By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration asked for millions of dollars Wednesday to help equip and train Pakistan's army to fight insurgents inside its borders and shift away from its traditional focus on rival India.
Undersecretary of Defense Policy Michele Flournoy said the effort marks the first time the Pentagon planned to direct anti-insurgency money toward training and outfitting of Pakistan's army. The U.S. already is aiding Pakistani special forces and frontier militias.
Flournoy told the House Armed Services Committee that Pakistan was slowly realizing that insurgents along its western border with Afghanistan may pose a greater threat to its stability than India, the nation's longtime adversary.
"Now that there is greater willingness on the Pakistani side to address this, I think we have to support them in being more effective," she said.
At issue is a $400 million funding request the Pentagon and State Department says would be spent only on Pakistan counterinsurgency missions. The money would be the first bite of a total estimated $3 billion package over five years to curb extremism in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
Noting that tens of thousands of U.S. troops are already in Afghanistan, Flournoy said it is "very important to see this in the context of the fact that this is an integrated theater, this border region."
The administration also is close to finalizing plans to provide training for the Pakistani military at a location outside Pakistan. While the site has not been decided, a senior administration official said Wednesday that the issue would come up next week as President Barack Obama meets with Pakistani leaders.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue still was in discussion, said the expanded training comes in response to a request from Pakistan. The details were very nearly worked out, the official said.
There are roughly 80 U.S. military trainers in Pakistan training members of the Frontier Corps, but the Pakistanis have been very explicit that they do not want a lot of American boots on the ground in their country.
Democrats and Republicans on the House panel raised questions Wednesday about whether the money should be spent on an army that has long targeted India instead of insurgents.
Following the bloody terror attacks in the Indian financial center in Mumbai late last year, Pakistan moved thousands of troops from the Afghan border to the Indian frontier.
"I do come from a part of the world where $400 million is still a lot of money," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. "It seems to me that the Pakistani government considers India the primary threat, the Taliban not to be a threat."
Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., noted that 80 percent of the Pakistani army is focused on its border with India.
"Has that changed?" he asked.
Vice Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., a top Pentagon strategy planner who also testified Wednesday, gave the example of Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, who "has lost more people out west than he has against India — and he knows it."
"He realizes it, and the entire government is beginning to realize it more and more, that this is the real immediate threat," Winnefeld said.
Winnefeld conceded that Pakistan's leaders are "still worried about India. And we would love for them to worry less about India and more about the west, where insurgents are making gains."
Winnefeld estimated that Pakistan has had 1,400 troops killed in action while fighting insurgents in western regions bordering Afghanistan. There are currently around 100,000 Pakistani troops along its western border, Winnefeld said, but he did not indicate how many have been deployed to the Indian border.
Both Flournoy and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher described Pakistan's stability as important as neighboring Afghanistan's, where as many as 68,000 U.S. troops will be fighting a resurgent Taliban this year.
With al-Qaida and Taliban extremists crossing the nations' shared border and hiding out in their mountainous terrains, the officials warned that as Pakistan's security goes, so goes Afghanistan's.
___
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Comments