McClatchy News
Posted: 2008-05-26 11:57:04 [1]

What could you buy with $6 billion? You could finally rebuild the New Orleans neighborhoods that Hurricane Katrina destroyed. For almost six years, you could provide a daily meal for every one of the 36 million Americans who live below the poverty line.

Or, you could give all of it to the Pakistani government in the form of military aid and accomplish absolutely nothing.

For more than seven years now, billions of American government dollars, expense reimbursements of about $90 million a month, have sluiced directly into the Pakistani treasury, instantly becoming "sovereign government funds," as a new government report puts it. Once there, the U.S. has no control over how the money is used. All of this money, about $6 billion so far, is intended to pay for counter-insurgency operations against al-Qaida and Taliban sanctuaries in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan.

After seven years, al-Qaida has established a terrorist-training and planning center there. The 2008 National Intelligence Estimate said al-Qaida "has regenerated its attack capability and secured a safe haven in Pakistan." Meantime, the Taliban have begun applying fundamentalist Islamic law in the tribal areas they now control. They have shut down schools for girls, closed barbershops and music stores, just as they did when they ruled Afghanistan.

Terrorist more secure
In short, seven years and $6 billion later, the terrorist group that carried out 9-11 has grown ever more comfortable and secure in its new Pakistani home. There, Washington fears, their leaders-including Osama bin Laden-are planning another attack on the United States. Meanwhile, the newly elected Pakistani government is negotiating a truce with these militants and has already pulled most of its troops from the area.This information comes from newly published federal government reports. No one in Washington is debating it. Last month, in fact, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, acknowledged that if the U.S. managed to pinpoint Osama bin Laden's location in the tribal areas, he was not sure Pakistan would give permission to attack him.

Despite all this, the money keeps flowing. The Bush administration has budgeted $900 million for the program this fiscal year, saying it is "a critical tool in our joint effort with Pakistan to constrain the assumption of sanctuary by extremists in western Pakistan." That last statement came from the Department of Defense just three weeks ago-even after major reports from the State Department, the General Accounting Office and the nation's intelligence agencies this spring all showed that the war there is lost, the money wasted.

No direction, just hope
All of this could have been predicted. In 2006, five years into the military assistance program, government auditors discovered that the U.S. was not even providing advice or strategic direction for the Pakistani military. Washington was just handing over the money, hoping something good might come of it. Nothing did.

In a report published last week, the Government Accountability Office, quoting Pentagon officials, said the Pakistani army, still today, is "neither structured nor trained for counter-insurgency" missions.

Last year for the first time, the Pentagon did raise questions about a few of the reimbursement requests Pakistan had provided, for expenses totaling about $80 million. Military officials insist that their audits will be more thorough. But none of them have explained exactly what the new money is intended to accomplish-given that, for all the good it did, the $6 billion spent so far might just as well have been flushed down the sewer.

Like many other failed programs launched during the Bush presidency, this one will likely chug along untouched until a new president takes office-wasting an additional $900 million along the way.