Update: U.S. Congressional Action

Yesterday, the U.S. Congress finally passed the year-end budget; it made a couple of interesting statements about the Congress's views on our policy towards Pakistan.

In 2004, the Bush Administration committed to provide $3 billion over 5 years to Pakistan, to be spent equally between military assistance and social and economic aid (this comes out to $300 million every year for five years for each pot) . Yesterday, for the first time, Congress put some restrictions on the military part of this assistance. Congress has mandated that $50 million of the $300 million military assistance should be withheld until Secretary of State Rice certifies that Pakistan is "implementing democratic reforms." The other $250 million for military purposes is now limited to "counter-terrorism and law enforcement activities directed against Al Qaida and the Taliban and associated terrorist groups."

While this language can be interpreted multiple ways, the apparent intent is to make the promised F-16s, P-3s and other such offensive conventional equipment conditional on more action (and progress) against terrorism. How "democratic reforms" is defined is also unclear.

This comes on top of an earlier decision by the Administration to restrict its annual payment of $200 million that has historically gone to the Pakistani Government. This will still be allotted to Pakistan, but will be spent instead by USAID.