward Uzbeks, and there was further concern among skeptics that the
battles served to strengthen the “Pakistani Taliban” and helped to consolidate their
control in the tribal areas.204
By the close of 2007, U.S. intelligence analysts had amassed considerable
evidence that Islamabad’s truces with religious militants in the FATA had given
Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other Islamist extremists space in which to rebuild their
networks. Faced with such evidence, President Musharraf refrained from any change
in strategy, saying he was “making adjustments” and would proceed cautiously. A
behind-the-scenes diplomatic effort to prod the Musharraf government on its
counterterrorism strategy was ramped up during the course of the year, but it may
have only been through more public and strongly-worded U.S. criticisms of Pakistan
in July that Islamabad was convinced to be more energetic in its militarized efforts.205
A spate of militant attacks on Pakistani military targets during that month,
apparently in retaliation for the government’s armed assault on Islamabad’s radical
Red Mosque, led Musharraf to further bolster the army’s presence in the region and
coincided with an announcement by North Waziristan tribal leaders that they were
withdrawing from the September 2006 truce agreement due to alleged government
violations. Top Bush Administration officials suggested the tack of seeking
accommodation with regional extremist elements should be abandoned.206
Despite acknowledged setbacks, the Bush Administration claims to strongly
support Islamabad’s efforts to adopt a more comprehensive approach to include
economic and social development, and governance reform in the region, flowing in
part from an acknowledgment that purely military solutions are unlikely to
succeed.207 Yet international donors and lending agencies appear hesitant to finance
projects in the region while the security situation remains tense, and some in the U.S.
government reportedly are wary of infusing development aid that could end up in the
hands of elements unfriendly to U.S. interests.208 Many analysts insist that only by
204 “Pakistan’s Unlikely Alliances Worry West,” Chicago Tribune, April 22, 2007; “The
Game Is Up for Uzbeks,” Dawn (Karachi), April 5, 2007.
205 “Tougher Stance on Pakistan Took Months,” Washington Post, August 5, 2007.
206 “U.S. Boosts Pressure on Musharraf Over Al Qaeda,” Reuters, July 18, 2007.
207 Statement of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard
Boucher before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Middle East and
South Asia, “Regional Overview of South Asia,” March 7, 2007. Pakistani strategy as
conveyed by the country’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Munir Akram, “A United
Front Against the Taliban,” New York Times, April 4, 2007.
208 “Aid to Pakistan in Tribal Areas Raises Concerns,” New York Times, July 16, 2007.
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bringing the tribal areas under the full writ of the Pakistani state and facilitating
major economic development there can the FATA problem be resolved.209
Infiltration into Kashmir and India. Islamabad has been under continuous
U.S. and international pressure to terminate the infiltration of separatist militants
across the Kashmiri Line of Control (LOC). Such pressure reportedly elicited a
January 2002 promise from President Musharraf to then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage that all such movements would cease. During a June 2002
visit to Islamabad, Armitage reportedly received another pledge from the Pakistani
president, this time an assurance that any existing terrorist camps in Pakistani
Kashmir would be closed. Musharraf has assured India that he will not permit any
territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism, and he insists that
his government has done everything possible to stop infiltration and shut down
militant base camps in Pakistani-controlled territory. Critics contend, however, that
Islamabad continues to actively support anti-India militants as a means both to
maintain strategically the domestic backing of Islamists who view the Kashmir issue
as fundamental to the Pakistani national idea, and to disrupt tactically the state
government in Indian Kashmir in seeking to erode New Delhi’s legitimacy there.
Positive indications growing from the latest Pakistan-India peace initiative
include a cease-fire at the LOC that has held since November 2003 and statements
from Indian officials indicating that rates of militant infiltration are down
significantly. However, Indian leaders periodically reiterate their complaints that
Islamabad has taken insufficient action to eradicate the remaining “infrastructure of
terrorism” on Pakistani-controlled territory. With indications that terrorism on Indian
soil beyond the Jammu and Kashmir state may have been linked to Pakistan-based
terrorist groups, Indian leaders repeat demands that Pakistan uphold its promises to
curtail the operations of Islamic militants and violent Kashmiri separatists originating
on Pakistani-controlled territory.
Following conflicting reports from Indian government officials about the
criminal investigation into July 2006 Bombay terrorist bombings, India’s prime
minister stated that India had “credible evidence” of Pakistani government complicity
in the plot. Islamabad rejected Indian accusations as “propaganda” designed “to
externalize an internal [Indian] malaise.”210 Several other terrorist attacks against
Indian targets outside of Kashmir have been linked to Pakistan-based groups,
including lethal assaults on civilians in Delhi and Bangalore in 2005, in Varanasi in
2006, and in Hyderabad in 2007. Indian security officials also routinely blame
209 Barnett Rubin and Abubakar Siddique, “Resolving the Pakistan-Afghanistan Stalemate,”
U.S. Institute of Peace Special Report 176, October 2006; “Pakistan’s Tribal Areas:
Appeasing the Militants,” International Crisis Group Asia Report 125, December 11, 2006;
Christine Fair, Nicholas Howenstein, and Alexander Thier, “Troubles on the Pakistan-
Afghanistan Border,” U.S. Institute for Peace Briefing, December 2006.
210 “We Have Credible Evidence: Manmohan,” Hindu (Madras), October 25, 2006; Pakistan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Media Briefing, October 2, 2006.
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Pakistan’s intelligence service for assisting the infiltration of Islamist militants into
India from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, as well as across the Kashmiri LOC.211
Domestic Terrorism. Pakistan is known to be a base for numerous
indigenous terrorist organizations, and the country continues to suffer from terrorism
at home. Until a March 2006 car bombing at the U.S. consulate in Karachi that left
one American diplomat dead, 21st century attacks on Western targets had been rare,
but 2002 saw several acts of lethal anti-Western terrorism, including the kidnaping
and murder of reporter Daniel Pearl, a grenade attack on a Protestant church in
Islamabad that killed a U.S. Embassy employee, and two car bomb attacks, including
one on the same U.S. consulate, which killed a total of 29 people. These attacks,
widely viewed as expressions of militants’ anger with the Musharraf regime for its
cooperation with the United States, were linked to Al Qaeda, as well as to indigenous
militant groups, by U.S. and Pakistani officials.
From 2003-2006, Pakistan’s most serious domestic terrorism was directed
against the country’s Shia minority and included suicide bomb attacks that killed
scores of people (nearly 60 Sunnis also were killed in a 2006 suicide bombing in
Karachi). Indications are that the indigenous Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) Sunni terrorist
group is responsible for the most deadly anti-Shia violence. Two attempts to kill
Musharraf in December 2003 and failed efforts to assassinate other top Pakistani
officials in mid-2004 were linked to the LJ and other Al Qaeda-allied groups, and
illuminated the grave and continuing danger presented by religious extremists.
Following a July 2006 suicide bombing in Karachi that killed a prominent Shiite
cleric, Musharraf renewed his pledge to crack down on religious extremists; hundreds
of Sunni clerics and activists were subsequently arrested for inciting violence against
Shiites through sermons and printed materials. However, serious sectarian and other
religiously-motivated violence flared anew in late 2006 and continued in 2007.
Bomb attacks, many of them by suicidal extremists motivated by sectarian hatreds,
killed scores of people; some reports link the upsurge in such attacks to growing
sectarian conflict in Iraq. Since the summer of 2007 and continuing to the time of
this writing, most suicide bomb attacks have been perpetrated against Pakistan’s
security apparatus in apparent retaliation for the army’s July raid on Islamabad’s
radical Red Mosque. By one accounting, Pakistan suffered 60 suicide bomb attacks
in 2007 costing 770 lives.
A leading pro-Taliban militant in the South Waziristan tribal agency, Baitullah
Mehsud, issued vows to avenge Pakistani military and paramilitary attacks in the
region in early 2007; he reportedly has been linked to at least four anti-government
suicide bombings in Pakistan and in 2007 emerged as a major challenge to
Islamabad’s writ in the tribal areas.212 Mehsud claims allegiance to Taliban chief
Mullah Omar, but his espousal of a pan-Islamic jihad places him ideologically closer
211 According to India’s national security advisor, most terrorist activity in India has been
“generated from outside”(“MK Narayanan” (interview), India Abroad, September 21, 2007).
212 “Doubts Over Peace Deal,” BBC News, January 17, 2007; “Baitullah Linked to Suicide
Attacks, Says FIA Official,” Dawn (Karachi), March 21, 2007; “Taliban Commander
Emerges as Pakistan’s ‘Biggest Problem,’” Washington Post, January 10, 2008.
CRS-59
to Al Qaeda.213 In forging a February 2005 peace accord with Mehsud (a deal that
collapsed after 31 months), the Islamabad government essentially ceded territorial
control over parts of South Waziristan to the militant leader and several thousand of
his loyal armed supporters. Some analysts believe that, by redirecting Pakistan’s
internal security resources, an increase in militant violence can ease pressure on Al
Qaeda and affiliated groups and so allow them to operate more freely there.
Other Security Issues
Pakistan-U.S. Security Cooperation. U.S.-Pakistan security cooperation
accelerated rapidly after 2001, and President Bush formally designated Pakistan as
a major non-NATO U.S. ally in June 2004. The close U.S.- Pakistan security ties of
the cold war era — which came to a near halt after the 1990 aid cutoff — have been
restored as a result of Pakistan’s role in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign. In
2002, the United States began allowing commercial sales that enabled Pakistan to
refurbish at least part of its fleet of American-made F-16 fighter aircraft. In 2005, the
United States announced that it would resume sales of new F-16 fighters to Pakistan
after a 16-year hiatus. A revived high-level U.S.-Pakistan Defense Consultative
Group (DCG) — moribund from 1997 to 2001 — sits for high-level discussions on
military cooperation, security assistance, and anti-terrorism; its most recent session
came in May 2006. In 2003, a U.S.-Pakistan-Afghanistan Tripartite Commission was
established to bring together military commanders for discussions on Afghan stability
and border security. Officers from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force
in Afghanistan have since joined the body.
In response to ever-increasing rates of Islamist-related violence in Pakistan, the
Bush Administration reportedly is in 2008 considering giving a freer hand to the CIA
and Pentagon to conduct covert military operations in that country’s tribal areas.
Critics argue that U.S. military intervention is likely to be ineffective and perhaps
even counterproductive by alienating the Pakistani army and increasing local support
for the militants. Islamabad vigorously rejects any suggestions that foreign military
operations will be allowed on Pakistani territory.214
Defense Supplies. Major government-to-government arms sales and grants
to Pakistan since 2001 have included items useful for counterterrorism operations,
along with a number of “big ticket” platforms more suited to conventional warfare.
In dollar value terms, the bulk of purchases are made with Pakistani national funds:
the Pentagon reports total Foreign Military Sales agreements with Pakistan worth
$4.55 billion for FY2002-FY2007 (in-process sales of F-16 combat aircraft and
related equipment account for about three-quarters of this). The United States also
has provided Pakistan with nearly $1.6 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF)
since 2001, with a “base program” of $300 million per year beginning in FY2005.
These funds are used to purchase U.S. military equipment. Pakistan also has been
213 “Pakistan’s Most Wanted: Baitullah Mehsud,” Jane’s Terrorism and Security Monitor,
February 16, 2008.
214 “U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan,” New York Times, January 6, 2008;
“Pakistan Says Won’t Let Foreign Troops on Its Soil,” Reuters, January 7, 2008.
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granted U.S. defense supplies as Excess Defense Articles (EDA). Major post-2001
defense supplies paid for with FMF include the following:
! eight P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and their refurbishment
(valued at $474 million);
! about 5,250 TOW anti-armor missiles ($186 million; 2,007
delivered);
! more than 5,600 military radio sets ($163 million);
! six AN/TPS-77 surveillance radars ($100 million, all delivered and
in operation);
! six C-130E transport aircraft and their refurbishment ($76 million,
all delivered and in operation); and
! 20 AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters granted under EDA, then
refurbished ($48 million, 12 delivered, 8 pending refurbishment).
Supplies paid for with a mix of Pakistani national funds and FMF include:
! up to 60 mid-life update kits for F-16A/B combat aircraft (valued at
$891 million, with at least $335 million of this in FMF; Pakistan’s
current plans are to purchase 46 of these); and
! 115 M-109 self-propelled howitzers ($87 million, with $53 million
in FMF).
Notable items paid for entirely with Pakistani national funds include:
! 18 new F-16C/D Block 50/52 combat aircraft, with an option for 18
more (valued at $1.43 billion);
! F-16 armaments including 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles; 1,450
2,000-pound bombs; 500 JDAM bomb tail kits; and 1,600 Enhanced
Paveway laser-guided bomb kits ($667 million);
! 100 Harpoon anti-ship missiles ($298 million, 88 delivered);
! 500 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles ($95 million, 300 delivered); and
! six Phalanx close-in naval guns ($80 million).215
While the Pentagon has notified Congress to the possible transfer to Pakistan
of three P-3B aircraft as EDA grants that would be modified to carry the E-2C
Hawkeye airborne early warning suite in a deal worth up to $855 million,
negotiations have not progressed beyond the notification stage. If implemented, FMF
could be used toward this purchase. Major EDA grants since 2001 include 14 F-
16A/B combat aircraft and 16 T-37 military trainer jets (20 more are pending).
Under Coalition Support Funds (part of the Pentagon budget), Pakistan received 26
Bell 412 helicopters, along with related parts and maintenance, valued at $235
million. The Defense Department has characterized F-16 fighters, P-3C patrol
aircraft, and anti-armor missiles as having significant anti-terrorism applications.
The State Department claims that, since 2005, FMF funds have been “solely for
215 Data reported by the U.S. Department of Defense. See also CRS Report RS22757, U.S.
Arms Sales to Pakistan.
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counterterrorism efforts, broadly defined.”216 Such claims elicit skepticism from
some analysts.
Other security-related U.S. assistance programs for Pakistan are said to be aimed
especially at bolstering Islamabad’s counterterrorism and border security efforts, and
have included U.S.-funded road-building projects in the NWFP and FATA; and the
provision of night-vision equipment, communications gear, protective vests, and
transport helicopters and aircraft. The United States also has undertaken to train and
equip new Pakistan Army Air Assault units that can move quickly to find and target
terrorist elements. Modest U.S.-funded military education and training programs
seek to enhance the professionalism of Pakistan’s military leaders, and develop
respect for rule of law, human rights, and democratic values. According to the U.S.
Director of National Intelligence, “Pakistan’s law and order problems arising from
tribal and religious militancy can be effectively addressed in the long term only if
police and paramilitary forces can more reliably provide justice and border security.
All of these administrative reforms require effective political leadership focused on
improving the capabilities of Pakistani institutions for effective governance and
development of economic opportunity.”217
Some reports indicate that U.S. military assistance to Pakistan has failed to
effectively bolster the paramilitary forces battling Islamist militants in western
Pakistan. Such forces are said to remain underfunded, poorly trained, and
“overwhelmingly outgunned.”218 The Bush Administration has launched an initiative
to strengthen the capacity of the Frontier Corps (FC), an 80,000-man paramilitary
force overseen by the Pakistani Interior Ministry. The FC has primary responsibility
for border security in the NWFP and Baluchistan provinces. The Pentagon in 2007
began using its funds to train and equip the FC, as well as to increase the
involvement of the U.S. Special Operations Command in assisting with Pakistani
counterterrorism efforts. Fewer than 100 Americans reportedly have been engaged
in training Pakistan’s elite Special Service Group commandos with a goal of
doubling that force’s size to 5,000.219
One former Pakistani police official, presently a Harvard-based analyst, opines
that, without fundamental structural reforms, the prospects for meaningfully
improving Frontier Corps capabilities are dim. Among his recommended changes
are the appointment of more local tribesmen into command positions and a
restoration of the authority of local political agents.220 A potential effort to bolster
the capabilities of tribal leaders near the Afghan border would target that region’s Al
216 See [http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rm/2007/97946.htm].
217 See [http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20080227_testimony.pdf].
218 “U.S. Aid to Pakistan Misses Al Qaeda Target,” Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2007.
219 “Pentagon Draws Up Plans to Train, Expand Pakistani Frontier Corps,” Agence France
-Presse, November 19, 2007; “U.S. to Step Up Training of Pakistanis,” Washington Post,
January 24, 2008; “Joint Chiefs Chairman and Musharraf Discuss Terror Threat,” New York
Times, February 10, 2008.
220 Hassan Abbas, “Transforming Pakistan’s Frontier Corps,” Terrorism Monitor, March 29,
2007.
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Qaeda elements and be similar to U.S. efforts in Iraq’s Anbar province. Employing
this tack in Pakistan presents new difficulties, however, including the fact that the
“neo-Taliban” is not alien to Pakistan’s western regions but is, in fact, comprised of
the tribals’ ethnolinguistic brethren.221
U.S. security assistance to Pakistan’s civilian sector is aimed at strengthening
the country’s law enforcement capabilities through basic police training, provision
of advanced identification systems, and establishment of a new Counterterrorism
Special Investigation Group. U.S. efforts may be hindered by Pakistani shortcomings
that include poorly trained and poorly equipped personnel who generally are
underpaid by ineffectively coordinated and overburdened government agencies.222
A 2008 think-tank report asserts that Pakistan’s police and civilian intelligence
agencies are better suited to combatting insurgency and terrorism than are the
country’s regular army. It finds that Pakistan’s police forces are “incapable of
combating crime, upholding the law, or protecting citizens and the state against
militant violence,” and places the bulk of responsibility on the politicization of the
police forces. The report recommends sweeping reforms to address corruption and
human rights abuses.223
Renewed F-16 Sales and Congressional Concerns.224 In June 2006,
the Pentagon notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Pakistan worth
up to $5.1 billion. The deal involves 18 newly-built advanced F-16 combat aircraft
(and an option for 18 more), along with related munitions and equipment, and
represents the largest-ever weapons sale to Pakistan. Associated munitions for new
F-16s and for mid-life upgrades on others include 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles
and thousands of gravity and “smart” bombs. Congressional concerns about the sale
and displeasure at the Bush Administration’s apparently improper notification
procedures spurred a July 2006 hearing of the House International Relations
Committee. During that session, many Members worried that F-16s were better
suited to fighting India than to combating terrorists; some warned that U.S. military
technology could be passed from Pakistan to China. The State Department’s lead
official on political-military relations sought to assure the committee that the sale
would serve U.S. interests by strengthening the defense capabilities of a key ally
without disturbing the regional balance of power and that all possible measures
would be taken to prevent the onward transfer of U.S. technologies. H.J.Res. 93,
disapproving the proposed sale, was introduced in the House, but died in committee.
Secretary of State Rice subsequently informed Congress that no F-16 combat
aircraft or related equipment would be delivered to Pakistan until Islamabad provided
221 “U.S. Hopes to Arm Pakistani Tribes Against Al Qaeda,” New York Times, November
19, 2007; Peter Brookes, “The Tribal Option” (op-ed), New York Post, November 20, 2007;
“Will Iraq Playbook Work in Pakistan?,” Christian Science Monitor, January 15, 2008.
222 See, for example, Seth Jones, et al., “Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform?,” RAND
Corporation Monograph, January 7, 2007.
223 “Reforming Pakistan’s Police,” International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 157, July 14,
2008.
224 See also CRS Report RL33515, Combat Aircraft Sales to South Asia.
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written security assurances that U.S. technology will not be accessible by third
parties. Islamabad has denied that any “extraordinary” security requirements were
requested; however, congressional concerns appear to have been satisfactorily
addressed. After further negotiations on specifics, including a payment process that
will require a major outlay from the Pakistani treasury, the United States and
Pakistan signed a September 2006 letter of acceptance for the multi-billion dollar F-
16 deal. Since then, several major U.S. defense corporations have won contracts
worth hundreds of millions of dollars to supply F-16 parts and munitions to Pakistan,
including a December 2007 award to Lockheed-Martin worth about $500 million.
Nuclear Weapons and Missile Proliferation.225 Many policy analysts
consider an apparent arms race between India and Pakistan to be among the most
likely potential causes of the future use of nuclear weapons by states. In May 1998,
India conducted unannounced nuclear tests, breaking a 24-year, self-imposed
moratorium on such testing. Despite U.S. and world efforts to dissuade it, Pakistan
quickly followed. The tests created a global storm of criticism and represented a
serious setback to two decades of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts in South Asia.
Pakistan currently is believed to have enough fissile material, mainly enriched
uranium, for 55-90 nuclear weapons; India, with a program focused on plutonium,
may be capable of building a similar number. Both countries have aircraft capable
of delivering nuclear bombs (U.S.-supplied F-16 combat aircraft in Pakistan’s air
force reportedly have been refitted to carry nuclear bombs).226 Pakistan’s military has
inducted short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (allegedly acquired from China
and North Korea), while India possesses short- and intermediate-range missiles.
Both countries have tested cruise missiles with radar-evading capabilities. All
missiles are assumed to be capable of delivering nuclear warheads over significant
distances. In 2000, Pakistan placed its nuclear forces under the control of a National
Command Authority led by the president. According to the most recent global threat
assessment by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, “Although both New Delhi
and Islamabad are fielding a more mature strategic nuclear capability, they do not
appear to be engaged in a Cold War-style arms race for numerical superiority.227
The A.Q. Khan Nuclear Proliferation Network.228 Sensitive Pakistani
nuclear materials and technologies have illicitly been transferred to third parties.
Press reports in late 2002 suggested that Pakistan assisted Pyongyang’s covert
nuclear weapons program by providing North Korea with uranium enrichment
materials and technologies beginning in the mid-1990s and as recently as July 2002.
Islamabad rejected such reports as “baseless,” and then-Secretary of State Powell was
assured that no such transfers were occurring. If such assistance is confirmed by
President Bush, all non-humanitarian U.S. aid to Pakistan may be suspended,
225 See also CRS Report RL32115, Missile Proliferation and the Strategic Balance in South
Asia, and CRS Report RL34248, Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons.
226 “Pakistan Jets Said to be Nuclear-Capable,” Associated Press, July 25, 1989.
227 Statement of J. Michael McConnell before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
February 5, 2008, at [http://intelligence.senate.gov/080205/mcconnell.pdf].
228 See also CRS Report RL32745, Pakistan’s Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the
Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
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although the President has the authority to waive any sanctions that he determines
would jeopardize U.S. national security. In early 2003, the Administration
determined that the relevant facts “do not warrant imposition of sanctions under
applicable U.S. laws.” Press reports during 2003 suggested that both Iran and Libya
benefitted from Pakistani nuclear assistance. Islamabad denied any nuclear
cooperation with Tehran or Tripoli, although it conceded in December 2003 that
certain senior scientists were under investigation for possible “independent”
proliferation activities.
The investigation led to the February 2004 “public humiliation” of metallurgist
Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program
and a national hero, when he confessed to involvement in an illicit nuclear smuggling
network. Khan and at least seven associates were said to have sold crucial nuclear
weapons technology and uranium-enrichment materials to North Korea, Iran, and
Libya. Such technology may have included complete blueprints for an advanced
nuclear weapon design.229 President Musharraf, citing Khan’s contributions to his
nation, issued a pardon that was later called conditional.230 The United States has
been assured that the Islamabad government had no knowledge of such activities and
indicated that the decision to pardon is an internal Pakistani matter. Some
independent observers insist that Khan’s activities were, in fact, well known to top
Pakistani authorities and that elements of the U.S. government turned a blind eye to
the proliferation while seeking Pakistan’s continued cooperation with other foreign
policy efforts.231 Khan himself has alleged that at least one illicit shipment of
uranium enrichment equipment to North Korea was supervised by the Pakistani army
with the consent of then-Army Chief Musharraf. A spokesman for Musharraf called
the allegations “lies.”232
While President Musharraf did promise President Bush that all information
learned about Khan’s proliferation network would be shared, Pakistan has refused to
allow any direct access to Khan by U.S. or international investigators. In May 2006,
days after releasing from detention nuclear scientist and suspected Khan collaborator
Mohammed Farooq, the Islamabad government declared the investigation “closed.”
Some in Congress remained skeptical, however, and a House panel subsequently held
a hearing at which three nongovernmental experts insisted that U.S. and international
investigators be given direct access to Khan, in particular to learn more about
assistance given to Iran’s nuclear program. Some analysts even claim that Iran’s
strides in uranium enrichment and the related international crisis are almost wholly
229 “Smugglers Had Design for Advanced Warhead,” Washington Post, June 15, 2008.
230 In May 2007, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States reportedly said that if Khan
had not been a national hero, “we would have strung him from the highest tree” (“A
‘Worrisome’ Time in Pakistan” [interview], USA Today, May 23, 2007).
231 See, for example, Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the
United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (Walker & Company, 2007).
232 “Pakistani Says Army Knew Atomic Parts Were Shipped,” Associated Press, July 5,
2008.
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attributable to Khan’s past assistance to Tehran’s nuclear program.233 No alleged
Pakistani participants have faced criminal charges in the case.
In May 2007, a London-based think tank released a report on the Khan network,
finding that “at least some of Khan’s associates appear to have escaped law
enforcement attention and could, after a period of lying low, resume their black-
market business.”234 Shortly after, a House panel held another hearing on the Khan
network; several Members and nongovernmental expert witnesses called for Pakistan
to allow direct access to Khan for U.S. investigators.
In July 2007, Islamabad reportedly eased house arrest restrictions on Khan,
although the Foreign Ministry denied any change in Khan’s status. A Foreign
Ministry spokesman in April 2008 said no foreign countries were seeking access to
Khan as, internationally, the issue is “a closed chapter.” The new government
appears to have dropped some of the earlier restrictions on Khan’s movement and
communications. In May 2008, Khan reneged on his 2004 confession, saying its
“false allegations” were made only under pressure from the Musharraf government.
In July 2008, the Pakistani government relaxed travel and communications
restrictions on Khan even as it persuaded a judge to bar Khan from speaking about
nuclear proliferation.235 The U.S. government remains “very concerned” about
Khan’s smuggling network. A high-ranking U.S. intelligence official has called the
security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons a “number one” worry for the United States
that is tracked as a continuing high priority.236
Major New Plutonium Facilities? Revelations in 2006 that Pakistan is
constructing a major heavy water nuclear reactor at the Khushab complex brought a
flurry of concern from analysts who foresee a regional competition in fissile material
production, perhaps including China. A subsequent report identified a third
plutonium production reactor at Khushab. Upon completion, which could be several
years away, two new reactors with combined 1,000-megawatt capacity might boost
Pakistan’s weapons-grade plutonium production capabilities to more than 200
kilograms per year, or enough for up to 50 nuclear weapons. Moreover, a 2007
report warned that Pakistan may soon be reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium at
its Chashma facility, further adding to its potential stockpile and aiding in the
development of thermonuclear weapons.237 While Islamabad does not comment
directly on the constructions, government officials there insist that Pakistan will
233 Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, “Pakistan’s Dr. Doom” (op-ed), Los Angeles
Times, December 2, 2007.
234 See [http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/nbm].
235 “Atom Expert Restrictions ‘Eased.’” BBC News, May 22, 2008; “Khan: Pakistan Claims
‘Are False,’” BBC News, May 29, 2008; “US Fears Over A.Q. Khan Nuclear Ring,”
Financial Times (London), June 15, 2008; “Court Silences Pakistan Nuclear Scientist,”
Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
236 ODNI official’s statement at [http://www.dni.gov/speeches/20080529_speech.pdf].
2 3 7 See David Albright and Paul Brannan, June 21, 2007, at
[http://www.isis-online.org/publications/southasia/ThirdKhushabReactor.pdf]; and January
18, 2007, at [http://www.isis-online.org/publications/southasia/chashma.pdf].
CRS-66
continue to update and consolidate its nuclear program for the purpose of minimum
credible deterrence. The Bush Administration responded to the 2006 revelations by
claiming it had been aware of Pakistani plans and that it discourages the use of the
facilities for military purposes.238
Pakistan’s Nuclear Transparency and Security.239 During 2006,
Islamabad appeared to launch a public relations effort aimed at overcoming the
stigma caused by Khan’s proliferation activities. The effort included dispatching to
Washington the chief of the country’s Strategic Plans Division, Khalid Kidwai, a
retired lieutenant general who attempted to make more transparent Pakistan’s nuclear
command and control structure, and who acknowledged that Pakistan’s past
proliferation record had been “poor and indefensible.”240
Among the most urgent concerns of U.S. officials during Pakistan’s political
crises has been the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and materials, which could
be degraded as instability persists. While the danger of Islamist extremist gaining
possession of a nuclear explosive device is considered remote, the risk of rogue
scientists or security officials seeking to sell nuclear materials and/or technology is
seen to be higher in a setting of deteriorating security conditions. Pentagon officials
backpedaled from expressions of concern immediately following the November 2007
emergency imposition in Pakistan, saying they believed the country’s nuclear arsenal
was “under the appropriate control.” The United States reportedly has spent nearly
$100 million since 2001 on a classified program to help secure Pakistan’s strategic
weapons. Islamabad says the amount is closer to $10 million and it emphatically
rejects suggestions that the country’s nuclear arsenal is anything but fully secure.241
Most analysts appear to have concluded that the security of Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons and facilities is much improved in recent years. Some note that periods of
interstate crisis between Pakistan and India can be particularly dangerous in the
context of nuclear security, when Pakistan’s warheads are more likely to be
mobilized and so are outside of their heavily-guarded storage sites.242 More
worrisome, many claim, is the possibility that Pakistan’s nuclear know-how or
technologies could remain prone to leakage.243 In his February 2008 threat assessment
238 “U.S. Says It Knew Of Pakistani Reactor Plan,” Washington Post, July 25, 2006.
239 See also CRS Report RL34248, Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons.
240 Speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, October
24, 2006.
241 “Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal a U.S. Worry,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2007; “US
Says Not Concerned About Pakistani Nukes,” Reuters, November 14, 2007; “U.S. Secretly
Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, November 18, 2007; Pakistan
Foreign Ministry statements at [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Spokesperson/2007/Nov/
Spokes_12_11_07.htm] and [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2007/Nov/
PR_281_07.htm].
242 Statement of Michael Krepon before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs, June 12, 2008.
243 See, for example, Andrew Koch and Kristin Rayhack, “Political Fallout: The Threat to
(continued...)
CRS-67
for the Senate Armed Services Committee, Director of National Intelligence
McConnell offered the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community:
We judge the ongoing political transition in Pakistan has not seriously threatened
the military’s control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist. The
Pakistan Army oversees nuclear programs, including security responsibilities,
and we judge that the Army’s management of nuclear policy issues — to include
physical security — has not been degraded by Pakistan’s political crisis.244
Even India’s national security advisor — a figure not expected to downplay the
dangers — has stated an opinion that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is “largely safe.”245
Still, in January 2008, IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei expressed fear
that continued “chaos” could lead to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the
hands of extremist elements. Unsurprisingly, the Islamabad government angrily
rejected such fears as unrealistic, but even some Pakistani commentators aver that
such warnings should not be dismissed.246
Pakistan reportedly has since 2005 been employing a multilayered system of
checks that most prominently includes a Personnel Reliability Program modeled after
that used by the United States. The program carefully vets and monitors potential
and serving employees at the country’s nuclear facilities with a particular emphasis
on religious sentiments. Other aspects include biometric scanners and what Pakistani
officials call their indigenously developed versions of Permissive Action Links
(PALs), sophisticated locks put on U.S. nuclear weapons to prevent their
unauthorized use. The Strategic Plans Division claims that 10,000 soldiers are
devoted to the task of guarding the country’s nuclear weapons. Reports of U.S. “war-
gaming” scenarios to intervene in Pakistan to secure the country’s nuclear weapons
in a crisis suggest that U.S. options are severely limited and that the cooperation of
the Pakistani government and military would be crucial to the success of such efforts.
Such reports may themselves antagonize Islamabad.247
U.S. Nonproliferation Policy. The United States has long sought to halt or
limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia. In May 1998, following the
Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests, President Clinton imposed full restrictions on all
non-humanitarian aid to both countries as mandated under Section 102 of the Arms
Export Control Act. However, Congress and the President acted almost immediately
243 (...continued)
Pakistan’s Nuclear Stability,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, January 1, 2008.
244 See [http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20080227_testimony.pdf].
245 Farhan Bokhari, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Assets — Myths Vs Reality” (op-ed), Tehran Times,
December 11, 2007; “Pakistan Nukes Safely Guarded: Narayanan,” Hindu (Chennai),
December 18, 2007.
246 “Pakistan Rejects IAEA Chief’s Concerns, United Press International, January 9, 2008;
“Why is the World Scared of Pakistan?” (editorial), Daily Times, January 10, 2008.
247 “Inside Pakistan’s Drive to Guard It’s A-Bombs,” Wall Street Journal, November 29,
2007; “Pakistan Says Its Nuclear Assets Are Safe From Militants,” Associated Press,
January 26, 2008; “Calculating the Risks in Pakistan,” Washington Post, December 2, 2007.
CRS-68
to lift certain aid restrictions and, in October 2001, all remaining nuclear-related
sanctions on Pakistan (and India) were removed. Officially, the United States has
continued to urge Pakistan and India to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
(NPT) as non-nuclear weapon states and it offers no official recognition of their
nuclear weapons capabilities, which exist outside of the international
nonproliferation regime.
During the latter years of the Clinton Administration, the United States set forth
nonproliferation “benchmarks” for Pakistan and India, including halting further
nuclear testing and signing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT); halting fissile material production and pursuing Fissile Material Control
Treaty negotiations; refraining from deploying nuclear weapons and testing ballistic
missiles; and restricting any and all exportation of nuclear materials or technologies.
The results of U.S. efforts were mixed, at best, and neither Pakistan nor India are
signatories to the CTBT or the NPT. The Bush Administration quickly set aside the
benchmark framework. However, concerns about onward proliferation, fears that
Pakistan could become destabilized by the U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts in
Afghanistan, and concern over the issue of political succession in Islamabad have
heightened U.S. attention to weapons proliferation in the region. Some Members of
Congress have identified “contradictions” in U.S. nonproliferation policy toward
South Asia, particularly as related to the Senate’s rejection of the CTBT and
indications that the United States seeks to build new nuclear weapons. Section 1601
of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of FY2003 (P.L. 107-228) outlined
congressionally mandated U.S. nonproliferation objectives for Pakistan and India.248
Pakistan-India Tensions and the Kashmir Issue. In the interests of
regional stability, the United States strongly encourages an ongoing Pakistan-India
peace initiative and remains concerned about the potential for long-standing
disagreements to cause open hostilities between these two nuclear-armed countries.
Relations between Pakistan and India remain deadlocked on the issue of Kashmiri
sovereignty, and a separatist rebellion has been underway in the region since 1989.
Tensions were extremely high in the wake of the Kargil conflict of 1999, when an
incursion by Pakistani soldiers led to a bloody six-week-long battle. Throughout
2000 and 2001, cross-border firing and shelling caused scores of both military and
civilian deaths. A July 2001 Pakistan-India summit meeting failed to produce even
a joint statement, reportedly due to pressure from hardliners on both sides. Major
248 These include continuation of a nuclear testing moratorium; commitments not to deploy
nuclear weapons; commitments not to deploy ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear
weapons and to restrain the ranges and types of missiles developed or deployed; agreement
by both governments to bring their export controls in accord with the guidelines and
requirements of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and other international guidelines;
establishment of a modern, effective systems to control the export of sensitive dual-use
items related to WMD; and the conduct of bilateral meetings between senior Pakistani and
Indian officials to discuss security issues and establish confidence-building measures with
respect to nuclear policies and programs. The act also makes it the policy if the United
States to encourage and work with the Pakistani and Indian governments to establish
“effective systems to protect and secure their nuclear devices and materiel from
unauthorized use, accidental employment, or theft” (without recognizing those countries as
nuclear weapon states as defined in the NPT).
CRS-69
stumbling blocks were India’s refusal to acknowledge the “centrality of Kashmir” to
future talks and Pakistan’s objection to references to “cross-border terrorism.”
The 2002 Crisis. Then-Secretary of State Powell visited South Asia in
October 2001 in an effort to ease escalating tensions over Kashmir, but a bombing
at the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly building later that month was followed by
a December assault on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi (both incidents were
blamed on Pakistan-based terrorist groups). India mobilized some 700,000 troops
along the Pakistan-India frontier and threatened war unless Islamabad ended all
“cross-border infiltration” of Islamic militants. This action triggered a corresponding
Pakistani military mobilization. Under significant international diplomatic pressure
(and likely also the threat of India’s use of force), President Musharraf in January
2002 gave a landmark address in which he vowed to end the presence of terrorist
entities on Pakistani soil, and he outlawed five militant groups, including those most
often named in attacks in India: Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.249
Despite the Pakistani pledge, infiltrations into Indian-held Kashmir continued,
and a May 2002 terrorist attack on an Indian army base at Kaluchak killed 34, most
of them women and children. This event again brought Pakistan and India to the
brink of full-scale war, and caused Islamabad to recall army troops from patrol
operations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Intensive international diplomatic
missions to South Asia reduced tensions during the summer of 2002 and appeared
to have prevented the outbreak of war. Numerous top U.S. officials were involved
in the effort and strenuously urged the two countries to renew bilateral dialogue.250
The Most Recent Peace Process. Pakistan and India began full military
draw-downs in October 2002 and, after a cooling-off period, a “hand of friendship”
offer to Pakistan by the Indian prime minister in April 2003 led to the restoration of
full diplomatic relations. Yet surging separatist violence that summer contributed to
an exchange of sharp rhetoric between Pakistani and Indian leaders at the United
Nations, casting doubt on the nascent peace effort. A new confidence-building
initiative got Pakistan and India back on a positive track, and a November 2003
cease-fire was initiated after a proposal by then-Pakistani Prime Minister Z.K.
Jamali. President Musharraf subsequently suggested that Pakistan might be willing
to “set aside” its long-standing demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir, a proposal
welcomed by the United States, but called a “disastrous shift” in policy by Pakistani
opposition parties.
Although militant infiltration did not end, New Delhi acknowledged that it was
significantly decreased and, combined with other confidence-building measures,
relations were sufficiently improved that the Indian prime minister attended a January
2004 summit meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in
Islamabad. There Pakistan and India issued a joint “Islamabad Declaration” calling
for a renewed “Composite Dialogue” to bring about “peaceful settlement of all
249 Text at [http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/FilesSpeeches/Addresses/10202004
75758AMword%20file.pdf]
250 See Polly Nayak and Michael Krepon, “US Crisis Management in South Asia’s Twin
Peaks Crisis” at [http://www.stimson.org/southasia/pdf/USCrisisManagement.pdf].
CRS-70
bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.”251
A major confidence-building development came in April 2005, when a new bus
service was launched linking Muzaffarabad in Pakistani Kashmir and Srinagar in
Indian Kashmir, and a summit meeting produced an agreement to address the
Kashmir issue “in a forward looking manner for a final settlement.” Still, many
Kashmiris reject any settlement process that excludes them.
Even as the normalization of India-Pakistan relations moves forward — and
likely in reaction to their apparent marginalization in the face of this development —
separatist militants have continued their attacks, and many observers in both India
and the United States believe support for Kashmiri militants remains Pakistani state
policy. Yet many indicators show positive long-term trends. Steadily reduced rates
of infiltration may be attributed to the endurance of the Pakistan-India dialogue.
Moreover, President Musharraf made notable efforts to exhibit flexibility, including
late 2006 statements that Pakistan is “against independence” for Kashmir, and his
offering of a four-point proposal that would lead to “self-governance ... falling
between autonomy and independence.”252 This was seen by many analysts as being
roughly in line with New Delhi’s Kashmir position. Indeed, the Indian prime
minister welcomed Musharraf’s proposals. Prospects for a government-to-
government accommodation may thus be improved. However, political and security
crises in Pakistan slowed the process in 2007. Following the seating of a new
civilian government in Islamabad in early 2008, dialogue resume in May.
Baluchistan Unrest. Pakistan’s vast southwestern Baluchistan province is
about the size of California and accounts for 44% of the country’s land area, but only
5% of its population. The U.S. military has made use of bases in the region to
support its operations in neighboring Afghanistan. The province is the proposed
setting for a pipeline that would deliver Iranian natural gas to both Pakistan and
India, a project which, if brought to fruition, could bring hundreds of millions of
dollars in annual transit fees to Islamabad’s national treasury, but conflict in
Baluchistan reduces the appeal to investors of building a pipeline across the province.
The presence in Baluchistan of Jundallah, a trans-border militant group that claims
to fight on behalf of Baloch rights, has caused friction between Islamabad and
Tehran. More broadly, such problems raise serious questions about Pakistan’s
internal stability and national cohesion.253
Over the decades of Pakistani independence, many of the ethnic Baloch and
some of the Pashtun tribes who inhabit this relatively poor and underdeveloped
province have engaged in armed conflict with federal government forces, variously
seeking more equitable returns on the region’s rich natural resources, greater
autonomy under the country’s federal system, or even outright independence and
formation of a Baloch state that might include ethnic brethren and some territories
of both Afghanistan and Iran. Non-Baloch (mostly Punjabis) have been seen to
251 [http://www.indianembassy.org/press_release/2004/jan/07.htm].
252 “Pakistani Says Concessions Could Produce Kashmir Pact,” New York Times, December
6, 2006.
253 See “Simmering Balochistan,” Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, March 1, 2008.
CRS-71
benefit disproportionately from provincial mineral and energy extraction projects,
and indigenous Baloch were given only a small role in the construction of a major
new port at Gwadar. Many Baloch thus complain of being a marginalized group in
their own homeland. Long-standing resentments sparked armed conflicts in 1948,
1958, and 1973. The latter insurrection, which lasted four years, involved tens of
thousands of armed guerillas and brought much destruction to the province; it was
put down only after a major effort by the Pakistan Army, which made use of combat
helicopters provided by Iran. Some 8,000 rebels and Pakistani soldiers were killed.
The Current Conflict. Mid-2004 saw an increase in hit-and-run attacks on
army outposts and in the sabotage of oil and gas pipelines. The alleged rape of a
Baloch doctor by Pakistani soldiers in 2005 sparked provincial anger and a major
spike in separatist violence over the course of the year. In December of that year,
rockets were fired at a Baluchistan army camp during a visit to the site by President
Musharraf. A Baloch separatist group claimed responsibility and the Pakistani
military began major offensive operations to destroy the militants’ camps. In the
midst of increasingly heavy fighting in January 2006, Musharraf openly accused India
of arming and financing militants fighting in Baluchistan. New Delhi categorically
rejected the allegations. U.N. and other international aid groups soon suspended their
operations in Baluchistan due to security concerns. Shortly after, Baloch militants
shot and killed three Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver, causing disruption
in Islamabad-Beijing relations.
Fighting waned in the middle of 2006, with hundreds of rebels surrendering in
return for amnesty. The main rebel tribal leader and onetime Baluchistan chief
minister, 79-year-old Nawab Akbar Bugti, had gone into hiding and was believed cut
off from his own forces. In August, Bugti was located in a cave hideout and was
killed by Pakistan army troops in a battle that left dozens of soldiers and rebels dead.
Recognizing Bugti’s popularity among wide segments of the Baloch populace and
of the potential for his killing to provide martyr status, government officials denied
the tribal leader had been targeted. Nevertheless, news of his death spurred major
unrest across the province and beyond, with hundreds of arrests in the midst of large-
scale street demonstrations. Bugti’s killing was criticized across the spectrum of
Pakistani politicians and analysts, with some commentators calling it a Pakistani
Army miscue of historic proportions.254 Days of rioting included numerous deaths
and injuries, but the more dire predictions of spreading unrest and perhaps even the
disintegration of Pakistan’s federal system did not come to pass. By October 2006,
Pakistan’s interior minister was claiming a “normalization” and decrease in violence
in Baluchistan, although a low-intensity insurgency continued and the overarching
problem remained unresolved.255
President Musharraf has called Baloch rebels “miscreants” and “terrorists;” the
Islamabad government officially banned the separatist Baluchistan Liberation Army
as a terrorist organization in 2006 and at times suggests that Baloch militants are
254 “Bugti’s Killing Is the Biggest Blunder Since Bhutto’s Execution” (editorial), Daily
Times (Lahore), August 28, 2006.
255 See also “Pakistan: The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistan,” International Crisis Group
Asia Briefing No. 69, October 22, 2007.
CRS-72
religious extremists. Yet most rebel attacks are taken against military and
infrastructure targets, and — despite an apparent government campaign to link the
two movements — Islam appears to play little or no role as a motive for Baloch
militancy.256 Pakistan’s new civilian dispensation has undertaken efforts to
peacefully resolve the Baluchistan dispute. In May 2008, the Islamabad government
freed a Baloch nationalist leader and former provincial chief minister, Akthar
Mengal, who had been imprisoned for two years. The move was seen as a peace
gesture toward the troubled province.257 Yet major July 2008 skirmishes between
Baloch militants and security forces left several dozen people dead near Dera Bugti.
Narcotics.258 In September 2007, President Bush again named Pakistan (along
with both Afghanistan and India) among the world’s 20 “major drug transit or major
illicit drug producing” countries.259 Pakistan is a major transit country for opiates
that are grown and processed in Afghanistan then distributed worldwide by Pakistan-
based traffickers. The State Department indicates that Pakistan’s cooperation on
drug control “remains strong,” and the Islamabad government has made impressive
strides in eradicating indigenous opium poppy cultivation. However, the
Department’s most recent International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (issued
March 2008) asserted that “the imperative of combating militants in the FATA
diverted resources and political attention away from Pakistan’s goal of returning to
a poppy-free status and Pakistan saw an increase of poppy cultivation in 2007.” It
also expressed concern that Pakistan’s long-anticipated Master Drug Control Plan,
expected in early 2007, is yet to be approved.260
Opium production spiked in post-Taliban Afghanistan and is at all-time high,
supplying more than 90% of the world’s heroin.261 Elements of Pakistan’s
intelligence agency are suspected of past involvement in drug trafficking; in 2003,
a former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan told a House panel that their role in the heroin
trade from 1997-2003 was “substantial.”262 The State Department finds no evidence
that the Islamabad government or any of its senior officials are complicit in narcotics
trafficking, but concedes that low government salaries and endemic societal
corruption contribute to lower-level complicity.263 The Pakistani criminal network
involved in production, processing, and trafficking is described as being “enormous,
highly motivated, profit-driven, ruthless, and efficient.” Taliban militants are
256 “Musharraf Sees Foreign Hand in Baluchistan Insurgency,” Dawn (Karachi), August 5,
2008; Frederic Grare, “Pakistan: The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism,” Carnegie Paper
No. 65, January 2006.
257 “Pakistani Court Frees Musharraf Opponent,” Agence France -Presse, May 9, 2008.
258 See also CRS Report RL32686, Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy.
259 See [http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/prsrl/ps/92155.htm].
260 See [http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol1/html/100779.htm].
261 United Nations, World Drug Report 2007. See also “Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?,”
New York Times, July 27, 2008.
262 Statement of Amb. Wendy Chamberlain before the House International Relations
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, March 20, 2003.
263 See [http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol1/html/100779.htm].
CRS-73
reported to benefit significantly by taxing Afghan farmers and extorting traffickers.264
Other reports indicate that profits from drug sales are financing the activities of
Islamic extremists in Pakistan and Kashmir.
U.S. counternarcotics programs aim to assist Pakistan in fortifying its borders
and coast against drug trafficking and terrorism, support expanded regional
cooperation, encourage Pakistani efforts to eliminate poppy cultivation, and inhibit
further cultivation. The United States also aims to increase the interdiction of
narcotics from Afghanistan. Islamabad’s own counternarcotics efforts are hampered
by lack of full government commitment, scarcity of funds, poor infrastructure, and
likely corruption. Since 2002, the State Department’s Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has supported Pakistan’s Border Security
Project by training border forces, establishing border outposts, providing vehicles and
surveillance and communications equipment, transferring helicopters and fixed-wing
aircraft to the Interior Ministry’s Air Wing, and road-building in western tribal areas.
Congress funded such programs with roughly $22 million in FY2008.
Islamization, Anti-American Sentiment, and Madrassas
With some 160 million citizens, Pakistan is the world’s second-most populous
Muslim country, and the nation’s very foundation grew from a perceived need to
create a homeland for South Asian Muslims in the wake of decolonization.
However, religious-based political parties traditionally have fared poorly in national
elections. An unexpected outcome of the country’s 2002 polls saw the Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA or United Action Front), a coalition of six Islamic parties, win
11% of the popular vote. It also gained control of the provincial assembly in the
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and led a coalition in the Baluchistan
assembly. These Pashtun-majority western provinces border Afghanistan, where
U.S.-led counterterrorism operations are ongoing. In 2003, the NWFP provincial
assembly passed a Shariat (Islamic law) bill. In both 2005 and 2006, the same
assembly passed a Hasba (accountability) bill that many fear could create a parallel
Islamic legal body. Pakistan’s Supreme Court, responding to petitions by President
Musharraf’s government, rejected most of this legislation as unconstitutional, but in
2007 it upheld most of a modified Hasba bill re-submitted by the NWFP assembly.
Such developments alarm Pakistan’s moderates and Musharraf himself has decried
any attempts to “Talibanize” regions of Pakistan.265 The Islamist coalition was
ousted from power in Peshawar and suffered major electoral losses nationwide when
February 2008 polls saw the secular Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party take
over the NWFP government.
Pakistan’s Islamists are notable for expressions of anti-American sentiment, at
times calling for “jihad” against the existential threat to Pakistani sovereignty they
believe alliance with Washington entails. Most analysts contend that two December
264 “Security: Pakistan,” Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessments, March 5, 2008; “Taliban
Reaping Opium Profits,” Associated Press, April 11, 2007.
265 In a late 2007 public opinion survey, 48% of Pakistani respondents completely agreed
that “religion and government should be separate,” up from only 33% in 2002 (see
[http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/258.pdf]).
CRS-74
2003 attempts to assassinate President Musharraf were carried out by Islamist
militants angered by Pakistan’s post-September 2001 policy shift. The “Pakistani
Taliban” that has emerged in western tribal areas has sought to impose bans on
television and CD players, and has instigated attacks on girls schools and
nongovernmental organization-operated clinics, obstructing efforts to improve
female health and education. Some observers identify a causal link between the poor
state of Pakistan’s public education system and the persistence of xenophobia and
religious extremism in that country.
Anti-American sentiment is not limited to Islamic groups, however. Many
across the spectrum of Pakistani society express anger at U.S. global foreign policy,
in particular when such policy is perceived to be unfriendly or hostile to the Muslim
world (as in, for example, Palestine and Iraq).266 In 2004 testimony before a Senate
panel, a senior U.S. expert opined: “Pakistan is probably the most anti-American
country in the world right now, ranging from the radical Islamists on one side to the
liberals and Westernized elites on the other side.”267 In a 2005 interview, President
Musharraf conceded that “the man on the street [in Pakistan] does not have a good
opinion of the United States.” He added, by way of partial explanation, that Pakistan
had been “left high and dry” after serving as a strategic U.S. ally during the 1980s.
When asked about anti-American sentiment in Pakistan during his maiden July 2008
visit to the United States as head of government, Prime Minister Gillani offered that
the impression in Pakistan is that “America wants war.”268
A Pew poll taken shortly before Pakistan’s catastrophic October 2005
earthquake found only 23% of Pakistanis expressing a favorable view of the United
States, the lowest percentage for any country surveyed. That percentage doubled to
46% in an ACNielson poll taken after large-scale U.S. disaster relief efforts in
earthquake-affected areas, with the great majority of Pakistanis indicating that their
perceptions had been positively influenced by witnessing such efforts. However, a
January 2006 missile attack on Pakistani homes near the Afghan border killed
numerous civilians and was blamed on U.S. forces, renewing animosity toward the
United States among segments of the Pakistani populace. Another noteworthy
episode in 2006 saw Pakistani cities hosting major public demonstrations against the
publication in European newspapers of cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims.
These protests, which were violent at times, included strong anti-U.S. and anti-
Musharraf components, suggesting that Islamist organizers used the issue to forward
their own political ends. Subsequently, a June 2006 Pew Center poll found only 27%
of Pakistanis holding a favorable opinion of the United States, and this dropped to
19% in a September 2007 survey by the U.S.-based group Terror Free Tomorrow,
suggesting that public diplomacy gains following the 2005 earthquake had receded.
266 Author interviews in Islamabad, September 2006.
267 Statement of Stephen Cohen before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 14,
2004. More than three years later, country expert Lisa Curtis warned a House panel about
“the increasingly shrill anti-Americanism that is gripping Pakistani civil society” (statement
before the House Armed Services Committee, October 10, 2007).
268 “10 Questions for Pervez Musharraf,” Time, October 3, 2005; “A Conversation With
Yousaf Raza Gillani,” Council on Foreign Relations transcript, July 29, 2008.
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In January 2008, the University of Maryland-based Program on International
Policy Attitudes released a survey of public opinion in Pakistan. The findings
indicated that significant resentment toward and distrust of the United States persist
among large segments of the Pakistani public:
! 64% of Pakistanis did not trust the United States to “do the right
thing in world affairs;”
! more than two-thirds believed the U.S. military presence in
Afghanistan is “a critical threat to Pakistan’s interests;”
! only 27% felt that Pakistan-U.S. security cooperation has benefitted
Pakistan; and
! 86% believed that weakening and dividing the Muslim world is a
U.S. goal (70% believe this is “definitely” the case).269
A public opinion survey conducted in June 2008 found nearly two-thirds of
Pakistanis agreeing that religious extremism represented a serious problem for their
country, yet less than one-third supported Pakistani army operations against religious
militants in western Pakistan, and a scant 15% thought Pakistan should cooperate
with the United States in its “war on terror.”270
Pakistan’s Religious Schools (Madrassas).271 Afghanistan’s Taliban
movement itself began among students attending Pakistani religious schools
(madrassas). Among the more than 15,000 madrassas training some 1.5 million
children in Pakistan are a small percentage that have been implicated in teaching
militant anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Hindu, and even anti-Shia values. Former
Secretary of State Powell once identified these as “programs that do nothing but
prepare youngsters to be fundamentalists and to be terrorists.”272 Contrary to
popularly held conceptions, however, research indicates that the great majority of
Pakistan’s violent Islamist extremists does not emerge from the country’s madrassas,
but rather from the dysfunctional public school system or even from private, English-
medium schools. One study found that less than one in five international terrorists
sampled had Islamic education backgrounds.273 However, a senior leader of the
secular Awami National Party that now leads a coalition government in the North
West Frontier Province said in mid-2008 that many Pakistani madrassas encourage
269 See [http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jan08/Pakistan_Jan08_rpt.pdf].
270 See [http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan/2008-07-16-Pakistan.asp].
271 See also CRS Report RS22009, Education Reform in Pakistan, and CRS Report
RS21654, Islamic Religious Schools, Madrasas: Background.
272 Statement before the House Appropriations Committee, March 10, 2004.
273 Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (University of Pennsylvania Press,
2004). See also Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist Networks (Columbia
University Press, 2004); Peter Bergen and Swati Pandney, “The Madrassa Myth,” New York
Times, June 14, 2005.
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militancy and are breeding grounds for terrorism. He appealed to international
donors to help Pakistan establish modern educational institutions.274
Many of Pakistan’s madrassas are financed and operated by Pakistani Islamist
political parties such as the JUI-F (closely linked to the Taliban), as well as by
multiple unknown foreign entities, many in Saudi Arabia.275 As many as two-thirds
of the seminaries are run by the Deobandi sect, known in part for traditionally anti-
Shia sentiments and at times linked to the Sipah-e-Sahaba terrorist group. In its 2007
report on international religious freedom, the U.S. State Department said, “Some
unregistered and Deobandi-controlled madrassas in the FATA and northern
Baluchistan continued to teach extremism” and that schools run by the Jamaat al-
Dawat, considered to be a front organization of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba
terrorist group, serve as recruitment centers for extremists. President Musharraf
himself has acknowledged that a small number of seminaries were “harboring
terrorists” and he has asked religious leaders to help isolate these by openly
condemning them.276
Global attention to Pakistan’s religious schools intensified during the summer
of 2005 after Pakistani officials acknowledged that suspects in London terrorist
bombings visited Pakistan during the previous year and may have spent time at a
madrassa near Lahore. While the Islamabad government repeatedly has pledged to
crack down on the more extremist madrassas in his country, there continues to be
little concrete evidence that it has done so.277 Some observers speculate that
President Musharraf’s alleged reluctance to enforce reform efforts was rooted in his
desire to remain on good terms with Pakistan’s Islamist political parties, which were
seen to be an important part of his political base.278 When asked in late 2007 about
progress in reforming the country’s madrassa system, Musharraf made a rare
admission of “lack of achievement,” but went on to call the registration campaign
and efforts to mainstream the curriculum successful.279
274 “Pak Madrassas Breeding Ground for Militants: Pak Leader,” Press Trust of India, June
1, 2008.
275 P.W. Singer, “Pakistan’s Madrassahs: Ensuring a System of Education Not Jihad,”
Brookings Institution Analysis Paper 14, November 2001; Ali Riaz, “Global Jihad,
Sectarianism, and the Madrassahs in Pakistan,” Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies,
Singapore, August 2005.
276 See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90233.htm]; “Some Madrassas Bad:
Musharraf,” Daily Times (Lahore), September 8, 2004.
277 See “Pakistan: Reforming the Education Sector,” International Crisis Group Report 84,
October 7, 2004; “Radical Teachings in Pakistan Schools,” Boston Globe, September 29,
2006. Author interviews with Pakistani government officials and scholars tend to confirm
that movement on madrassa reform is slow, at best.
278 “At an Islamic School, Hints of Extremist Ties,” Washington Post, June 13, 2004; Vali
Nasr, “Military Rule, Islamism, and Democracy in Pakistan,” Middle East Journal 58, 2,
Spring 2004.
279 “Full Transcript Musharraf Interview,” ABC News (online), November 30, 2007. As of
January 2008, more than 14,600 madrassas were reportedly registered with the government,
(continued...)
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A key aspect of madrassas’ enduring appeal to Pakistani parents is the abysmal
state of the country’s public schools. Pakistan’s primary education system ranks
among the world’s least effective. Congress, the Bush Administration, and the 9/11
Commission each have identified this issue as relevant to U.S. interests in South
Asia. In the lead-up to Pakistan’s February 2008 elections, 16 of the country’s major
parties committed to raising the federal education budget to 4% of GDP, up from the
current 2.4%. The U.S. Congress has appropriated many millions of dollars to assist
Pakistan in efforts to reform its education system, including changes that would make
madrassa curriculum closer in substance to that provided in non-religious schools.
About $256 million has been allocated for education-related aid programs since
2002. In 2006, the U.S.-Pakistan Education dialogue was launched in Washington
to bolster further engagement. In April 2008, USAID launched a new $90 million
project to bolster the effectiveness of Pakistan’s public education sector. Requested
funding for FY2009 includes a total of $166 million for basic and higher education
programs in Pakistan.280
Democratization and Human Rights
Democracy and Governance.281 The status and development of Pakistan’s
democratic institutions are key U.S. policy concerns, especially among those analysts
who view representative government in Islamabad as being a prerequisite for
reducing religious extremism and establishing a moderate Pakistani state. There had
been hopes that the October 2002 national elections would reverse Pakistan’s historic
trend toward unstable governance and military interference in democratic institutions.
Such hopes were eroded by ensuing developments, including President Musharraf’s
imposition of major constitutional changes and his retention of the position of army
chief. International and Pakistani human rights groups continued to issue reports
critical of Islamabad’s military-dominated government throughout the Musharraf-
dominated era. In 2008, and for the ninth straight year, the often-cited Freedom
House rated Pakistan as “not free” in the areas of political rights and civil liberties.
While praising Pakistan’s electoral exercises as moves in the right direction, the
United States expresses concern that seemingly nondemocratic developments may
make the realization of true democracy in Pakistan more elusive, and U.S. officials
continue to press Pakistani leaders on this issue.
Pakistan’s Military-Dominated Government, 2002-2008. General
Musharraf’s assumption of the presidency ostensibly was legitimized by a
controversial April 2002 referendum marked by evidence of fraud.282 In August
2002, Musharraf announced sweeping constitutional changes to bolster the
president’s powers, including provisions for presidential dissolution of the National
279 (...continued)
leaving up to 1,500 yet to register (“Madressah Reforms Put on Hold for Next Government,”
Dawn (Karachi), January 12, 2008).
280 See [http://www.usaid.gov/pk/education/index.htm]
281 See also CRS Report RL34240, Pakistan’s Political Crises and CRS Report RL34449,
Pakistan’s 2008 Elections.
282 “Pakistan’s Musharraf Wins Landslide, Fraud Alleged,” Reuters, May 1, 2002.
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Assembly. The United States expressed concerns that the changes could make it
more difficult to build democratic institutions in Pakistan. The 2002 elections
nominally fulfilled Musharraf’s promise to restore the National Assembly that was
dissolved in the wake of his extra-constitutional seizure of power. The pro-military
Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) won a plurality of seats, while a
coalition of Islamist parties made a surprisingly strong showing.
The civilian government was hamstrung for more than a year by fractious debate
over the legitimacy of constitutional changes and by Musharraf’s continued status as
army chief and president. A surprise December 2003 agreement between Musharraf
and the MMA Islamist opposition ended the deadlock by bringing the constitutional
changes before Parliament and by eliciting a promise from Musharraf to resign his
military commission before 2005. Non-Islamist opposition parties unified under the
Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) accused the MMA of betrayal and
insisted that the new arrangement merely institutionalized military rule in Pakistan.
Further apparent reversals for Pakistani democratization came in 2004, including the
sentencing of ARD leader and PML-N stalwart Javed Hashmi to 23 years in prison
for sedition, mutiny, and forgery (Hashmi was released in August 2007), and the
“forced” resignation of Prime Minister Jamali for what numerous analysts called his
insufficient deference to President Musharraf. Musharraf “shuffled” prime ministers
to seat his close ally, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz. Aziz was seen to be an able
financial manager and technocrat favored by the military, but he had no political base
in Pakistan. In the final month of 2004 Musharraf chose to continue his role as army
chief beyond the stated deadline. Moreover, nominally non-party 2005 municipal
elections saw major gains for candidates favored by the PML-Q and notable reversals
for Islamists, but were also marked by widespread accusations of rigging. The Bush
Administration made no public comment on reported irregularities.
One senior Pakistani scholar offered a critical summary of the country’s political
circumstances under President Musharraf’s rule:
[T]he “Musharraf model of governance,” is narrow and suffers from a crisis of
legitimacy. Its major features are: a concentration of power in the presidency,
with backup from its army/intelligence and bureaucratic affiliates; induction of
retired and serving military officers into important civilian institutions and thus
an undermining of the latter’s autonomy; co-option of a section of the political
elite, who are given a share of power and patronage in return for mobilizing
civilian support, on President Musharraf’s terms; a reluctant partnership with the
Islamic parties, especially the MMA, and soft-peddling towards Islamic groups;
and manipulation of the weak and divided political forces and exclusion of
dissident political leaders.283
Many analysts have opined that, despite being a self-professed “enlightened
moderate,” Musharraf in practice strengthened the hand of Pakistan’s Islamist
extremist forces and that, despite rhetoric about liberalizing Pakistani society, his
283 Hasan-Askari Rizvi, “Towards a Solution of the Present Crisis” (op-ed), Daily Times
(Lahore), June 17, 2007.
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choice of political allies suggested he was not serious.284 In the meantime, the
Pakistan army further entrenched itself in the country’s corporate sector, generating
billions of dollars in annual profits from businesses ranging from construction to
breakfast cereal. One estimate has this “milbus” (military business) accounting for
fully 6% of the country’s gross domestic product.285
Some observers argue that much of the criticism leveled at President Musharraf
was unfair and that he had been a relatively benign “military dictator.” Such analyses
will, for example, point out that Musharraf’s policies vis-à-vis India allowed for a
reduction of bilateral tensions and an ongoing peace dialogue, that he appeared to
have an extent clamped down on Kashmiri militancy, and that he did not come under
fire for corruption, as did Bhutto and other civilian leaders.286
During their years of marginalization, the leadership of the country’s leading
moderate, secular, and arguably most popular party — the Pakistan People’s Party
— sought greater U.S. support for Pakistani democratization and warned that the
space in which they were being allowed to operate was so narrow as to bring into
question their continued viability as political forces.287 They also typically identify
a direct causal link between nondemocratic governance and the persistence of
religious militancy in Pakistan. In a December 2007 opinion piece composed shortly
before her assassination, Benazir Bhutto argued that the all the countries of the world
had a direct interest in Pakistani democratization, reiterating her long-held view that
dictatorship had fueled extremism in her country and that credible elections there
were a necessary condition for the reduction of religion militancy.288
U.S. Policy. While the United States maintains a keen interest in Pakistani
democratization, the issue is widely seen as having become a secondary consideration
as counterterrorism concerns grew after 2001. As stated by Assistant Secretary of
State Boucher in a December 2007 statement before a Senate panel:
The United States wants to see Pakistan succeed in its transition to an elected
civilian-led democracy, to become a moderate, democratic, Muslim nation
committed to human rights and the rule of law. All of our assistance programs
are directed toward helping Pakistan achieve these goals. This is a long-term
undertaking that will require years to accomplish.289
284 See, for example, Peter Beinart, “How to Deal with Dictators” (op-ed), Time, July 26,
2007.
285 Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy (Pluto Press, 2007).
286 See, for example, Jonathan Power, “In Defense of Pakistan’s Military Dictator” (op-ed),
Toronto Star, January 6, 2008.
287 Author interview with Benazir Bhutto, Washington, DC, February 2006, and with
numerous other PPP officials.
288 Benazir Bhutto, “Why the World Needs Democracy in Pakistan,” Christian Science
Monitor, December 10, 2007.
289 See [http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rm/2007/96566.htm].
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Bush Administration officials repeatedly have emphasized that democratization is
key to the creation of a more moderate and prosperous Pakistan. However, many
critics of Administration policy assert that the Islamabad government was for more
than five years given a “free pass” on the issue of representative government, in part
as a means of enlisting that country’s continued assistance in U.S.-led
counterterrorism efforts.290
In late 2007 Senate testimony, one former U.S. diplomat offered that, “Overall
U.S. policy toward Pakistan until very recently gave no serious attention to
encouraging democracy in Pakistan.” Numerous other former U.S. officials have
opined that the Bush Administration’s relatively meager attention to Pakistani
democratization has been rooted in an aversion to any moves that could alienate
Musharraf and so reduce his cooperation on counterterrorism.291 Secretary of State
Rice argued that strong U.S. support for Pakistan’s democratization process has been
a “very well kept secret,” and she rejected as untrue claims that the U.S. supported
a military government in Islamabad without attention to democracy there.292 U.S.
congressional committees long expressed concern with “the slow pace of the
democratic development of Pakistan” (S.Rept. 109-96) and “the lack of progress on
improving democratic governance and rule of law” there (H.Rept. 109-486).
Many commentators criticized the Bush Administration’s perceived over-
emphasis on relations with President Musharraf and the Pakistani military at the
expense of positive ties with the broader Pakistan society:
The United States made a critical mistake in putting faith in one man — General
Pervez Musharraf — and one institution — the Pakistani military — as
instruments of the U.S. policy to eliminate terrorism and bring stability to the
Southwest and South Asia. A robust U.S. policy of engagement with Pakistan
that helps in building civilian institutions, including law enforcement capability,
and eventually results in reverting Pakistan’s military to its security functions
would be a more effective way of strengthening Pakistan and protecting United
States policy interests there.293
The U.S. State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2006,
issued by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in March 2007, did
not use the word “democracy” or any of its derivatives in discussing Pakistan, but did
note that “restrictions on citizens’ right to change their government” represented a
290 For example, two former senior Clinton Administration officials criticized President
Bush for choosing to “back the dictator” rather than offer clear support for democracy and
rule of law in Pakistan. They contended that such a policy has damaged U.S. interests in
South Asia and in the Muslim world (Sandy Berger and Bruce Riedel, “America’s Stark
Choice” (op-ed), International Herald Tribune, October 9, 2007).
291 Statement of Amb. Teresita Schaffer before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
December 6, 2007; “Democracy Gets Small Portion of U.S. Aid,” Washington Post, January
6, 2008.
292 See [http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/05/104634.htm].
293 Statement of Husain Haqqani before the House Armed Services Committee, October 10,
2007.
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“major problem.”294 In a June 2007 letter to Secretary of State Rice, several
Members of Congress decried the “spiral of civil unrest and harshly suppressed
protest in Pakistan” and asserted that U.S. and Pakistani national interests “are both
served by a speedy restoration of full democracy to Pakistan and the end to state-
sponsored intimidation — often violent — of Pakistani citizens protesting
government actions in a legal and peaceful manner.” Leading opposition political
figures in Islamabad have warned that unconditional U.S. support for Musharraf’s
military-dominated government contributed to an anti-American backlash among
Pakistan’s moderate forces.295 Yet others opine that overt U.S. conditionality is
unlikely to be effective and may only foster anti-U.S. resentments in Pakistan.296
Human Rights Problems. Pakistan is the setting for numerous and serious
perceived human rights abuses, some of them perpetrated and/or sanctioned by the
state. According to the Department of State, the Islamabad government is known to
limit freedoms of association, religion, and movement, and to imprison political
leaders. The Department’s most recent Country Report on Human Rights Practices
(issued March 2008) determined that the human rights situation in Pakistan
“worsened” during 2007, due primarily to President Musharraf’s six-week-long
imposition of emergency powers and the attendant suspension of the constitution and
dismissal of Supreme and High Provincial Courts. Along with concerns about these
anti-democratic practices, the report lists extrajudicial killings, torture, and
disappearances; “widespread” government and police corruption; lack of judicial
independence; political violence; terrorism; and “extremely poor” prison conditions
among the major problems.297 The most recent State Department report on
trafficking in persons (issued June 2008) again said, “Pakistan does not fully comply
with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making
significant efforts to do so.” It again placed Pakistan at “Tier 2” due to Islamabad’s
“limited efforts to combat trafficking in persons over the last year, particularly in the
area of law enforcement.”298
In June 2007, the House Appropriations Committee (H.Rept. 110-197)
expressed concern about the Pakistani government’s apparent lack of respect for
human rights. Senate reports have aired similar concerns. The Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan and international human rights groups regularly issue
reports critical of Pakistan’s lack of political freedoms, lawlessness in many areas
(especially the western tribal agencies), and of the country’s perceived abuses of the
rights of women and minorities. For example, in reviewing the country’s human
294 See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78874.htm].
295 Letter to Secretary of State Rice from Sen. Joe Biden, Rep. Tom Lantos, and Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, June 1, 2007; “US Warned Over Backing for Musharraf,” Financial Times
(London), June 12, 2007.
296 See, for example, Lisa Curtis, Statement before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, January 16, 2008; Ashley Tellis,
“Pakistan: Conflicted Ally in the War on Terror,” Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief 56,
December 2007.
297 See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100619.htm].
298 See [http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/105501.pdf].
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rights circumstances, the Lahore-based Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights
asserted that,
On the one hand policies of Musharaf and his civilian partners have fanned
religious extremism and intolerance, sectarian divisions resulting in violence,
provincial disharmony that has weakened the federation, and created a climate
of impunity that has heightened the sense of insecurity in every Pakistani. On the
other, their ham-handedness in combating terrorism has resulted in serious
violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
The group strongly urged Pakistan’s new civilian government to distinguish itself
from the previous regime by promoting and protecting basic human rights.299 That
government did in April 2008 ratify or sign three key international human rights
conventions, a move lauded by London-based Amnesty International. The move was
lauded by international human rights groups even as a lack of judicial independence
and continued “disappearances” are identified as ongoing problems.300
Gender Discrimination. Discrimination against females is widespread in
Pakistan and traditional constraints — cultural, legal, and spousal — keep women
in a subordinate position in society. In 2005, Pakistani gang rape victim Mukhtaran
Mai — and Islamabad’s (mis)handling of her case — became emblematic of gender
discrimination problems in Pakistan. The Hudood Ordinance promulgated during the
rule of President General Zia ul-Haq is widely criticized for imposing stringent
punishments and restrictions under the guise of Islamic law. Among its provisions,
the ordinance criminalizes all extramarital sex and makes it extremely difficult for
women to prove allegations of rape (those women who make such charges without
the required evidence often are jailed as adulterers). In 2006, the Hudood laws were
amended in the Women’s Protection Act. President Musharraf supported the changes
and the ruling PML-Q party joined with the opposition PPP to overcome fierce
resistance by Islamist parties. The step was viewed as a landmark in efforts to create
more a moderate Pakistani state. However, in 2008, the State Department, while
acknowledging that the Women’s Protection Act had improved conditions, noted that
rape, domestic violence, and abuse against women, such as honor crimes and
discriminatory legislation that affected women, remain serious problems. Reported
acts of violence against women more than doubled in Pakistan in 2007 as compared
to the previous year.301
Religious Freedom. The State Department’s most recent International
Religious Freedom Report (issued September 2007) again found that in practice the
Islamabad government imposes limits on the freedom of religion in Pakistan:
The Government took some steps to improve its treatment of religious minorities
during the period covered by this report, but serious problems remained. Law
299 See [http://www.unelections.org/files/PakistaniNGOs_LettertoFM_5May08_0.pdf].
300 See [http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/pakistan-new-government-
sends-positive-signal]; [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/07/02/pakist19238.htm].
301 See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100619.htm]; “Violence Against Pakistani
Women,” BBC News, April 15, 2008.
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enforcement personnel abused religious minorities in custody. Security forces
and other government agencies did not adequately prevent or address societal
abuse against minorities. Discriminatory legislation and the Government’s
failure to take action against societal forces hostile to those who practice a
different faith fostered religious intolerance, acts of violence, and intimidation
against religious minorities. Specific laws that discriminate against religious
minorities include anti-Ahmadi and blasphemy laws that provide the death
penalty for defiling Islam or its prophets.302
The State Department has rejected repeated U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom recommendations that Pakistan be designated a “country of
particular concern.” The Commission’s most recent annual report (May 2008)
asserts that,
[A]ll of the serious religious freedom concerns on which the Commission has
reported in the past persist. Sectarian and religiously motivated violence
continues, particularly against Shia Muslims, Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus,
and the government’s response continues to be insufficient and not fully
effective.
The Commission finds that Pakistani government officials provide the country’s
religious minorities with inadequate protections against societal violence.303
Press Freedom. Press freedom and the safety of journalists recently have
become major concerns in Pakistan, spurred especially by the 2006 discovery of the
handcuffed body of Pakistani journalist Hayatullah Khan in a rural area of North
Waziristan. Khan, who had been missing for more than six months, was abducted
by unknown gunmen after he reported on an apparent U.S.-launched missile attack
in Pakistan’s tribal region. Khan’s family is among those who suspect the
involvement of Pakistani security forces; an official inquiry into the death was
launched. Other journalists have been detained and possibly tortured, including a
pair reportedly held incommunicado without charges for three months after they shot
footage of the Jacobabad airbase that was used by U.S. forces. Paris-based Reporters
Without Borders placed Pakistan 152nd out of 169 countries in its most recent annual
ranking of world press freedom.304
Pakistani journalists have taken to the streets to protest perceived abuses. In
May 2007, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists placed Pakistan
sixth in a list of the ten countries where press freedom had most deteriorated since
2002.305 In early June, in apparent reaction to media coverage of rallies in support
of Pakistan’s suspended Chief Justice, the Musharraf government issued an
ordinance allowing the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Agency to impose
strict curbs on television and radio station operations. Human Rights Watch later
302 See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90233.htm].
303 See [http://www.uscirf.gov]. See also “Tough Times for Pakistan’s Religious
Minorities,” Associated Press, January 23, 2008.
304 See [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24025].
305 See [http://cpj.org/backsliders/index.html].
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called the decree a “disgraceful assault on media freedom.”306 Implementation of the
ordinance subsequently was halted. In September 2007, the U.S. Embassy in
Islamabad expressed concern about recent incidents in which Pakistani journalists
were subject to assaults and harassment.307 In its March 2008 human rights report,
the State Department asserted that there was an increase in government arrests,
harassment, and intimidation of journalists during 2007.308
“Disappeared” Persons. According to the U.S. State Department, there was
an increase of politically motivated disappearances in Pakistan in 2006 which
continued in 2007, with police and security forces holding prisoners incommunicado
and refusing to provide information on their whereabouts, particularly in terrorism
and national security cases. In late 2006, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the
government to disclose the whereabouts of 41 suspected security detainees who had
“disappeared.” Human rights groups claim to have recorded more than 400 cases of
such secret detentions since 2002.309 Amnesty International has criticized Islamabad
for human rights abuses related to its cooperation with the U.S.-led “war on terror,”
including the arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture of hundreds of
people. In late 2007, Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies reportedly released
from detention nearly 100 terrorism suspects without charges. No official
explanation for the releases was offered and some analysts assert that the primary
motive was avoiding the embarrassment of having to reveal that the suspects were
being held “on flimsy evidence in [a] secret system.”310 The Islamabad government
formally denies involvement in extralegal detentions. It also has denied that any
Pakistani citizens had been remanded to U.S. custody for imprisonment at
Guantanamo Bay, saying that any Pakistani nationals held in that facility were
arrested outside Pakistan, mostly in Afghanistan.311
Economic Issues
Overview. Pakistan is a poor country, but the national economy gathered
significant positive momentum in the new century, helped in large part by the
government’s pro-growth policies and by post-2001 infusions of foreign aid. Overall
growth has averaged 6.6% over the past six years. However, poverty remains
widespread and presently high rates of domestic inflation have many analysts
concerned about the country’s macroeconomic stability. Some observers warn that
the domestic capacity to sustain growth does not exist. According to the World
Bank, nominal GDP per capita in 2006 was only $771, even as poverty rates dropped
306 See [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/06/pakist16084.htm].
307 See [http://usembassy.state.gov/pakistan/h07092101.html].
308 See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100619.htm].
309 “Pakistan: A Land of Systematic Disappearances,” Asian Center for Human Rights,
March 28, 2007; “Pakistani Wife Embodies Cause Of ‘Disappeared,’” New York Times, July
19, 2007.
310 “Picture of Secret Detentions Emerges in Pakistan,” New York Times, December 19,
2007.
311 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Spokesperson/2008/Mar/Spokes_12_03_08.htm].
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from 34% to 24% in the first half of the current decade. Severe human losses and
property damage from an October 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan have had
limited follow-on economic impact, given a large influx of foreign aid and the
stimulus provided by reconstruction efforts.
Pakistan’s political crises in 2007 harmed what had been a generally strong
national economy. The country’s main stock market lost nearly 5% of its value when
trading opened following the November emergency imposition and the country’s
attractiveness for foreign investors almost certainly has suffered with ensuing
instability. In the wake of Bhutto’s killing, the market again fell by nearly 5%. Food
prices have spiked, contributing to inflationary pressures that have in turn sapped
exports.312 Rising fuel costs and food subsidies have spurred the new government to
order “massive cuts” in federal spending, including that for the military, and to seek
upwards of $3 billion from international lenders to reverse a sharp deterioration on
the current account of its balance of payments. Pakistan faces a shortfall of some
4,000 megawatts of electricity and scheduled blackouts now affect homes and
businesses many hours each day.313
Despite these negative signs, the long-term economic outlook for Pakistan is
improved since 2001, even as it remains clouded in a country still dependent on
foreign lending and the importation of basic commodities. Substantial fiscal deficits
and dependency on external aid have been chronic (public and external debt equal
nearly three-fifths of GDP), counterbalancing a major overhaul of the tax collection
system and what have been major gains in the Karachi Stock Exchange, which nearly
doubled in value as the world’s best performer in 2002 and was up by 40% in 2007.
Along with absolute development gains in recent years, Pakistan’s relative standing
has also improved: The U.N. Development Program ranked Pakistan 136th out of 177
countries on its 2007/2008 human development index (between Laos and Bhutan),
up from 144th in 2003.314
Pakistan’s real GDP grew by 5.8% in the fiscal year ending June 2008, driven
by a booming service sector. Output from this and the manufacturing sector has
grown substantially since 2002, but the agricultural sector continues to lag
considerably (in part due to droughts), slowing overall growth. Agricultural labor
accounts for nearly half of the country’s work force, but only about one-fifth of
national income and 2% of tax revenue. Expanding textile production and the
government’s pro-growth measures had most analysts foreseeing solid expansion
ahead, but political and security turmoil in 2008 have caused previously optimistic
312 “Pakistan Stocks Tumble Amid Violence,” Associated Press, December 31, 2007; “Fear
Stalks Pakistani Business After Bhutto’s Murder,” Reuters, January 2, 2008; “As Pakistan
Churns, Economy Takes Hit,” Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2008; “Price of Pakistan’s
Economic Woes,” BBC News, April 14, 2008.
313 “Pakistan Orders Public Spending Cuts,” Financial Times (London), May 8, 2008;
“Pakistan Battles Power Shortages,” BBC News, May 15, 2008.
314 See [http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008].
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predictions to drop below 5% for the next two years. A relatively small but rapidly
growing entrepreneurial class has boosted the consumption of luxury goods.315
Pakistan stabilized its external debt at about $33 billion by 2003, but this has
risen to about $46 billion in 2008. Still, such debt is less than one-third of GDP
today, down from more than one-half in 2000. The country’s reported total liquid
reserves reached $13.7 billion by May 2007, an all-time high and a nearly five-fold
increase since 1999, but are down significantly in mid-2008. Foreign remittances
have exceeded $4 billion annually since 2003 (at around $5.5 billion in
FY2006/2007), up from slightly more than $1 billion in 2001. High oil prices and
high food commodity prices have driven inflationary pressures, resulting in year-on-
year consumer rates above 21% in June 2008. Inflationary pressures are projected
to remain strong throughout 2008; many analysts call rising prices the single most
important obstacle to future growth. Pakistan’s resources and comparatively
well-developed entrepreneurial skills may hold promise for more rapid economic
growth and development in coming years. This is particularly true for the country’s
textile industry, which accounts for two-thirds of all exports (and up to 90% of
exports to the United States).
Analysts point to the pressing need to further broaden the country’s tax base in
order to provide increased revenue for investment in improved infrastructure, health,
and education, all prerequisites for economic development. Serious environmental
degradation also retards growth: a September 2007 World Bank report conservatively
estimated that at least 6% of Pakistan’s GDP is lost to illness and premature mortality
caused by air pollution (both outdoor and indoor); diseases caused by inadequate
water supplies, sanitation, and hygiene; and reduced agricultural productivity due to
soil degradation.316
Attempts at macroeconomic reform historically have floundered due to political
instability, but the Musharraf government had notable successes in effecting such
reform. Rewards for participation in the post-September 2001 anti-terror coalition
eased somewhat Pakistan’s severe national debt situation, with many countries,
including the United States, boosting bilateral assistance efforts and large amounts
of external aid flowing into the country. According to the Asian Development
Bank’s Outlook 2008:
Improved economic fundamentals have enhanced the resilience of the economy
and helped it absorb shocks, including higher global oil prices and 2005’s
devastating earthquake. But growth has generated a heavy imbalance in the
external current account, which could affect economic momentum. The current
account deficit has been financed largely by strong incoming foreign investment.
External sources have also been employed, increasingly, to finance the fiscal
315 “Modern and Muslim: In Turbulent Pakistan, Start-Ups Drive a Boom,” Wall Street
Journal, September 5, 2007.
316 See [http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/Publications/
448813-1188777211460/pakceasummary.pdf].
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deficit. Issues of long-term sustainability therefore arise, especially in a context
of high global oil and commodity prices and domestic political uncertainties.317
A 2008 report from the World Bank urged major efforts to strengthen Pakistan’s
water, power, and transport infrastructure, finding that major inefficiencies were
costing the country several percentage points in economic growth each year.
Even as the bulk of criticism of President Musharraf has focused on the
authoritarian aspects of his rule, many ordinary Pakistanis have been unhappy with
his government’s economic policies, which are seen to have benefitted only a fraction
of the country’s people. Pakistan’s new finance minister took office in early 2008
lambasting the previous government’s alleged mismanagement of the national
economy, and he warned that the country is unlikely to meet its economic targets for
FY2007/20008.318 World Bank economist and former Pakistani Finance Minister
Shahid Javed Burki is among those who assert that present rates of growth are not
sustainable. He also faults Islamabad for maintaining a weak regulatory structure that
has not constrained private sector expansion nor regulated emerging monopolies,
thus spurring sharp price increases, especially in the telecommunications, real estate,
and construction sectors. This, according to him, partly explains why Pakistan’s
impressive economic growth has brought little benefit to the country’s poor.319
Trade and Investment. Pakistan’s primary exports are cotton, textiles and
apparel, rice, and leather products. The United States is by far Pakistan’s leading
export market, accounting for about one-quarter of the total. During 2007, total U.S.
imports from Pakistan were worth just under $3.6 billion (down nearly 3% from
2006). Some 90% of this value came from purchases of textiles and apparel. U.S.
exports to Pakistan during 2007 were worth some $2 billion (virtually unchanged
from 2006). Civilian aircraft and associated equipment accounted for about one-
quarter of this value; raw cotton is another notable U.S. export.320 Pakistan is the 59th
largest export market for U.S. goods.
According to the 2008 National Trade Estimate of the U.S. Trade
Representative (USTR), Pakistan has “progressively and substantially reduced tariffs
and liberalized its import policies” over the past decade, though a number of trade
barriers remain. While estimated trade losses due to copyright piracy in Pakistan
were notably lower in 2005, business software and book piracy remains serious
concerns.321 Pakistan also has been a world leader in the pirating of music CDs and
has appeared on the USTR’s “Special 301” Watch List for 18 consecutive years. In
2004, continuing violations caused the USTR to move Pakistan to the Priority Watch
317 See [http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/ADO/2008/PAK.pdf].
318 “Hungry for More Than Change,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 2007; “Pakistan
Likely to Miss Most Economic Targets - Minister,” Reuters, April 9, 2008.
319 See [http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/080421_pakistans_econ_swot_burki.pdf].
320 See [http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/country/index.html].
321 The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a coalition of U.S. copyright-based
industries, estimated U.S. losses of $156 million due to copyright piracy in Pakistan in 2007
(see [http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2008/2008SPEC301PAKISTAN.pdf]).
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List (improved intellectual property rights protection saw it lowered back to the
Watch List in 2006, but this status lasted only two years) . From the USTR report:
The government of Pakistan continued to take noticeable steps during 2006 and
2007 to improve copyright enforcement, especially with respect to optical disc
piracy. Nevertheless, Pakistan does not provide adequate protection of all
intellectual property. Book piracy, weak trademark enforcement, lack of data
protection for proprietary pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical test data, and
problems with Pakistan’s pharmaceutical patent protection remain serious
barriers to trade and investment.322
In 2007, the USTR again named Pakistan to its Special 301 Watch List, lauding
Islamabad for progress on intellectual property rights enforcement, but also
expressing ongoing concerns about Pakistan’s lack of effective protections in the
pharmaceutical sector. In 2008, citing a lack of progress on pharmaceuticals, the
USTR put Pakistan back on the Priority Watch List.323
According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance, total foreign direct investment in
Pakistan exceeded $6 billion for the year ending June 2008, but many investors
remain wary of the country’s uncertain political-security circumstances.324 More than
one-third of the foreign investment value comes from U.S.-based investors; much of
the remainder originates in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states. Islamabad
is eager to finalize a pending Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and reach a Free
Trade Agreement with the United States, believing that its vital textile sector will be
bolstered by duty-free access to the U.S. market.325 The establishment of
Reconstruction Opportunity Zones that could facilitate development in Pakistan’s
poor tribal regions, an initiative of President Bush during his March 2006 visit to
Pakistan, is under consideration by the 110th Congress (S. 2776 and H.R. 6387).
The Heritage Foundation’s 2008 Index of Economic Freedom — which some
say may overemphasize the value of absolute growth and downplay broader quality-
of-life measurements — again rated Pakistan’s economy as being “mostly unfree”
and ranked it 93rd out of 157 countries. The index identified restrictive trade policies,
a heavy fiscal burden, weak property ownership protections, and limited financial
freedoms as issues.326 Corruption is another serious problem: in 2007, Berlin-based
322 See [http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Document_Library/Reports_Publications/2008/2008_
NTE_Report/asset_upload_file961_14674.pdf]
323 See [http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Document_Library/Reports_Publications/2008/2008_
Special_301_Report/asset_upload_file553_14869.pdf].
324 “Pakistan Investors Wary of Political Instability,” Reuters, August 27, 2007. Pakistan’s
Finance Ministry reports that foreign investment rates were down by nearly half for the
nine-month period ending March 2008.
325 According to the U.S. Trade Representative, “a small but significant number of
differences have persisted on issues of considerable importance to the United States and
[BIT] negotiations are currently suspended” (USTR, 2008 Trade Policy Agenda and 2007
Annual Report, March 2008).
326 See [http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Pakistan].
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Transparency International placed Pakistan 138th out of 179 countries in its annual
ranking of world corruption levels.327
U.S. Aid and Congressional Action
U.S. Assistance. A total of about $16.5 billion in direct, overt U.S. aid went
to Pakistan from 1947 through 2007, including some $4.5 billion for military
programs. Since the 2001 renewal of large U.S. assistance packages and
reimbursements for militarized counterterrorism efforts, Pakistan will by the end of
FY2008 have received more than $11 billion, the majority of this in the form of
coalition support reimbursements, with another $3.1 billion for economic purposes
and nearly $2.2 billion for security-related programs (see Table 1). U.S. assistance
to Pakistan is meant primarily to maintain that country’s ongoing support for U.S.-led
counterterrorism efforts. It also seeks to
encourage Pakistan’s participation in international efforts to prevent the spread
of weapons of mass destruction and support in the development of a moderate,
democratic, and civilian government which promotes respect for human rights
and participation of its citizens in government and society.328
Consulting fees and administrative overhead can account for anywhere from one-
third to more than half of appropriated aid, meaning large sums never reach the
people they are meant to benefit.329
In June 2003, President Bush hosted President Musharraf at Camp David,
Maryland, where he vowed to work with Congress on establishing a five-year, $3
billion aid package for Pakistan. Annual installments of $600 million each, split
evenly between military and economic aid, began in FY2005.330 When additional
funds for development assistance, law enforcement, and other programs are included,
the estimated non-food aid allocation for FY2008 is $887 million. FY2007 was the
first year of the Administration’s new plan to devote $750 million in U.S.
development aid to Pakistan’s tribal areas over a five-year period. The new civilian
government seated in Islamabad in early 2008 has urged the United States to further
boost its aid as a means of strengthening democracy in Pakistan.331
FATA Development Plan. As noted above, Pakistan’s tribal areas are
remote, isolated, poor, and very traditional in cultural practices. The social and
economic privation of the inhabitants is seen to make the region a particularly
attractive breeding ground for violent extremists. The U.S.-assisted development
initiative for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, launched in 2003, seeks to
327 See [http://www.transparency.org].
328 U.S. Department of State FY2008 Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign
Operations (Revised), May 2, 2007.
329 “US Aid ‘Failing to Reach Target,’” BBC News, May 16, 2008.
330 The Foreign Operations FY2005 Appropriations bill (P.L. 108-447) established a new
“base program” of $300 million for military assistance for Pakistan.
331 “Premier Says Pakistan Needs More U. S. Aid,” Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2008.
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improve the quality of education, develop healthcare services, and increase
opportunities for economic growth and micro-enterprise specifically in Pakistan’s
western tribal regions.332 A senior USAID official estimated that, for FY2001-
FY2007, about 6% of U.S. economic aid to Pakistan has been allocated for projects
in the FATA.333 The Bush Administration urges Congress to continue funding a
proposed five-year, $750 million aid plan for the FATA initiated in FY2007. The
plan will support Islamabad’s own ten-year, $2 billion Sustainable Development
effort there. Skepticism has arisen about the potential for the new policy of
significantly boosted funding to be effective. Corruption is endemic in the tribal
region and security circumstances are so poor that Western nongovernmental
contractors find it extremely difficult to operate there. Moreover, as much as half of
the allocated funds likely will be devoted to administrative costs.334 Islamabad is
insisting that implementation is carried out wholly by Pakistani civil and military
authorities and that U.S. aid, while welcomed, must come with no strings attached.335
The related establishment of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) that
could facilitate further development in the FATA, an initiative of President Bush
during his March 2006 visit to Pakistan, ran into political obstacles in Congress and
is yet to be finalized. The ROZ program would provide duty-free access into the U.S.
market for certain goods produced in approved areas and potentially create significant
employment opportunities. While observers are widely approving of the ROZ plan
in principle, many question whether there currently are any products with meaningful
export value produced in the FATA. One senior analyst suggests that the need for
capital and infrastructural improvements outweighs the need for tariff reductions. A
Pakistani commentator has argued that an extremely poor law and order situation in
the region will preclude any meaningful investment or industrialization in the
foreseeable future.336 In March 2008, more than two years after the initiative was
announced, S. 2776, which would provide duty-free treatment for certain goods from
designated ROZs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was introduced in the Senate.
A major July 2008 report from the Council on Foreign Relations presents a
cooperative, incentives-based strategy for U.S. engagement in the FATA that would
bolster the Pakistani government’s capacity while building mutual confidence in the
bilateral relationship. The report urges policy makers to weigh the potential gains of
unilateral U.S. actions in the FATA — whether military, political, or economic in
nature — against the likely costs in the context of fostering mutual trust. It
emphasizes that tactical security gains in the region are likely to be ephemeral if not
332 See [http://www.usaid.gov/pk/mission/news/fata.htm].
333 Statement of Acting Deputy USAID Administrator James Kunder before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, December 6, 2007.
334 “Doubts Engulf an American Aid Plan for Pakistan,” New York Times, December 25,
2007; “US Aid ‘Failing to Reach Target,’” BBC News, May 16, 2008.
335 “U.S. Aims to Turn Hostile Pakistani Tribes Friendly,” Reuters, January 30, 2008.
336 Statement of Amb. Teresita Schaffer before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
December 6, 2007; Hamid Waleed, “Establishment of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones
Almost Impossible” (op-ed), Daily Times (Lahore), January 13, 2007.
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accompanied by rapid political change and economic incentives that comprise what
it labels a “generational challenge.”337
Economic Support Funds. The Foreign Assistance Act authorizes the
President to furnish assistance to countries and organizations in order to promote
economic or political stability. The Economic Support Funds (ESF) requested under
this authorization have represented a significant proportion of post-2001 U.S.
assistance to Pakistan. Immediately following the September 2001 terrorist attacks
on the United States, the 2001 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for
Recovery from and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States (P.L. 107-38)
included appropriation of $600 million in cash transfers for Pakistan under ESF.
Congress subsequently authorized Pakistan to use the FY2003 and FY2004 ESF
allocations to cancel about $1.5 billion in concessional debt to the U.S. government.
Within the Administration’s FY2005-FY2009 assistance plan for Pakistan it
was agreed that $200 million of ESF each year (two-thirds of the program total)
would be delivered in the form of “budget support”: cash transfers meant to enable
the Islamabad government to spend additional resources on education, improving
macroeconomic performance, and the quality of and access to healthcare and
education. (In the Administration’s FY2008 request for foreign operations, Pakistan
was to be one of only three countries, along with Jordan and Lebanon, to receive ESF
in this form.) These funds were to be used for purposes spelled out in mutually
agreed “Shared Objectives” based on goals Pakistan set for itself in its Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper, which is the reference widely used by the donor
community. While the State Department and USAID insisted that use of the funds
was carefully monitored, criticisms arose that poor oversight and the fungibility of
money could allow Pakistan’s military-dominated government to use them for
purposes other than those intended. In December 2007, the State Department
appeared to agree in announcing that budget support for Pakistan will henceforth be
“projectized to ensure the money is targeted at the most urgent priorities.”338
Coalition Support Funds (CSF). Congress has appropriated billions of
dollars to reimburse Pakistan and other nations for their operational and logistical
support of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations. These “coalition support funds”
(CSF) account for the bulk of U.S. financial transfers to Pakistan since 2001. As of
July 2008, more than $8 billion had been appropriated or authorized for FY2002-
FY2008 Pentagon spending for CSF for “key cooperating nations.” Pentagon
documents show that disbursements to Islamabad — at some $5.9 billion or an
average of $80 million per month — account for roughly four-fifths of these funds.
The amount is equal to about one-quarter of Pakistan’s total military expenditures.
According to Secretary of Defense Gates, CSF payments have been used to support
approximately 90 Pakistani army operations and help to keep some 100,000 Pakistani
troops in the field in northwest Pakistan by paying for food, clothing, and housing.
337 Daniel Markey, “Securing Pakistan’s Tribal Belt,” Council on Foreign Relations Special
Report No. 36, July 2008.
338 See [http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rm/2007/96566.htm].
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They also compensate Islamabad for ongoing coalition usage of Pakistani airfields
and seaports.339
Concerns have grown in Congress and among independent analysts that standard
accounting procedures were not employed in overseeing these large disbursements
from the U.S. Treasury. The State Department claims that Pakistan’s requests for
CSF reimbursements are carefully vetted by several executive branch agencies, must
be approved by the Secretary of Defense, and ultimately can be withheld through
specific congressional action. However, a large proportion of CSF funds may have
been lost to waste and mismanagement, given a dearth of adequate controls and
oversight. Senior Pentagon officials reportedly have taken steps to overhaul the
process through which reimbursements and other military aid is provided to Pakistan,
perhaps including linking payments to specific objectives.340 The National Defense
Authorization Act for FY2008 (P.L. 110-181) for the first time requires the Secretary
of Defense to submit to Congress itemized descriptions of coalition support
reimbursements to Pakistan.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was tasked to address oversight
of coalition support funds that go to Pakistan. A report issued in June 2008 found
that, until about one year before, only a small fraction of Pakistani requests were
disallowed or deferred. In March 2007, the value of rejected requests spiked
considerably, although it still represented one-quarter or less of the total. The
apparent increased scrutiny corresponds with the arrival in Islamabad of a new U.S.
Defense Representative, an army major general who reportedly has played a greater
role in the oversight process. GAO concluded that increased oversight and
accountability was needed over Pakistan’s reimbursement claims for coalition
support funds.341 In August 2008, the leader of Pakistan’s ruling party, Asif Zardari
claimed, without providing evidence, that as president Pervez Musharraf had been
passing only a fraction of the funds over to the Pakistani military, leaving some $700
million of reimbursements per year “missing.”342
Possible Adjustments to U.S. Assistance Programs. U.S. assistance
to Pakistan is meant primarily to maintain that country’s ongoing support for U.S.-led
counterterrorism efforts. It also seeks to “encourage Pakistan’s participation in
international efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and support
in the development of a moderate, democratic, and civilian government which
promotes respect for human rights and participation of its citizens in government and
339 Statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 6, 2008.
340 See [http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rm/2007/96566.htm]; “U.S. Payments to Pakistan
Face New Scrutiny,” Washington Post, February 21, 2008; “Pakistani Military ‘Misspent
Up to 70% of American Aid,’” Guardian (London), February 28, 2008; “Democrats
Question $6 Billion in Pakistan Aid,” Associated Press, May 6, 2008.
341 See [http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08806.pdf]. See also “Pentagon Puts Brakes on
Funds to Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2008.
342 Quoted in “Where’s the Money?,” Sunday Times (London), August 10, 2008.
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society.”343 Critics contend that these latter goals remain largely unmet in part due
to a perceived U.S. over-reliance on security-related aid. One major study found that
only a small percentage of U.S. assistance to Pakistan was being directed toward
development, governance, and humanitarian programs.344 For numerous Pakistan-
watchers, a policy of “enhanced cooperation and structured inducements” is viewed
as likely to be more effective than a policy based on pressure and threats.345 Many
argue that it could be useful to better target U.S. assistance programs in such a way
that they more effectively and more directly benefit the country’s citizens. Some
analysts call for improving America’s image in Pakistan by making U.S. aid more
visible to ordinary Pakistanis.346 A costly downside of the perceived focus on
security-related aid is that it can empower illiberal forces in Pakistan, namely, the
country’s military and intelligence agencies, which are seen to have stunted the
growth and development of democratic institutions and the rule of law.
One idea commonly floated by analysts is the “conditioning” of aid to Pakistan,
perhaps through the creation of “benchmarks.” For example, in 2003, a task force
of senior American South Asia watchers issued a report on U.S. policy in the region
that included a recommendation that the extent of U.S. support for Islamabad should
be linked to that government’s own performance in making Pakistan a more
“modern, progressive, and democratic state” as promised by President Musharraf in
January 2002. Specifically, the task force urged directing two-thirds of U.S. aid to
economic programs and one-third to security assistance, and conditioning increases
in aid amounts to progress in Pakistan’s reform agenda.347 Some commentators
emphasize that, to be truly effective, conditionality should be applied by many donor
countries rather than just the United States and should be directed toward the
Pakistani leadership — especially the military — to the exclusion of the general
public.348 In the wake of political crises and deteriorating security circumstances in
Pakistan in 2007, some senior Members of Congress were more vocal in calling for
conditions on further U.S. assistance in lieu of improvements in these areas.349
343 U.S. Department of State FY2008 Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign
Operations (Revised), May 2, 2007.
344 Craig Cohen, “A Perilous Course: U.S. Strategy and Assistance to Pakistan,” Center for
Strategic and International Studies, August 2007.
345 See, for example, Daniel Markey, “Securing Pakistan’s Tribal Belt,” Council on Foreign
Relations Special Report No. 36, July 2008.
346 See, for example, Lisa Curtis, “Denying Terrorists Safe Haven in Pakistan,” Heritage
Foundation Backgrounder No. 1981, October 26, 2006.
347 “New Priorities in South Asia: U.S. Policy Toward India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan,”
Chairmen’s Report of an Independent Task Force Cosponsored by the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Asia Society, October 2003.
348 See, for example, Frederic Grare, “Rethinking Western Strategies Toward Pakistan,”
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007.
349 See, for example, “Senate Leader Wants Bush to Pressure Pakistan,” Reuters, January
10, 2008; “Democrat Questions US Aid to Pakistan,” Associated Press, May 27, 2008.
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Many analysts, however, including those making policy for the Bush
Administration, contend that conditioning U.S. aid to Pakistan has a past record of
failure and likely would be counterproductive by reinforcing Pakistani perceptions
of the United States as a fickle and unreliable partner. From this perspective, putting
additional pressure on an already weak Islamabad government might lead to
significant political instability in Pakistan.350 One senior Washington-based analyst
who advocates against placing conditions on U.S. aid to Pakistan instead offers an
admittedly modest and “not entirely satisfying” approach that would modify current
U.S. policy through more forceful private admonitions to Islamabad to better focus
its own counterterrorism efforts while also targeting Taliban leadership, increased
provision of U.S. counterinsurgency technologies and training to Pakistani security
forces, and the establishment of benchmarks for continued provision of coalition
support funding.351 Private admonitions are considered by some analysts to be
meaningless in the absence of public consequences, however.
For Pakistanis themselves, aid conditionality in U.S. congressional legislation
can raise unpleasant memories of 1985’s Pressler Amendment, which led to a near-
total aid cutoff in 1990. Islamabad’s sensitivities are thus acute: in July 2007, the
Pakistan Foreign Ministry said aid conditions legislated in the Implementing the 9/11
Commission Recommendations Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-53) “cast a shadow” on
existing U.S.-Pakistan cooperation and create linkages that “did not serve the interest
of bilateral cooperation in the past and can prove to be detrimental in the future.”352
Calls for further conditionality from some in Congress led Islamabad to again warn
that such moves could harm the bilateral relationship and do damage to U.S.
interests. Nevertheless, the State Department reports being “comfortable” with
congressional conditions and “confident” that required reports can be issued.353
Analysts have also issued criticisms of the programming of aid to Pakistan
within the security-related portions. Foremost among these are assertions that the
Pakistani military maintains an institutional focus on conventional war-fighting
capabilities oriented toward India and that it has used U.S. security assistance to
bolster these capabilities while paying insufficient attention to the kinds of
counterinsurgency capacity that U.S. policy makers might prefer to see strengthened.
For example, of the nearly $1.6 billion in Foreign Military Financing provided to
Pakistan from FY2002-FY2008, more than half has been used by Islamabad to
purchase weapons of limited use in the context of counterterrorism. These include
maritime patrol aircraft, anti-armor missiles, surveillance radars, upgrade kits for F-
16 combat aircraft, and self-propelled howitzers. Counterarguments contend that
such purchases facilitate regional stability and allow Pakistan to feel more secure vis-
à-vis India, its more powerful neighbor.
350 See, for example, Daniel Markey, “A False Choice in Pakistan,” Foreign Affairs, July
2007.
351 Ashley Tellis, “Pakistan: Conflicted Ally in the War on Terror,” Carnegie Endowment
Policy Brief 56, December 2007.
352 See [http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2007/july/PR_199_07.htm].
353 “Pakistan Rejects Call for Conditions on U.S. Aid,” Reuters, January 11, 2008; State
Department claim at [http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rm/2007/97946.htm].
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Pervasive anti-American sentiment in Pakistan has led the U.S. government to
minimize its “footprint” when providing aid in certain regions, especially the FATA
region bordering Afghanistan. This has meant that some projects are conducted in
ways similar to covert operations under the cover of Pakistani government agencies.
Although such an approach facilitates delivery of aid, public diplomacy gains can be
sacrificed when aid beneficiaries are unaware of the origin of the assistance they are
receiving. Because development of Pakistan’s tribal areas is identified as a key U.S.
national security goal in and of itself, such costs may be considered acceptable.
Coup-Related Legislation. Pakistan’s October 1999 military coup triggered
U.S. aid restrictions under Section 508 of the annual foreign assistance
appropriations act. Post-September 2001 circumstances saw Congress take action
on such restrictions. P.L. 107-57 (October 2001) waived coup-related sanctions on
Pakistan through FY2002 and granted presidential authority to waive them through
FY2003. In issuing the waiver, the President was required to certify that doing so
“would facilitate the transition to democratic rule in Pakistan” and “is important to
United States efforts to respond to, deter, or prevent acts of international terrorism.”
President Bush exercised this waiver authority six times, most recently in March
2008. Pakistan’s relatively credible 2008 polls spurred the Bush Administration to
issue an April 2008 determination that a democratically elected government had been
restored in Islamabad after a 101-month hiatus. This determination permanently
removed coup-related aid sanctions.354
Proliferation-Related Legislation. Through a series of legislative
measures, Congress incrementally lifted sanctions on Pakistan resulting from its
nuclear weapons proliferation activities.355 After the September 2001 terrorist attacks
on the United States, policymakers searched for new means of providing assistance
to Pakistan. President Bush’s issuance of a final determination that month removed
remaining sanctions on Pakistan (and India) resulting from the 1998 nuclear tests,
finding that restrictions were not in U.S. national security interests. Some Members
of the 108th Congress urged reinstatement of proliferation-related sanctions in
response to evidence of Pakistani assistance to third-party nuclear weapons programs.
However, the Nuclear Black-Market Elimination Act (H.R. 4965) died in committee.
Legislation in the 109th Congress included the Pakistan Proliferation Accountability
Act of 2005 (H.R. 1553), which sought to prohibit the provision of military
equipment to Pakistan unless the President can certify that Pakistan has verifiably
halted all proliferation activities and is fully sharing with the United States all
354 See [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080325-2.html]; Federal
Register 73, 69, p. 19276-19277, April 9, 2008.
355 The Agricultural Export Relief Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-194) allowed U.S. wheat sales to
Pakistan after July 1998. The India-Pakistan Relief Act of 1998 (in P.L. 105-277)
authorized a one-year sanctions waiver exercised by President Clinton in November 1998.
The Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2000 (P.L. 106-79) gave the President
permanent authority to waive nuclear-test-related sanctions applied against Pakistan and
India after October 1999, when President Clinton waived economic sanctions on India
(Pakistan remained under sanctions as a result of the October 1999 coup). (See CRS Report
RS20995, India and Pakistan: U.S. Economic Sanctions.)
CRS-96
information relevant to the A.Q. Khan proliferation network. This bill also did not
emerge from committee.
In the 110th Congress, the House-passed version of the Implementing the 9/11
Commission Recommendations Act of 2007 (H.R. 1) included provisions to suspend
all arms sales licenses and deliveries to any “nuclear proliferation host country”
unless the President certifies that such a country is, inter alia, fully investigating and
taking actions to permanently halt illicit nuclear proliferation activities. Related
Senate-passed legislation (S. 4) contained no such language and the provisions did
not appear in the subsequent law (P.L. 110-53).
9/11 Commission Recommendations. The 9/11 Commission Report,
released in July 2004, identified the government of President Musharraf as the best
hope for stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it recommended that the United
States make a long-term commitment to provide comprehensive support for
Islamabad so long as Pakistan itself is committed to combating extremism and to a
policy of “enlightened moderation.” In the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-458), Congress broadly endorsed this
recommendation by calling for U.S. aid to Pakistan to be sustained at a minimum of
FY2005 levels and requiring the President to report to Congress a description of
long-term U.S. strategy to engage with and support Pakistan. A November 2005
follow-on report by Commissioners gave a “C” grade to U.S. efforts to support
Pakistan’s anti-extremism policies and warned that the country “remains a sanctuary
and training ground for terrorists.” In the 109th Congress, H.R. 5017 and S. 3456
sought to insure implementation of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
The bills contained Pakistan-specific language, but neither emerged from committee.
A new Democratic majority took up the issue again in 2007. The premiere
House resolution of the 110th Congress, the Implementing the 9/11 Commission
Recommendations Act of 2007 (H.R. 1), was passed in January containing discussion
of U.S. policy toward Pakistan. The bill was passed by the Senate and became P.L.
110-53, including conditions on U.S. aid to Pakistan for the first time in the post-9/11
era. The Bush Administration opposed the language, arguing that “conditionality”
would be counterproductive to the goal of closer U.S.-Pakistan relations.
Selected Pakistan-Related Legislation in the 110th Congress
P.L. 110-53: The Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of
2007 (became Public Law on August 3, 2007):
! Would have ended U.S. military assistance and arms sales licensing
to Pakistan in FY2008 unless the President reported to Congress that
Islamabad is “undertaking a comprehensive military, legal,
economic, and political campaign” to “eliminating from Pakistani
territory any organization such as the Taliban, al Qaeda, or any
successor, engaged in military, insurgent, or terrorist activities in
Afghanistan,” and “is currently making demonstrated, significant,
and sustained progress toward eliminating support or safe haven for
terrorists.”
CRS-97
! Required the President report to Congress a long-term U.S. strategy
for engaging Pakistan.
! Provided an extension of the President’s authority to waive coup-
related sanctions through FY2008.
P.L. 110-161: The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (became Public Law on
December 26, 2007):
! Provided $250 million in FY2008 Foreign Military Financing for
Pakistani counterterrorism activities. Another $50 million would be
provided for such purposes after the Secretary of State reported to
Congress that Pakistan is “making concerted efforts” to combat both
Al Qaeda and Taliban forces on Pakistani territory and is
“implementing democratic reforms.”
! Appropriated $300 million for FY2008 coalition support
reimbursements to Pakistan and other key cooperating nations.
P.L. 110-181: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY2008 (became Public
Law on January 28, 2008):
! Authorized up to $75 million in FY2008 Section 1206 funding to
enhance the counterterrorism capabilities of Pakistan’s paramilitary
Frontier Corp. Such assistance is to be provided in a manner that
“promotes respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and
respect for legitimate civilian authority within Pakistan.”
! Authorized up to $1.2 billion in FY2008 Pentagon coalition support
reimbursements to “any key cooperating nation” in connection with
U.S. military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.
! Withholds coalition support reimbursements to Pakistan unless the
Secretary of Defense submits to Congress a report on enhancing
security and stability along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The
report must include “detailed description” of Pakistan’s efforts to
“eliminate safe havens for the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other violent
extremists on the national territory of Pakistan” and to “prevent the
movement of such forces across the border of Pakistan into
Afghanistan ....”
! Requires the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress itemized
descriptions of coalition support reimbursements to Pakistan for the
period February 2008-September 2009.
H.R. 2446: The Afghanistan Freedom and Security Support Act of 2007 (passed by
the House on June 6, 2007; referred to Senate committee):
! Would require the President to report to Congress on
implementation of policies to encourage greater Pakistan-Arab
country reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan and on Pakistan-
Afghanistan cooperation.
! Would authorize the President to appoint a new special envoy to
promote closer Pakistan-Afghanistan cooperation.
CRS-98
! Would require the President to report to Congress on actions taken
by Pakistan to permit or impede transit of Indian reconstruction
materials to Afghanistan across Pakistani territory.
H.R. 5916: The Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Reform Act of 2008
(passed by the House May 15, 2008; referred to Senate committee; a related bill,
S. 3052, was referred to Senate committee on May 22, 2008):
! Would authorize the President to transfer to Pakistan the guided
missile frigate USS McInerney as an excess defense article.
H.R. 5658: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY2009 (passed by the
House on May 22, 2008; placed on Senate calendar June 3, 2008):
! Would extend Section 1206 authority to build the capacity of
Pakistan’s Frontier Corps through FY2010.
S. 2776: The Afghanistan and Pakistan Reconstruction Opportunity Zones Act of
2008 (referred to Senate committee on March 13, 2008; a related bill, H.R.
6387, was referred to House committee on June 26, 2008):
! Would provide duty-free treatment for certain goods from designated
Reconstruction Opportunity Zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
S. 3263: The Enhanced Partnership With Pakistan Act of 2008 (referred to Senate
committee on July 15, 2008):
! Would make it the policy of the United States to “affirm and build
a sustained, long-term, multifaceted relationship with Pakistan.”
! Would triple non-military U.S. assistance to Pakistan” to $1.5 billion
per year for FY2009-FY2013, and establish a sense of Congress that
such aid levels should continue through FY2018.
! Would condition further military assistance and arms transfers to
Pakistan on an annual certification by the Secretary of State that the
security forces of Pakistan are making “concerted efforts” to prevent
Al Qaeda, Taliban, and associated militant groups from operating on
Pakistani territory, and that such security forces are “not materially
interfering” in Pakistan’s political or judicial processes.
! Would express the sense of Congress that coalition support
payments to Pakistan are a “critical component” of the global
counterterrorism effort and that increased oversight and
accountability is needed over Pakistan’s reimbursement claims for
such funds.
! Would require the Secretary of State to develop a “comprehensive,
cross-border strategy” for Afghanistan and Pakistan and report to
Congress no later than June 2009 a detailed description of such a
strategy.
CRS-99
Table 1. Overt U.S. Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY2002-FY2009
(rounded to the nearest millions of dollars)
FY2008
FY2002-
FY2009
Program or Account
FY2002
FY2003
FY2004
FY2005
FY2006
FY2007
(est.)
FY2008 Total
(req.)
1206
—
—
—
—
23
14
57
94
h
CN
—
—
—
8
29
39
55
131
h
CSFa
1,169e
1,247
705
964
862
731
255g
5,934
200i
FC
—
—
—
—
—
—
75
75
h
FMF
75
225
75
299
297
297
298
1,566
300
IMET
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
11
2
INCLE
91
31
32
32
38
21
22
267
32
NADRb
10
1
5
8
9
10
10
53
11
Total Security-Related
1,346
1,505
818
1,313
1,260
1,115
774
8,131
545
CSH
14
16
26
21
28
22
30
157
28
DA
10
35
49
29
38
95
30
286
—
ESFc
615
188
200
298
337
389
347
2,374
603j
Food Aidd
5
28
13
32
55
—
42
175
37
HRDF
1
—
2
2
1
11
—
17
—
MRA
9
7
6
6
10
4
—
42
—
Total Economic-Related
654
274
296
388
539f
521
449
3,121f
668
Grand Total
2,000
1,779
1,114
1,701
1,799
1,636
1,223
11,252
1,213
Sources: U.S. Departments of State, Defense, and Agriculture; U.S. Agency for International Development.
Abbreviations:
1206:
Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2006 (P.L. 109-163, global train and equip; Pentagon budget)
CN:
Counternarcotics Funds (Pentagon budget)
CSF:
Coalition Support Funds (Pentagon budget)
CSH:
Child Survival and Health
DA:
Development Assistance
ESF:
Economic Support Fund
FC:
Section 1206 of the NDAA for FY2008 (P.L. 110-181, Pakistan Frontier Corp train and equip; Pentagon budget)
FMF:
Foreign Military Financing
HRDF:
Human Rights and Democracy funding
IMET:
International Military Education and Training
INCLE:
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (includes border security)
MRA:
Migration and Refugee Assistance
NADR:
Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Relatedb
CRS-100
Notes:
a. CSF is Pentagon funding to reimburse Pakistan for its support of U.S. military operations. It is not officially designated as foreign assistance, but is counted as such by many
analysts.
b. The great majority of NADR funds allocated for Pakistan are for anti-terrorism assistance.
c. Congress authorized Pakistan to use the FY2003 and FY2004 ESF allocations to cancel a total of about $1.5 billion in concessional debt to the U.S. government. From
FY2005-FY2007, $200 million per year in ESF was delivered in the form of “budget support” — cash transfers to Pakistan. Such funds will be “projectized” from FY2008
on.
d. P.L.480 Title I (loans), P.L.480 Title II (grants), and Section 416(b) of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended (surplus agricultural commodity donations). Food aid totals
do not include freight costs.
e. Includes $220 million for Peacekeeping Operations reported by the State Department.
f. Includes $70 million in FY2006 International Disaster and Famine Assistance funds for Pakistani earthquake relief.
g. Includes CSF payments for support provided through November 2007. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (P.L. 110-161), and the Supplemental Appropriations Act,
2008 (P.L. 110-252), appropriated a total of $1.1 billion for FY2008 CSF payments to key cooperating nations, including Pakistan, which historically has received about
80% of such funds.
h. This funding is “requirements-based” for “urgent and emergent threats and opportunities.” Thus, there are no pre-allocation data.
i. The Administration requested $900 million for continuing CSF payments in FY2009. To date, Congress has appropriated $200 million for such purposes (P.L. 110-252).
j. Includes a “bridge” supplemental ESF appropriation of $150 million (P.L. 110-252).
CRS-101
Figure 1. Map of Pakistan
CRS-102
Figure 2. District Map of Pakistan’s North West Frontier
Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas
North
Tajikistan
Northern Areas
(Adminstered by Pakistan)
CHITRAL
Gilgit
Afghanistan
Chitral
Kalam
KOHISTAN
Dir
SWAT
MALAKAND
AGENCY
DIR
SHANGLA
BAJUR
Naran
BATTAGRAM
AGENCY
Malakand
MOHMAND
BURER
MANSEHRA
AGENCY
Mansehra
Kabul
Jalalabad
MARDAN
CHARSADDA
ABBOTTABAD
SWABI
Peshawar
HARIPUR
Landi Kotal
Nowshera
PESHA
WAR
KHYBER
Parachinar
AGENCY
NOWSHERA
ORAKZAI
Attock
Gardeyz
AGENCY
KURRAM
AGENCY
Dama
Islamabad
HANGU
Adam
Khowst
Kohat
K
hel
KOHAT
KARAK
Miramshah
Northwest Frontier Province
NORTH
Bannu
Kalabagh
WAZIRISTAN
BANNU
Federally Adminstered
Tribal Areas
LAKKI
MARWAT
SOUTH
National Capital
WAZIRISTAN
Tank
Towns
TANK
Pakistan
Wana
Cities
Dera
Ismail
Federally Administered
Khan
Tribal Areas
DERA ISMAIL
Settled Areas and/or
KHAN
Provincially Administered
Tribal Areas/Northwest
Frontier Province
Baluchistan
Punjab
Zhob