House panel proposes slapping restrictions on aid to Pakistan

House appropriators have proposed slapping new restrictions on the aid that Washington will send to Pakistan next year amid a chill in relations following the killing of Osama bin Laden.

 

A provision in the 2012 Pentagon appropriations bill that the panel unanimously approved Tuesday would keep all but 25 percent of $1.1 billion in aid intended for Islamabad in the bank until the White House provides clear details on how it would spend the cash.

 

The remaining 75 percent of the "Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund" would be subject to the Obama administration providing lawmakers a report detailing its "strategy to utilize the fund and the metrics used to determine progress with respect to the fund," according to a report accompanying the committee's bill.

 

The move comes as more and more U.S. lawmakers and voters express support for ending the Afghanistan war in the wake of bin Laden's death in Pakistan at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs. 

The report also would have to specify the administration's strategic goals in Pakistan, and state which terrorist and anti-U.S. groups are operating from there.

 

The House panel also wants details on the "gaps" in the capabilities of Pakistan's indigenous security forces, and an explanation of how aid funds would address such shortcomings.

 

The proposed report would have to describe the administration's metrics for measuring progress toward its objectives in Pakistan, as well as how it would determine whether Islamabad is having success going after terrorist and anti-U.S. groups operating on its soil.

 

Additionally, the panel approved an amendment offered by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would create a new reporting period for Pakistani aid.

 

If included in the final version of 2011 DoD appropriations legislation, the Flake amendment would allow Congress 30 days to review how the Pakistan dollars would be spent - and potentially block such expenditures.

Flake said some lawmakers want to go even further and "cut off" aid to Pakistan.

 

The "performance or non-performance" of officials in Islamabad in supporting the U.S. mission in that region "rubs a lot of people the wrong way," Flake said.

 

Obama administration and Pentagon officials continue to warn against any moves that would sever U.S.-Pakistani relationships.

 

Asked Thursday about U.S.-Pakistan relations, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "we need each other."

The relationship has had "ebbs and flows," Gates said. Pakistani officials feel Washington has abandoned them at least four times in the past, he said.

 

"It's a relationship that both sides have had to work on," Gates said. "It is complicated."

 

Adm. Michael Mullen, Joint Chiefs chairman, said the Pakistanis are doing some "introspection" after U.S. forces raided bin Laden's Pakistan compound and left with his body. Washington should give Islamabad "some time and some space" to do that, Mullen said.

 

If the U.S. cuts ties with Islamabad now, it would just be a matter of time before that region "is that much more dangerous," Mullen said.

 

McCain uneasy over Republican 'isolationism'  

US Senator John McCain on Sunday expressed concern about growing isolationism in the Republican party, particularly among those vying for the 2012 presidential nomination.

McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, said he was alarmed to hear various candidates at a campaign forum last Monday express opposition to US military involvement in the NATO military assault on Libya's Moamer Kadhafi.

"There's always been an isolation strain in the Republican party, that Pat Buchanan (a former Republican presidential contender) wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak," he said.

There is no question that President Barack Obama, a Democrat, made the right choice in lending US military support to the NATO mission in Libya, McCain told ABC's "This Week" program.

"If we had not intervened, Kadhafi was at the gates of Benghazi. He said he was going to go house to house to kill everybody. That's a city of 700,000 people. What would be saying now if we had allowed for that to happen?"

"That's not the Republican party of the 20th century and now the 21st century," McCain said.

Among Republican contenders voicing opposition on Libya at last week's debate in New Hampshire were tea party darling Michele Bachmann and Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney.

"It's time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can consistent with the word that comes from our generals that we can hand the country over," Romney said.

"I think we've learned some important lessons in our experience in Afghanistan. Our troops shouldn't go off and try and fight a war of independence for another nation. Only the Afghanis can win Afghanistan's independence from the Taliban."

McCain said such views were inconsistent with bedrock Republican values.

"That is not the Republican party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people for all over the world," the Arizona senator said.

Critics in Congress have said that in launching military operations against Kadhafi, Obama violated the War Powers Act, a law intended to check a president's ability to go to war without seeking congressional approval.

Lawmakers who feel Obama is not in compliance -- the War Powers Act allows 90 days for a president to notify Congress and 90 days were up Sunday -- are threatening to cut off funding for US military operations in Libya.

The White House said in a letter to Congress last week that the War Powers Act -- which has been largely ignored by past presidents -- does not apply to what's going on in Libya because there are no US troops on the ground there.

"US military operations are distinct from the kind of hostilities contemplated by the War Powers Act," the White House letter read.

McCain said he and John Kerry, a leading Democratic lawmaker who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, were crafting a bill that would take the question of the venture's legality off the table.

"Senator John Kerry and I have the resolution that's ready to go that would comply with the War Powers Act," he told ABC television.

Outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, another Republican, also defended Obama's decision to lend US military support to the NATO operation in Libya.

"I believe that President Obama has complied with the law, consistent in a manner with virtually all of his predecessors. I don't think he's breaking any new ground here," Gates told the Fox News Sunday television program.