US links Pakistani aid to performance

Washington has started conditioning the award of billions of dollars in security assistance to Pakistan on whether Islamabad showed progress on a secret scorecard of US objectives to combat al Qaeda and its militant allies, but a Pakistani official said the US had not provided it with any list of new demands for the acquirement of future security assistance.
A Pakistani official, who asked not to be named, said so far the US had not conveyed anything to Pakistan about the conditioning of future security assistance. “They (Americans) have not yet provided us with a new list of demands for the acquirement of aid from Washington in future. However, let me tell you plainly that it will be our own decision, as it is right now, to fight the war on terror and also the role we need to play for the restoration of peace in Afghanistan,” he said. Foreign Office Spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua was not available for comment on the report.The newspaper report said the US was also asking Pakistan to take specific steps to ease bilateral tensions.
The classified system, put in place after the US raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, signaled a shift by the White House toward a pay-for-performance relationship with Pakistan, as doubts grew that the two countries could for now forge a broader alliance based on shared interests, the report added.The report said a senior US military official called the unusual new approach “a hard-knuckled reflection of where we are right now” in relations. US officials cited the sharp breakdown in counterterrorism cooperation that followed the bin Laden
raid in May and the arrest of Central Intelligence Agency contractor Raymond Davis in Pakistan this year, the report added. The newspaper said the new approach represented an effort to salvage as much counterterrorism cooperation as the Obama administration could at a time when top US officials believed themselves in a race against time to deal a deathblow to al Qaeda’s remaining leadership in Pakistan.
The Journal quoted officials as saying the White House had already frozen some $800 million in security assistance to Pakistan in recent months because of factors that included Islamabad’s refusal to readmit American trainers and military personnel who processed Pakistani reimbursement claims — items that fell into categories on the US performance checklist.
FINAL AMOUNT: The system was not hard and fast, reflecting the volatile nature of the relationship, US officials were quoted as saying by the paper. The final amount that might be withheld would depend on the level of Pakistani cooperation and how aggressive the White House decided to be in withholding funds, said the report.
“The message is: You make progress in these areas, and we can release some of this assistance,” a senior US official was quoted as saying about the review process. “Give us something that we can show [Congress] that we’re working together.”
The newspaper said that under the new approach, the office of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was compiling classified scorecards that tracked Pakistan’s cooperation in four areas, referred to in the White House as “baskets.”
Each basket contained a to-do list that the administration wanted from Pakistan.
Washington had told Islamabad that future payouts of security assistance would hinge on Pakistan showing it was making progress in these four areas, US officials were quoted as saying. The White House had not assigned specific dollar values to each item, said the paper.
The report said a spokesman for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) denied the US had formally presented Pakistan with such a list and said it was Pakistan’s prerogative to decide how to combat terrorism and conduct relations with Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani was quoted as saying that the relationship between Islamabad and Washington was more than a set of quid-pro-quo transactions. “This relationship is not just about aid,” he said.
“When it comes to our military aid, we are not prepared to continue providing that at the pace we were providing it unless and until we see certain steps taken,” the Journal quoted a senior US official as saying.
“We have identified a number of areas in which both Pakistan and the US need to take measures together to move our relationship forward. And while the areas where we need to make progress are not secret, we are discussing them privately, not publicly,” he added.
According to the Journal, the four baskets were: Pakistani cooperation in exploiting the bin Laden compound; Pakistani cooperation with the war in Afghanistan; Pakistani cooperation with the US in conducting joint counterterrorism operations; and cooperation in improving the overall tone in bilateral relations. Officials said the details of those baskets were classified, the Journal said.
However, the basket that measured progress in improving the overall tone in bilateral relations included a specific call on Pakistan to renew visas for US government personnel to work in Pakistan, said the paper.