by Shuja Nawaz
Ahuja recalls that President Obama signalled that ‘getting some sort of a financial package for Pakistan, an economic/military package, was his priority. So we, in the House, started working on what it would look like, knowing full well that the Senate was doing the same.’ 33 The champions on the Senate side, according to her, were Senators Kerry and Lugar. ‘It was Biden’s original bill, so Jonah Blank’ was also a champion. On the House side, she identified Congressmen Berman, and Ed Royce, a Republican from California, as the strong partners in the effort. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, democrat from Texas and chair of the Pakistan Caucus, was ‘very involved’ in the process.
The resulting effort produced what became the ‘Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009’ or the ‘PEACE Act of 2009’ on the House side, and the bill that carried the Biden title except for the coda of 2009 as the new date for the 111th Congress. There were thus two different and separate bills.
Ahuja recalls the process:
The first bill to come out in that session related to Pakistan was the ‘House’ version of the bill. The Senate then came out with their initial version of the bill. Their initial version of the bill and what became law are very, very different. The format of the bill, the final law, follows the House format of the bill. I recall there were three different titles of it, for instance, so three separate parts [in the House version], and there were similarly three separate parts in what became the law. Similarly, as I recall, there was no authorization specifically for security assistance, for instance, in the Senate original version, as introduced, but in what become law, as in the House version of the bill, there was in fact security assistance authorized, and what the security assistance would be used for. 34
Given the many contributions from house members, it was challenging to craft the final draft based upon an ‘agreed version’. 35
In her consultations with the Pakistan embassy, the US embassy in Islamabad, think-tank experts and others, Ahuja was trying to garner feedback. Among these sessions, she recalled a visit by Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and his entourage to the Hill. The group included the DG-ISI Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha and other senior military officers. Congressman Berman spoke to the army chief,
. . . about some items in it that might be less palatable to General Kayani, and the General said, ‘I understand. Essentially democracies are a democracy.’ He didn’t use those words, but he [said that he] understands how the process works. Berman later repeated this characterization of the bill in an interview with the media and his views were also captured by Ahmed Rashid for the BBC. 36
Amb. Haqqani had also flagged for the Congressman the areas that ‘he thought the military would not appreciate’.
He was right about that. The military chose to come out with a statement that essentially refused to accept the conditions perceived to be inherent in the new KLB bill. The parts that the military took special umbrage at actually did not apply to Pakistan per se, they dealt with the certification requirements within the US system for the administration to assure Congress that Pakistan was on the path to representative and independent civilian rule, free of military control, direct or indirect. Interestingly, Jasmeet Ahuja pointed out that the original Senate bill from the 2009 Session (the original ‘Kerry Lugar’ bill) S.962 required the Secretary of State to certify that the military: ‘(3) are not materially interfering in the political or judicial processes of Pakistan’. The original House bill, HR1886, had no such language. The Pakistani military was convinced that Haqqani had helped draft or point the way for US Congressional staffers to tighten the screws on the military via the certification rules.
Indeed, Bill S3263 of 15 July 2008, presented in the second session of the 110th Congress by Mr Biden (for himself, Mr Lugar, Mr Obama, Mr Hagel, Mr Kerry, Mr Casey, Mrs Boxer, Mr Durbin, Mr Carper, Mrs Clinton, Mr Dodd and Mr Whitehouse), which was read twice and referred to the CFR, had a relevant section dealing with certification and waivers.
Section 6 of this original draft Senate bill stated:
(c) Certification The certification required by this subsection is a certification to the appropriate congressional committees by the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence, that the security forces of Pakistan—
(1) are making concerted efforts to prevent al Qaeda and associated terrorist groups from operating in the territory of Pakistan;
(2) are making concerted efforts to prevent the Taliban from using the territory of Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks within Afghanistan; and
(3) are not materially interfering in the political or judicial processes of Pakistan.
(d) Waiver The Secretary of State may waive the limitations in subsections (a) and (b) if the Secretary determines it is in the national security interests of the United States to provide such waiver. 37
This certification requirement levied on the US administration was reproduced in Bill S962 that was presented in the 111th Congress by a fresh cast of characters since former senators Obama and Biden had moved on to higher office. This act was passed by the Senate on 24 June 2009.
Similar certifications requirements were in S1707 that passed Congress on 23 August 2010. Under Section 203:
(c) Certification
The certification required by this subsection is a certification by the Secretary of State, under the direction of the President, to the appropriate congressional committees that—
(1) the Government of Pakistan is continuing to cooperate with the United States in efforts to dismantle supplier networks relating to the acquisition of nuclear weapons-related materials, such as providing relevant information from or direct access to Pakistani nationals associated with such networks;
(2) the Government of Pakistan during the preceding fiscal year has demonstrated a sustained commitment to and is making significant efforts towards combating terrorist groups, consistent with the purposes of assistance described in section 201, including taking into account the extent to which the Government of Pakistan has made progress on matters such as—
(A) ceasing support, including by any elements within the Pakistan military or its intelligence agency, to extremist and terrorist groups, particularly to any group that has conducted attacks against United States or coalition forces in Afghanistan, or against the territory or people of neighbouring countries;
(B) preventing al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, from operating in the territory of Pakistan, including carrying out crossborder attacks into neighbouring countries, closing terrorist camps in the FATA, dismantling terrorist bases of operations in other parts of the country, including Quetta and Muridke, and taking action when provided with intelligence about high-level terrorist targets; and
(C) strengthening counterterrorism and anti-money-laundering laws; and
(3) the security forces of Pakistan are not materially and substantially subverting the political or judicial processes of Pakistan [emphasis added].
Via this bill, Congress also sought under Section 302 semi-annual monitoring reports from the US administration:
(11) an evaluation of efforts undertaken by the Government of Pakistan to—
(A) disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other extremist and terrorist groups in the FATA and settled areas;
(B) eliminate the safe havens of such forces in Pakistan;
(C) close terrorist camps, including those of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed;
(D) cease all support for extremist and terrorist groups;
(E) prevent attacks into neighbouring countries;
(F) increase oversight over curriculum in madrassas, including closing madrassas with direct links to the Taliban or other extremist and terrorist groups; and
(G) improve counterterrorism financing and anti-money-laundering laws, apply for observer status for the Financial Action Task Force, and
take steps to adhere to the United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism;
(12) a detailed description of Pakistan’s efforts to prevent proliferation of nuclear-related material and expertise;
(13) an assessment of whether assistance provided to Pakistan has directly or indirectly aided the expansion of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, whether by the diversion of United States assistance or the reallocation of Pakistan’s financial resources that would otherwise be spent for programs and activities unrelated to its nuclear weapons program;
(14) a detailed description of the extent to which funds obligated and expended pursuant to section 202(b) meet the requirements of such section; and
(15) an assessment of the extent to which the Government of Pakistan exercises effective civilian control of the military, including a description of the extent to which civilian executive leaders and parliament exercise oversight and approval of military budgets, the chain of command, the process of promotion for senior military leaders, civilian involvement in strategic guidance and planning, and military involvement in civil administration [emphasis added]. 38
These conditionalities reverberated in US–Pakistan history for years to come and were reflected in some of the stringent and muscular tactics of the Trump administration in 2017 and 2018. In 2010 and 2011, they created a political fire storm in Pakistan, pitting the military against the civilian government. Lacking the ability to monitor and manage financial flows effectively, the civilian government may have been secretly pleased to see the Americans shine the light on the issues that highlighted the allocation of funds within Pakistan: by whom? for whom? But the military was suspicious of the civilians, their representative in Washington and the Americans.
Backlash from the Military
As CBS News reported:
In an attempt to address Washington’s concerns over Pakistan’s military and its long-suspected ties to hard-line Islamic militants, the bill stipulates that US military aid will be withheld if there is evidence that Pakistan is not helping to fight terrorists including al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The bill also seeks Pakistan’s cooperation to dismantle illegal nuclear supply networks by sharing ‘relevant information from or direct access to Pakistani nationals associated with such networks.’
. . . The bill also provides for an assessment of the control of Pakistan’s civilian government over the powerful military which has ruled it directly for more than half its life since it became independent in 1947.
Apparently stung by such provisions, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani (sic), the powerful military chief, on Wednesday met with his top commanders at the Pakistan army’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi—a suburb (sic) of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
‘The forum expressed serious concern regarding clauses impacting on national security,’ said the military in a statement after the meeting, acknowledging that part of the discussion was on the Kerry–Lugar bill.
The military further said it was providing the government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani who both support the Kerry–Lugar bill with its ‘formal input’ over the issue. The statement also said it was the parliament that would debate the issue and finally enable the government to respond. 39
A spooked government dispatched Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to Washington. Ahuja recalled that Ambassador Haqqani played the role of a facilitator and emollient to get Congress to issue a joint statement, separate from the bill, to allay Pakistan’s concerns about infringement of its sovereignty.
But the bottom line in Congress, as reflected in Ahuja’s words, was clear. The US continued to go for the ‘harder assistance’, not just infrastructure such as dams or a bridge, like China.
Ahuja summed up:
So we believe in democracy . . . the whole freedom agenda of President Bush was to spread democracy, and so part of that is helping, for instance, civilian institutions get legs. Ensuring that the military isn’t involved in selecting government, and we hear, and have heard, and continue to hear voices in Pakistan who agree with us, and so we want to, as we say in US parlance, amplify those voices and give them a voice.
That was the intent of the bill. Maybe it’s impossible . . . We want to get our hands dirty and help on women’s empowerment or women’s rights because we think there’s profound change that can happen from empowering a mother, a sister, a daughter, but it’s not sexy [as a dam] and it’s really hard. 40
Not just hard. But also complicated, since both sides continued to have many different voices and the dialogue was filled with noise. The Government Accountability Office, for example, had prompted the emergence of the KLB legislation by calling for a comprehensive programme to address Pakistan’s needs. Other voices had chimed in. The Atlantic Council also published a Task Force report, co-sponsored by senators Kerry and Hagel, and presented by me on the Hill in February 2009 in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Room, listing many issues that needed to be addressed urgently to create a sustainable partnership. 41 Despite these efforts to transmute the relationship from transactional to strategic, the rifts stayed within each polity and between the US and Pakistan—except for some manner of cooperation between their militaries, though their relationship also was marked by a certain and abiding level of mistrust.
Pakistan continued to operate as an aid-dependent country, living from handout to handout rather than reshaping its economic and political landscape to take into account its natural and human resources as well as its strategic location for economic advantage. The US lacked a strategy for Pakistan that would build its ties with this key South Asian nation on the one hand and help its global aim to contain China’s growing influence. It failed to persuade Pakistan to produce a viable and sustainable plan for coordinating receipt and use of US aid to maximum effect. Pakistani civilian governments tended to aim for short-term development expenditures that would yield electoral benefits but not lay the ground for longer-term growth. They also failed to understand or rein in military expenditures to assist the military in improving its internal financial management and to do more with less. Instead, they relied on conniving with donors to send messages to the military. This added to mistrust internally as well as between the US and Pakistan. For its part, the US lost confidence in the civilians and relied heavily on its military partners in Pakistan. But pressure, rather than persuasion, or better still, moral suasion, failed to produce results.
9
Mil-to-Mil Relations: Do More
A persistently nagging theme in US–Pakistan relations, especially in the so-called mil-to-mil relationship between the two militaries, was the US demand that Pakistan ‘Do more’. As the Afghan War sank into a quagmire in the first decade of that conflict, the US began to see ‘signs that Pakistan may not be a fully willing and effective US partner, and that official Pakistani elements continue to support Afghan insurgent forces’. Indeed,
. . . during a period of economic and budget crises in the United States, Obama Administration officials and some senior Members of Congress voiced concerns about the efficacy of continuing the flow of billions of US aid dollars into Pakistan, with some in Congress urging more stringent conditions on, or even curtailment of such aid. 1
US policy took on a catch-as-catch-can approach. Some called it ‘kicking the can down the road’, a signature criticism of Obama’s foreign policy, not just for the Af–Pak region, but also for other wars around the Middle East. By the time President Donald J. Trump was elected, these sentiments bubbled again to the surface. An aggressive foreign policy was the order of the day, launched by a brash and untutored new president who favoured disruption as a tactic and reportedly resisted detailed briefings on complex foreign policy issues.
By 2010, President Obama had turned from being actively engaged with Pakistan issues to realizing that it would not be possible to produce a sustainable strategic relationship. His key security policy aides saw him as resigned
to a purely transactional relationship from then onwards. (Interestingly, he never once visited Pakistan as president.) The Strategic Dialogue with Pakistan pursued by his team at the NSC and the Department of State sputtered along. But it failed to produce any breakthrough change in Pakistani or US behaviour. The year 2011 proved to be the watershed, not only because of the events that unfolded in Pakistan, but also because it highlighted the misalliance, as US budget constraints forced the US Congress to weigh the placement of further certification requirements on the flow of both civil and military assistance to Pakistan. Pakistan, and especially its military, continued to believe that it remained crucial to the US’s strategic calculus in Afghanistan and the region, and that it could leverage its strategic location to good effect. Meanwhile, it chose to avoid taking action against some adherents of militancy and terrorism at home, especially domestic groups that operated against the US in Afghanistan and India, both in Afghanistan and in Kashmir. It had gotten away with this policy for nearly a decade and hoped that the US would continue to give it leeway, as it had done in the past, for tactical reasons.
According to a senior US diplomat with years of experience in the region and Pakistan, ‘You can fool the “gora” (white guy) most of the time’ was the basis of the Pakistani stance. During a conversation, he tested this hypothesis on a DG-ISI, someone who had been trained in the US. After his initial shock and surprise at this direct accusation, the DG-ISI murmured a reluctant and unexpected ‘Yes’. The US on its part talked about a strategic approach to Pakistan and the region, but it too continued to behave tactically, shifting its policies and operations frequently and behaving in a transactional manner. It was prepared to look the other way on Pakistani transgressions, in the interest of temporary gains, thus feeding the Pakistani cynicism. It also prosecuted the war in Afghanistan in a manner that defied military logic.
