Press Trust of India Posted online: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 1833 hours IST
Washington, March 28: A study by an American organisation has claimed that in the three years after the 9/11 attacks, US military aid to Pakistan increased 45,000 per cent, soaring to $ 4.2 billion from $ 9.1 million earlier.
The study by Center for Public Integrity, using information gathered through Freedom of Information requests, said more than half the money was provided through a post-9/11 Defence Department programme informally called Coalition Support Funds (CSF).
Pakistan received $2.3 billion of the aid from CSF money in fiscal years 2002 through 2004 and $ 3 billion in 2005. Thus the country was at the first position among nations receiving CSF money, but its take was nearly four times as much as all other countries combined received by 2005, the Center said.
"Pakistan's flood of CSF money made it the third largest recipient of all US military aid .. in the three years after 9/11; it trailed only Israel and Egypt.
"Before 9/11, the South Asian nation received less military aid and assistance from the US than Estonia or Panama, largely because of US sanctions imposed as punishment for covert pursuit of a nuclear weapons program," the Center said in its assessment.
Responding to the study, Tim Rieser, the majority clerk on the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, told the centre "With the possible exception of Iraq reconstruction funds, I've never seen a larger blank check for any country than for the Pakistan CSF program."
The fund has continued despite growing concerns over Pakistan's assistance, and the Congressional Research Service estimated Pakistan's total take of CSF through August 2006 at $ 4.75 billion, the study said.
The administration has also requested an additional $ 1 billion in CSF funding for coalition partners as part of the Defense Department's 2007 emergency budget supplemental request. Congress is currently debating the proposal.
The CSF's official purpose is to reimburse countries for costs incurred in supporting the US "war on terror".
The legislation on the matter which it refers to as "payments to reimburse Pakistan, Jordan, and other key cooperating nations, for logistical, military, and other support provided, or to be provided, to United States military operations, notwithstanding any other provision of law," requires reports from the Defense Department to both the
appropriations and armed services committees of the House and Senate on how the money was spent.
The Pentagon's reports to Congress lack detailed descriptions of costs incurred, the study alleged.
For example, for the three-month period from April to June 2003, US taxpayers reimbursed Pakistan nearly $193 million, it said, adding the Pentagon's report, said nothing more than, "This payment is based on the bills submitted from... Pakistan for the support it provided to US military operations during April through June related to the global war on terrorism (GWOT)."
Later that same year, Pentagon approved another $195 million payment to Pakistan and its report suggested that "little or no actual costs" were known, the Center alleged.
