[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PAKISTAN AT THE CROSSROADS; AFGHANISTAN IN THE BALANCE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 12, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-173
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
TOM LANTOS, California TOM DAVIS, Virginia
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
DIANE E. WATSON, California MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DARRELL E. ISSA, California
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
Columbia BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BILL SALI, Idaho
JIM COOPER, Tennessee JIM JORDAN, Ohio
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
David Marin, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DAN BURTON, Indiana
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
Dave Turk, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on July 12, 2007.................................... 1
Statement of:
Boucher, Richard A., Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of
South and Central Asian Affairs............................ 10
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Boucher, Richard A., Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of
South and Central Asian Affairs, prepared statement of..... 15
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 9
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 4
PAKISTAN AT THE CROSSROADS; AFGHANISTAN IN THE BALANCE
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THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, Lynch, Higgins, Yarmuth,
Braley, Cooper, Van Hollen, Hodes, Shays, Burton, Platts,
Duncan, and Turner.
Staff present: Dave Turk, staff director; Andrew Su and
Andy Wright, professional staff members; Davis Hake, clerk; A.
Brooke Bennett, minority counsel; and Benjamin Chance, minority
clerk.
Mr. Tierney. Good morning. As a quorum is present for our
purposes here this morning, the Subcommittee on National
Security and Foreign Affairs hearing entitled, ``Pakistan at
the Crossroads; Afghanistan in the Balance,'' will come to
order.
I ask unanimous consent that the chairman and ranking
minority member of the subcommittee make opening statements.
Without objection, that is so ordered.
Also, I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be
kept open for 5 business days so that all members of the
subcommittee may be allowed to submit a written statement for
the record. Without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the following written
statement and materials be placed in the hearing record: that
of the Honorable Richard A. Boucher, Assistant Secretary of
State, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. Without
objection, so ordered.
For purposes of this hearing, I would like to just put some
remarks on the record and then invite Mr. Shays to do the same,
and then we would like to go directly to our witness who has
been kind enough to join us here this morning.
Today we are continuing our sustained oversight of U.S.
policy toward Pakistan. We do it for two fundamental reasons:
first, that Pakistan has been and remains absolutely vital for
the United States' national security. The 9/11 Commission
stressed, ``It is hard to overstate the importance of Pakistan
in the struggle against Islamic terrorism.'' More recently,
Fareed Zakaria, among others, has reiterated that Pakistan
should be considered the ``central front in the war on
terror.''
Second, Pakistan finds itself at the most important
crossroads it has faced in years, and it is absolutely vital
that we in the U.S. Government seize this opportunity to ask
ourselves whether current U.S. policy needs to be reassessed in
order to best ensure long-term U.S. national security
interests.
Pakistan faces this crossroads as it rounds the bend into
upcoming national elections. The crossroads is represented by
two ongoing dramas: one, the full-blown judicial crisis
precipitated by President Musharraf's suspension of Chief
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry; and two, the fallout from the bloody
conclusion to the tense standoff with extremists at Islamabad's
Red Mosque.
Protests of President Musharraf's suspension of the Chief
Justice are populated by lawyers and proponents of a robust
civil society, judicial independence, and democratic rule of
law, while those rising in support of the Red Mosque are
populated by extremists and jihadis who wish to impose a
repressive view of Islam on all Pakistanis.
This subcommittee's May hearing focused on the links
between Pakistan's rising tide of extremism and its relation to
a failing Pakistani education system. The Red Mosque is merely
a stark symbol of the deeper, more pervasive problem in
Pakistan, where there are far more jihadists, extremist
madrassas, Al Qaeda operatives, Taliban safe havens, and
international terrorist training camps than Pakistani
government officials are willing to admit. In fact, just 2
months ago our own State Department concluded, ``Pakistan
remains a major source of Islamic extremism and a safe haven
for some top terrorist leaders.''
It is vitally clear that extremism in Pakistan is of
immediate concern to the United States' interests, including
its having fueled a resurgence of violence in Afghanistan. The
9/11 Public Disclosure Project warned that President Musharraf,
``has not shut down extremist-linked madrassas or terrorist
camps. Taliban forces still pass freely across the Pakistan-
Afghanistan border and operate in Pakistani tribal areas.'' And
these border groups gained political legitimacy last year when
General Musharraf signed a series of dubious peace deals with
the Pakistani Taliban.
Pakistan's intensifying extremism also has consequences
that reach far beyond Afghanistan. The July 7, 2005, London
subway terrorist bombings and a later incident involving
fertilizer bombs both involved terrorists who had attended
Pakistani madrassas and training camps.
Due to President Musharraf's, some would say, tepid
cooperation in controlling extremism and disrupting terror
networks, along with signs that these crises have compromised
his grip on power, there is a growing chorus calling for a
significant reevaluation of U.S. policy toward Pakistan.
This past Monday, alone, critical editorials ran in both
the Washington Post and the New York Times. The Times noted,
``America needs to maintain friendly relations with Pakistan.
This is exactly why Washington should hasten to disentangle
itself from the sinking fortunes of General Pervez Musharraf, a
blundering and increasingly unpopular military dictator and a
halfhearted strategic ally of the United States.''
The Washington Post editorial stressed their view of the
administration's policy this way: ``Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf
is running out of supporters--except in Washington.''
Today's hearing presents an opportunity to explore a whole
slew of critical questions with the administration's point
person on Pakistan.
For example, where does Pakistan's cooperation against
international terrorism stand, especially in light of the
spread of jihadi extremism in Pakistan, and what impact does
this have on U.S. forces and efforts in Afghanistan and
elsewhere in the world?
Is our current aid package to Pakistan, one in which we are
providing at least 10 times more for military aid than for
basic education assistance, in the best long-term interests of
United States' national security?
What should United States' policy be with respect to
Pakistan's civil society, in light of the escalating crisis
following President Musharraf's dismissal of the Chief Justice
of Pakistan's Supreme Court?
And what is the United States doing to help ensure that the
upcoming Pakistani national elections occur and are free and
fair, from voter registration to vote tally? And what are the
consequences for President Musharraf if they are not?
The people of Pakistan stand at a crossroads and U.S.
efforts in Afghanistan and the world's success against
international terrorism hang in the balance.
This Congressman feels that the United States needs to send
a powerful message at this critical juncture that we stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and sisters in Pakistan
in their pursuit of education for their children and democracy
for their country.
It has often been said that Pakistan is a place of
breathtaking complexity. It is in part because of this that our
long-term national security interests are best served by
forging bonds with the Pakistani people and not necessarily
with any one particular leader.
I am pleased that our State Department's Pakistan point
person is here with us today in order to present the
administration's viewpoint and to engage in what I hope will be
a robust discussion.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Today the subcommittee again discusses serious
issues involving Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the broader region.
Mr. Chairman, I congratulate you on holding such a timely
hearing--timely in light of all eyes having turned toward
Islamabad with last week's military action against nearly 2,000
extremists holed up in the Red Mosque.
These dynamic developments--and in Pakistan's capital city
nonetheless--underscore our need to understand the forces
threatening the peace and stability of our allies in the South
Asia region and allies across the globe.
I look forward to today's hearing as an opportunity to
discuss first the effects of extremism in Pakistan; second, the
effects of U.S. aid to Pakistan; third, the prognosis for
Pakistan's forthcoming elections, and; fourth, the implications
for Pakistan's civil society and President Musharraf's
attempted dismissal of the Pakistani Chief Justice.
Subcommittee staff recently met with a delegation of
provincial leaders from the Afghan side of the Pakistan-Afghan
border. These Afghani leaders expressed hope for a peaceful
Afghanistan, but stated peace and development cannot be
achieved without security. Security cannot be achieved without
stricter border enforcement. And strict border enforcement
cannot be achieved without cooperation from the Pakistani
government and stronger action by President Musharraf. These
are strong and insightful sentiments expressed by the Afghani
leaders, especially as they are most directly affected by
Pakistani action or inaction.
Some strongly question the will and inclination of
President Musharraf to stand up to the challenges faced by
Pakistan. We hear President Musharraf is thwarting the role of
the judiciary. There are indications he is thwarting democracy
by not allowing political candidates to return to Pakistan to
stand for election.
President Musharraf may be turning a blind eye toward the
growing ranks of Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan, lacking the
ability or will to crack down on terrorist training camps in
western Pakistan, and stopping the proliferation of jihadists
moving across the Pakistan-Afghan border, and attacks on
Coalition forces and Afghan civilians. In fact, some say with
confidence that Osama bin Laden is currently in a training camp
near the Pakistani-Afghan border not far from Peshawar, in
fact, yet somehow President Musharraf has not been able to find
it.
So what of all of this is true? If any of it is true, how
does the United States justify continuing its seemingly
unconditional support for Musharraf's government? And how do we
in Congress justify to the American people writing checks for
billions of dollars to a regime that may not be the partner
against terrorism the United States needs it to be but may
actually be hurting national security interests of the United
States and our allies? While many inside and outside Pakistan
question President Musharraf's policies, Pakistan remains a
strategic U.S. partner in the struggle against terrorism, and
we should not forget Pakistan has been a strong supporter and
ally to the United States.
That said, our support cannot be unconditional. We look
forward to getting answers to some basic questions that go to
the heart of protecting the security of this Nation and her
allies, the safety of the United States and Coalition forces
serving in Afghanistan, and peace and stability around the
world.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Shays.
We will now receive testimony from our witness that is with
us here today. I want to begin by introducing the witness. I
won't go into the long resume. I think most people are familiar
with it, but it is a long and distinguished career as a public
servant in Foreign Affairs, and I appreciate that, and we all
do. I would like to welcome Ambassador Richard A. Boucher,
Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and
Central Asian Affairs.
Mr. Boucher, as you know, it is the policy of this
subcommittee to swear you in before you testify, so I ask you
to please stand and raise your right hand.
If any other person is going to be assisting you in
testimony today, we would ask them also to stand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. I am going to suggest, Mr. Boucher, that you
can recognize that your written remarks are already on the
record and will be incorporated in there. Please feel free to
either reiterate them or to speak in an abbreviated fashion. We
have 5 minutes generally for the opening statement. We are
going to be liberal with that because of the complexity of the
topic, but with some mindfulness, allowing Members at some
point to be able to get some questions in.
Thank you, sir.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD A. BOUCHER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE,
BUREAU OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Boucher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shays, other
members of the subcommittee. It is a great pleasure to be here
today, and I thank you for holding a hearing that is both
topical and timely. I appreciate the effort that you all put
into supporting and working with Pakistan and the travel that
you have made out there to help further our policy goals.
I would like to give a sort of abbreviated introduction,
because I am sure that with the breathtaking complexities that
you referred to, that we will probably get to a lot of
different things during the course of questions. But if I can,
I would like to lay out sort of the basic framework of how we
see Pakistan and what we are doing there.
As you noted, Pakistan is a vital ally to us in a very
broad variety of ways. Our goal is to see that Pakistan
succeeds as a democratic nation, a prosperous people, and a
moderate Moslem society.
First of all, Pakistan is vital to the war on terror. We
all need to do everything we can to prevent attacks that could
come from this part of the world.
Second of all, Pakistan is vital to the fight in
Afghanistan. We all know we won't have stability in Afghanistan
unless Pakistan is stable, and vice versa. The militancy, the
extremism can move both ways across the border, and that is
something that leaders in both Pakistan and Afghanistan
recognize.
Third, in a more long-term, strategic way, Pakistan is
vital to opening up the flow of people, energy, ideas, and
trade between South and Central Asia. That is a strategic
change that can reverse hundreds of years of history and open
up opportunities for the countries of Central Asia, as well as
South Asia.
We have and will have a long and very enduring strategic
relationship with Pakistan, to work together for its success in
all these areas, but achieving our goals in Pakistan is going
to take time.
So how can we help Pakistan succeed politically,
economically, and militarily? I talk about the four E's--
education, economy, energy, and elections.
First, we are supporting the renewal of Pakistan's public
education system. If you look at all the various money we put
in through project assistance, through the Fulbright program,
through their own budget, it is well over $100 million a year
that we put into the reform and expansion of education in
Pakistan. That is a small part of their own efforts to reform
and expand their education system. They have, I think, gone
from $1.3 billion a year on education from the Federal budget
in 2003 to about $2.3 billion a year spent in education from
their own Federal budget. Our assistance helps support that.
Second is the reform and expansion of the economy. The
economy is growing at 6, 7 percent a year, based on open
investment climate, open economy, and that is doing quite well.
We want to support and continue that.
The third is helping them support the diversification of
their energy supplies. One of the problems that Pakistan faces,
particularly this year, is called load shedding. It is
basically brownouts, cutting in power to a lot of people. That
is one of the things that you see a lot of comment on in the
press and in politics. We are trying to work with the
government, work with other nations to bring energy down from
the north in the form of electricity from Tajikistan and other
places, as well as to help them develop new sources of energy
in coal or alternate energy systems.
The fourth E is elections. Pakistan is poised now for a
peaceful transition this year from military rule to civilian
government. We are doing everything we can to support a free
and fair election. We put about $20 million this year into
supporting the Election Commission doing basic poll watcher
training, political parties training, things like that, and we
have been very active and outspoken in pushing for an open
election and trying to help look at some of the areas where
they can do better in terms of making sure that everybody has a
choice, and that the choices of voters in Pakistan are
respected.
We have also made clear we think this election is important
for the body politic of Pakistan, not just for the choices the
people have, but in order to form a more stable, moderate
center to Pakistani politics. We have tried to encourage that,
for the moderates to come together at the center so that they
are better poised to fight extremist elements in this society.
That is the fifth E, which is the danger, and that is
extremism that afflicts Pakistan. It is a threat to the people
of Pakistan. It is a threat to the national goals of
modernizing Pakistan. It has manifest itself in a number of
ways, but let me start with the tribal areas.
Tribal areas of Pakistan have never been governed by the
same arrangements as the rest of the country. Going back to
British days, these were covered under sort of hands-off
arrangements, then during the modern period those arrangements
were never changed. So the government doesn't have the full
authority and writ in those places. They operate through agents
and through tribes.
Nonetheless, the government is interested in trying to
bring these places into the national system, into the national
economy, one of the reasons being to give people alternate ways
of earning a living than smuggling and picking up guns. So they
have developed a very comprehensive development plan for the
tribal areas. The Pakistan government is going to put $100
million a year for 10 years into the development of these
areas, and we have told them we will come up with $150 million
a year for the next 5 years to support the economic development
of the tribal areas.
In addition, we are trying to open up some economic
opportunity for the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan,
and have said we are going to propose to the Congress
reconstruction opportunity zones. We hope that there will be a
legislative opportunity for that in the coming months, and we
hope that Members will support that legislation when it
appears, because it is, again, the idea that if you can have
economic development in these regions you can use the economic
development to bring people into the national economy and to
get them to take up different occupations than the ones many of
the young men there have been following.
The second big thing going on in the tribal areas has been
the security efforts. Now, Pakistan, as I said, has been a
strong ally in the fight against terrorism. They have captured
more Al Qaeda than any country in the world, lost more people
in doing that. They have been key to the efforts that have been
made over the last 5 years.
You have also seen perhaps, over the last 6 to 9 months,
more of the focus on the tribal areas of Pakistan, the border
areas of Pakistan. And, indeed, they have had a number of
successes. Several major Taliban leaders have been captured or
killed this year so far, Molaz Mani in January and Mullah
Obadullah, Muladu Dulalang. Some of these gentlemen were killed
in Afghanistan, but these were all joint efforts with Pakistan
that led to the elimination of some of the top Taliban leaders
who have been operating from Pakistan to support the insurgency
in Afghanistan.
The addition you saw earlier this year, the tribal leaders
with some support from the government turned on what they call
the Uzbeks, some of the foreign militants who have been in
these areas associated with Al Qaeda, engaging in trade and
engaging in bombing and engaging in fighting alongside the
Taliban, and hundreds of those people were expelled from the
tribal regions this year with the support of the government.
The government has now made clear to the tribes that all
the foreign elements, the foreign militants, are a danger to--
those areas are a danger to Pakistan and need to be expelled,
and you have seen very strong warnings from President Musharraf
about 2 weeks ago, from Governor Orakzai, the Governor of
Northwest Region, in recent days warning the tribes that they
need to expel the foreigners and not allow the Taliban to cross
the border or to cross into the settled areas of Pakistan. That
has been a big concern throughout Pakistan, that the Taliban
are somehow trying to expand the heir influence in the settled
areas.
So you have seen steps that the government has taken in
terms of moving troops into the region, putting up better
checkpoints near the borders. They have built more border
posts. They have equipped the people there better, and we have
tried to support that and will try to support that as we go on.
And the other manifestation of extremism that we have seen
the government deal with is the Red Mosque controversy. I
looked it up on the internet. This Mosque was founded in 1965.
It really grew over the last 20 years into a major center for
extremist views, extremist ideologies, and has been accused
over the last year to many attacks, abductions, forays against
policemen or people in society, and really has led to, you
might say, a popular backlash. A lot of Pakistanis see this
activity, a lot of Pakistanis have seen the activity of the
Taliban in some of the settled areas, have really risen up and
said no, you know, we want video stores, we want barber shops,
we want to have a normal, modern life.
The government tried to contain this problem for a long
time, was very reticent about going after the Mosque or going
into the Mosque because of the large numbers of women and
children who were there, but they found in the last couple of
weeks that they were not able to do that any more, and because
the militants were coming out and attacking policemen and
others and trying to seize weapons, so the government did
react. They have spent the last 9 days, I think it is, in a
military operation to clear the place out, and it looks like it
is pretty much over today.
There was some loss of life. We don't yet know the final
numbers on how many people might have been killed in the
operation, some soldiers, some militants inside the Mosque, but
I would say that, considering the difficulty of the operation,
the scope of the operation, and the refusal of the people
inside to negotiate and lay down their arms and come out
peacefully, the government did act with relative restraint and
care as they conducted this operation.
Let me say again, Mr. Chairman, these are all elements in
stabilizing Pakistan. Everything from education and energy and
elections to dealing with the problems of extremism, they are
all part of helping Pakistani people achieve better lives in a
more modern society.
This is the direction that President Musharraf is leading
the nation, and we are proud to work with him. It is a
fundamental direction that is important to us and important to
him and important to the Pakistani people, and we work with the
government, we work with the people, we work with people, civil
society, political parties who want to lead Pakistan in this
direction.
If they succeed, Pakistan can not only be a stable anchor
for the region, prosperous nation for its people, but it can
also be a model to others in the developing world, particularly
in Moslem countries. So it is important that we help Pakistan
succeed, especially in making the transition this year to
civilian government and to a democratic government for its
country.
As I said at the beginning, I am pleased to see the
interest of Members of Congress and very happy to be able to
work with Congress as we go forward in trying to achieve these
goals, so thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your time. I
would be glad to take questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Boucher follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. We appreciate your
comments and your willingness to have a dialog with us.
I am going to start. Mr. Shays and I were talking, and his
suggestion, if there is no objection, we might do 10 minute
rounds of questioning, unless anybody has a pressing engagement
elsewhere. Sometimes, as you know, Ambassador, we have other
committees going on at the same time.
Mr. Boucher. I do.
Mr. Tierney. I will take the liberty of starting, if I may.
Ambassador, do you think that we have sufficiently broad
and deep enough ties to Pakistan to maintain a strategic
relationship with that country if President Musharraf were to
exit the scene? What are we doing specifically to facilitate
ties directly with the Pakistani people, and what else should
we be doing?
Mr. Boucher. Let me say I think we do have very broad ties
in Pakistan to people throughout the society. We know people
all over the country. We have consulates in Lahore, Kashower,
Karachi. We have people who worked down in Quetta, largely in
drug enforcement missions, but they work with local authorities
down there. Whenever I travel there I meet with a wide variety
of people, from the political parties of Pakistan--I have met
with people from all the political parties of Pakistan, and
these are, in fact, regular contacts of our embassy.
We certainly think the fundamental direction that President
Musharraf has been leading Pakistan is one that is compatible
with our goals and, frankly, compatible with the goals of the
majority of the Pakistani people, but we have very broad
outreach to all segments of society. We have been very involved
with the development of civil society. We have close ties with
women's groups, with academics, with legal people in the legal
profession, some of whom are now protesting, and politicians of
all stripe. So we do try to make sure that we have very broad
contacts there.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I want to give you a quote of the
author Ahmed Rashid, who I think you are familiar with, ``To
spook the west into continuing to support him, Musharraf
continues to grossly exaggerate the strength of the Islamic
parties that he warns might take over his nuclear-armed
country. In fact, the United States would be far safer if it
pushed for a truly representative Pakistani government that
could marginalize the jihadists rather than placing all its
eggs in Musharraf's basket.''
Do you agree with that statement? If not, why not?
Mr. Boucher. I think he is totally wrong. I think he is
wrong in his characterizations. I think his policy prescription
is exactly right, but I think that was the article that he
mentioned my name in quite a few times, and, frankly, a half a
dozen things in there are just flat out wrong.
We don't put all our eggs in one basket. We do support
moderation and we don't--I have never heard Musharraf or anyone
else exaggerate the strength of the Islamist parties. Most of
the people that I have talked to in Pakistani politics, whether
they are in government parties or other ones, think that
because of the distortions of the 2002 elections the Islamist
parties were able to actually gain more seats than they would
get and will get in a free and fair election. We will
ultimately see what the voters decide.
There have been some bi-elections, like the one up in
Bajaur, where the Islamist parties didn't do that well.
So I think the contention is not made. The idea that we
should push for a more centrist political orientation in
Pakistan and work with the parties to try to encourage that is
a correct observation, but, in fact, that is what we do, and
that is what I said in my testimony we do.
Mr. Tierney. I am encouraged to hear you say things along
that line. I happen to agree that if you have a legitimate
elected government under free and fair elections, the
legitimacy is going to better empower you to deal with
extremism. I think that is why it is important.
Looking at the election situation, I want to ask you if you
have reviewed the National Democratic Institute's USAID funded
review of preliminary voters list. I assume that you have.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. So what should we do regarding the finding?
And I am going to go through basically a number of these. One
finding that, based on a statistically significant sample size,
up to 13 of 52 million entries of the voter polls' rolls may be
duplicates or incorrect. What should we do about the fact that,
using that same sample size, up to 16 million eligible voters
are yet to be registered? What should we do with regard to the
finding that the voter rolls contain vastly fewer numbers than
previous elections on a scale suggesting that the reduction
cannot be attributed to the de-duplication, alone?
These are serious issues. When I hear you speak about
making sure that the votes are open and transparent, no
disagreement there; but tallying the votes on election day is
only one part of it. If we don't make sure that they have a
list over there from which they are working that enables
everybody to be registered that should be registered, that
doesn't put up poll taxes or other barriers to get people, I
think we are in for some difficulty there.
So on top of asking whether or not you read that poll and
respond to that, let me also ask you if you have read former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's June letter in which she laid
out, I think, about 10 different issues that were significant,
and your reaction to that, as well.
Mr. Boucher. Yes, sir, I have looked at the National
Democratic Institute report. I have seen Former Prime Minister
Bhutto's letter. Her party also did a very detailed and
extensive analysis of the 2002 election and a lot of the
problems that they saw there, and we have looked at that. We
have also looked at other reports on previous elections and
what needed to be corrected. So, you know, there are things in
there, basic things like transparent ballot boxes, that they
said, you know, really were needed, and that is one of the
things that we are paying for in Pakistan is to get them
transparent ballot boxes, which are harder to stuff.
So we have tried to take to heart all those things. More
important, I think, is we have tried to really encourage the
Election Commission to take those things seriously and to look
at all these specifics and deal with them.
When I was in Pakistan last time, I met again with the
Election Commissioner to talk to him about these things. The
voter rolls is, indeed, an issue. First of all, everybody
thinks there was a lot of duplication on the voter rolls, and,
second of all, everybody thinks there are a lot of people left
out. So at one point you have to reduce the duplication, but
you have to register all the unregistered people.
There were issues over ID cards that seem to have been
settled, but really the parties need to be able to go through
these lists and make sure that they are accurate and check
their voters, check their precinct voters, and check for
duplications.
Mr. Tierney. But if I can interrupt, that is not being
done. I mean, clearly as recently as yesterday, conversation
with people over there that is not being done and there is
still considerable concern about that.
Mr. Boucher. It is being done in some ways and not others.
The voting lists are now published at election centers. There
are display centers where the voter lists are on display in a
particular precinct. I went in Quetta to one of those display
centers at a school, and they have them there, and anybody can
come in and look and make sure my name is on and make sure
other names aren't on five times.
To do that in a nation of 50 to 70 million voters is pretty
hard, and particularly when you are doing across places, and so
we have pushed, encouraged the Election Commission to make
these lists available in CD form and computerized form so the
parties can go through them more thoroughly and use modern
technology to try to identify lapses.
At this point, you know, they talk about it. They haven't
done it. We keep pushing.
Mr. Tierney. Well, I hope that you will continue to keep
pushing----
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. Because I think those elections
are not going to be able to be termed free and fair----
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. Unless we get that resolved and,
given all the money that USAID and the United States is putting
into the elections, we are going to be the ones that are going
to be arguably----
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. Complicit, or at least people are
going to say that we are complicit----
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. In not having made that happen.
Mr. Boucher. Can I add one more thing?
Mr. Tierney. Sure.
Mr. Boucher. There is a lot of discussion right now in
Pakistan among the political parties about having all the
parties get together and agree on basic code of conduct and
rules, guidelines for the election. We think that would be a
very good thing. We have tried to encourage that with all the
parties.
Mr. Tierney. And I hope, which hasn't been done yet,
encouraging the Election Commission to have those parties at
the table and be able to work off of any complaints or
suggestions that they have.
Mr. Boucher. Absolutely.
Mr. Tierney. Which is not happening, either.
Mr. Boucher. That is one of the first things I said in my
first meeting with the Election Commissioner last year.
Mr. Tierney. Now, in your written testimony you said,
``President Musharraf reiterated his resolve to stop
Talibanization of the frontier areas.'' And you said, ``The
government of Pakistan has developed a comprehensive strategy
to combat terrorist extremists by integrating these ungoverned
spaces into the mainstream of Pakistan's economy and
government.''
I have to tell you that, you know, after having been there
and witnesses here in other hearings, what went on in the
Waziristan agreement clearly looks to be failed policy. Have
you had that conversation with President Musharraf? Does he
recognize and acknowledge that has been an extremely failed
policy? And reiterated again just yesterday by our own
individuals testifying in front of another committee telling us
that there are worse conditions there than before the
agreements, that not enough is being done.
Mr. Boucher. I think we all recognize that the agreement in
North Waziristan hasn't worked. The basic framework, because
the government doesn't have direct control, they thought they
could go and sign an agreement with the tribal leaders that was
based on three key premises: one is no foreigners, no foreign
militancy; two is no cross-border activity; and three is no
infiltration into settled areas.
That was a premise of the agreement that was signed in
September. By November we and others realized it wasn't
working. In fact, lifting the check points had led to probably
more freedom of movement and something of an influx of Al Qaeda
people into that area that was of serious concern to us.
President Musharraf recognizes that, as well, and has said
so in public, as well as in meetings.
So what they have done since then is to try to call the
tribes to account to make it work, and that was part of what
they did in December and January before they moved against the
Taliban and the Uzbeks in the area, and as part of what he has
done again in his recent statements, and General Orakzai's
recent statements to the tribes, that they need to expel all of
the foreigners, including the Al Qaeda Arabs.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. My time is up and I am going to
pass on to Mr. Shays.
I just want to say in the contest between the Uzbeks, we
were there pretty much when that was happening, and we had some
fairly good accounts from a number of different sources. There
was more like one Taliban group fighting another Taliban group,
and the government finally decided to weigh in. I would like to
explore that a little bit more with you later on.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. If you would just go to Mr. Duncan, I
might take some of his time.
Mr. Tierney. Certainly.
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling
this important hearing, and thank you Mr. Shays for coming to
me first.
Mr. Secretary, like I am sure most Members, I have read a
few thousand pages of articles, reports, news stories, excerpts
from books about Iraq over the last 5 years. I have read far
less about--and I have been to Iraq once, not like Mr. Shays,
who has been there I think 15 or 16 times, but I have never
been to Pakistan or Afghanistan and I know far less. I have
come mainly to learn here today.
I know most of your testimony so far has been about
Pakistan. The hearing is entitled, ``Pakistan at the
Crossroads; Afghanistan in the Balance.'' I am wondering can
you tell us what is the total U.S. presence in Pakistan and
Afghanistan at this time, counting civilian government
personnel, military personnel, and U.S. Government contractors?
Do you have any rough guess?
Mr. Boucher. I think somewhere in a briefing book I have
some exact numbers, but in Afghanistan the United States----
Mr. Duncan. I am asking about both countries.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Duncan. Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mr. Boucher. So let me do it piece by piece, and then----
Mr. Duncan. Sure. Go ahead.
Mr. Boucher. And then we can try to add them up.
The U.S. forces in Afghanistan are now about 26,000. There
are about 46,000 United States and NATO forces together. And,
in fact, we not only have more NATO troops in Afghanistan than
we did a couple of years ago, but we have more U.S. troops even
than when NATO started to deploy, so some of the feeling over
the last couple of years, maybe the United States was leaving
and NATO was coming in, is just wrong. We have had an expansion
of our forces and expansion of their area of operations, which
has been very important.
I would have to get an exact number on the number of
civilians that we have. We have, you know, several hundred at
our embassy. We have people out in the PRTs. I think a couple
dozen of the provincial reconstruction teams have Americans in
them, including American staff. I can get you the exact numbers
on that.
In Pakistan we have about I think 350 regular personnel
assigned to our embassy and associated with our embassy. As I
said, we have consulates in Mahor, Karachi, Peshawar. We have
drug enforcement personnel and some others down in Quetta at
the air wing down there. Some of those are contractors. And
then at any given moment we have several hundred temporary duty
people in Pakistan. So you probably have at any moment maybe
600 to 700 U.S. officials working in Pakistan, but, again, I
would have to get you more exact numbers.
Mr. Duncan. Well, I would appreciate it if you would submit
that information.
A similar and related question, you have mentioned that we
have promised $150 million over the next 5 years, for a total
of $750 million for economic development in the tribal areas.
We are spending $100 million a year on education. You mentioned
$20 million at another time. We have been given several
articles. One article mentions that Vice President Cheney
apparently expressed some concern that this Congress might cut
military aid that we are giving to the Pakistani military.
Can you tell me how much military aid we are giving? And
what I am wondering about, do you have any idea about how much
we are spending on a yearly basis on everything put together--
contractors, military, civilian--how much we are spending in
Pakistan on a yearly basis total?
Mr. Boucher. We spend----
Mr. Duncan. Aid direct and indirect.
Mr. Boucher. Yes. We spent $738 million this year on
assistance programs; $300 million of that goes to military
assistance. The rest is economic assistance, including things
like education, economic reform, some health programs,
earthquake relief and reconstruction programs, you know, bit of
emergency relief money we found after the cyclones hit Pakistan
recently. So that is 738, the bulk of which, 60 percent of
which is economic.
There is an addition. It is not assistance, it is
reimbursements. We reimburse the Pakistani military through
Coalition support funds for their costs in supporting the war
on terror and stationing troops and moving them around and
gasoline and bullets and training and other costs that they
incur as part of the war on terror, and so that is in
additional amounts that the Pentagon would have to get you, but
that comes to probably in the range of $100 million a month. It
is a lot of money. But they have 85,000 troops stationed at the
border areas and we pay for that support. But that is
reimbursements.
Mr. Duncan. So we are paying all their troops for their
work?
Mr. Boucher. I don't know if it comes to the whole amount
of their expenses, but we support their expenses, yes.
Mr. Duncan. Is there any other country in the world that is
coming anywhere close to doing what we are doing in Pakistan
and Afghanistan?
Mr. Boucher. No. Other countries are more and more
involved. The British have stepped up their aid program. The
European Union has just come forward with some money, but in a
smaller range than ours.
Mr. Duncan. We have been given a lot of articles from
various publications. One article is entitled: Pakistan's Shaky
Dictatorship. Do you think that most people in Pakistan regard
us as a neutral power broker or peacemaker, or do you think
that to most of them or many of them see us as propping up a
shaky or corrupt dictatorship?
Mr. Boucher. I think most people see us as supporting a
moderate, modernizing force in society, which includes
President Musharraf, it includes some of the political parties
who push in that direction, and it certainly includes all the
people who look for a free and fair election and a free press,
growth of civil society--all of those things that we have been
helping with and working with over the years.
I do think that the majority in Pakistan is headed in a
moderate and modern direction. They want the education. They
want the free election. They want the open press.
You know, they have gone from one TV station 8 years ago to
42 or 44 now, so a lot of changes, positive changes in the
economy and the society in Pakistan. I think most people want
that to continue, and most people do associate us with those
things that have happened and with the idea that progress needs
to be continued.
Mr. Duncan. One last question. The State Department's polls
over the last few years, except in the Kurdish areas in Iraq,
have shown that two-thirds or three-fourths of the Iraqi people
want us to leave or not occupy the country. I am wondering has
the State Department taken polls in Pakistan or Afghanistan?
And what percentage of the people would you estimate in those
two countries see us or look at us in a favorable light? What
would the polls show on that?
Mr. Boucher. I can't recall anything specific about
Pakistan polling that I have seen. In Afghanistan I have seen
polls that indicate that President Karzai continues to have
very strong support in the 60 or 70 percent range, that people
do support the government. They turned out to vote for it. They
voted for a president and parliament and they liked that. So
there is still very strong popular support there and support
for the U.S. presence.
Naturally they have concerns. They have concerns about some
of the operations and civilian casualties that have been
associated with those. They have concerns the government is not
delivering what they expect from government. And I think it is,
you know, incumbent on all of us not just to take for granted
what it may say in the polls, but look in the areas where we
can do better, and that is something we do try to do.
Mr. Duncan. Of course, I know they certainly want our
money.
I yield back my time to Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. If I could take your last 30 seconds, Mr.
Boucher, I am going to go speak on the House floor on the rule
on Iraq.
Mr. Boucher. Certainly, sir.
Mr. Shays. I will be back. I think this is an
extraordinarily important hearing, and I compliment my
colleagues for participating and thank them all for being here.
I will be back.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Cooper, recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to thank
you for this timely and topical hearing.
Our witness, Ambassador Boucher, is a diplomat, and he has
done an excellent job of putting a positive spin on U.S.-
Pakistani relationship. I worry, though, that the average
American who occasionally reads the international section of
the newspaper looks and sees a country they don't know much
about that is on the other side of the world. They may have
seen the Angelina Jolie movie, A Mighty Heart, but that might
be the limit of their knowledge of Pakistan. But if they read
the newspaper articles they see that they are probably
harboring Osama bin Laden, who, according to our U.S. military,
is still rated as about our No. 1 enemy in the world. They are
probably harboring Mullah Amar, the Taliban. We know they are
harboring A.Q. Khan, the world's leading nuclear proliferator.
I ask myself: is there anything else they could do to
harbor an international bad guy? And yet they are still listed
as a strong ally of our country and we are still, as my
colleague from Tennessee pointed out, giving them extraordinary
amounts of aid, both military, domestic? And here you are, a
perfectly nice, calm diplomat, talking about polling elections
in Pakistan when also in your testimony you admit much of the
country is ungoverned space, tribal areas the government
doesn't even pretend to claim, and yet we are holding
elections? The chairman just pointed out that, what, 12 million
of the names on the rolls are duplicates or faulty?
I know you have to work with what you have, but there seems
to be a disconnect here. How can you solve this problem of
cognitive dissonance?
Mr. Boucher. Well, I mean, I solve it personally by reading
all the newspapers and not just a couple, because in the end
Mullah Amar is somewhere in that border region. If you have
ever flown over it, you have seen, you know, vast deserts, a
sort of hole-in-the-wall canyon where the people can hide out.
You have seen enormous mountains where people can hide out. You
have seen parts of the country, not large parts of the country,
parts of the country where the government doesn't hold sway.
Mullah Amar is probably out there somewhere. Bin Laden is
probably out there somewhere. But we are capturing the bad
guys, if you read, have been reading the papers about Pakistan
for years, you may remember that Ramsey Usef and Kalal Sheik
Mohammed were picked up there, that they have consistently
picked up Al Qaeda people, that they have lost people doing
that. You may have seen that Mulla Obadullah was picked up in
Pakistan, and Muladu Dulalang, a top leader of the Taliban from
Quetta, was killed in Afghanistan, in part with the help
Pakistanis provided us.
You may have seen press reports last week that indicated
they picked up several more top Taliban people associated with
Mullah Omar.
This is a constant effort. It is a constant effort. There
is good stuff going on and there is bad stuff going on. There
is a lot of turmoil. There is breathtaking complexity, and it
is sometimes hard to sort out.
Mr. Cooper. I am still trying to decide whether you are
being moderate and fair or whether you are just making excuses.
Mr. Boucher. I am trying to look at the whole picture.
Mr. Cooper. If they are able to harbor three of the world's
international outlaws, how many more can they harbor and the
State Department would still approve of their behavior? Is this
an open invitation, a Motel 6 for terrorists in Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. I don't think----
Mr. Cooper. That they can come and it is always OK and we
are doing the best we can?
Mr. Boucher. No. You know, a few days after September 11th
this administration put very blunt choices in front of the
Pakistanis and said, Are you going to fight these guys or not?
They said, Yes, we are going to fight those guys. And they have
done that, and they have done that for 5 years now. They
haven't gotten everybody, frankly nor have we gotten everybody
on the Afghan side. So we are always working together, always
talking to them. What's next? What do we need to do? Where can
we go? How do we cooperate across the border?
That is a constant effort. That is what Vice President
Cheney has been out there doing this year, Secretary Gates,
Deputy Secretary Negroponte.
Mr. Cooper. Let me ask a different question. Are you
confident that the State Department is even kept in the loop of
what America is really doing in Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Cooper. I know this is an open hearing, so we can't
talk about current events, but let's talk about some history.
The book, Charlie Wilson's War, a movie is coming out on that,
and then maybe Americans will tune in to what happened. Were
you aware at the time that Congressman Charlie Wilson from
Texas was funnelling billions of dollars in aid to the Mujah
Hadin?
Mr. Boucher. I wasn't working in this area at the time, so
no, I probably wasn't.
Mr. Cooper. Were you aware that----
Mr. Boucher. I read a lot of accounts of it and I look
forward to seeing the movie.
Mr. Cooper. Congressman Charlie Wilson was apparently made
a general in the Pakistani army----
Mr. Boucher. I have heard things like that, yes.
Mr. Cooper [continuing]. Due to his money shipments to
Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Cooper. A Texas Congressman was made a general in the
Pakistani army, given a uniform, and the only condition,
according to the book, is that he was asked not to wear the
uniform while he was in Pakistan. But apparently in any other
country on earth he could parade around in a Pakistani
general's uniform. Was the State Department aware of that?
Mr. Boucher. I don't know if we were aware at the time,
sir. I just don't know. If you read Ghost Wars, that kind of
stuff is talked about there. I am not sure if that particular
incident is in the book. I know it is in other books. But a lot
of that stuff has come out. I mean, let's remember, you know,
we were all together from 1979 to 1989 fighting the soviets in
Afghanistan, whether Mujah Hadin or the Pakistanis or the ISI
or the Saudis. A lot of what we are dealing with now came out
of that period. The question is not what did we all do back
then; the question is what are we doing now.
Mr. Cooper. Well, let's talk about what are we doing now. I
haven't heard much from Karen Hughes lately. Is she still the
America's public face to the Islamic world?
Mr. Boucher. Well, she is organizing America's public face
to the Islamic world. But yes, I talked to her just this
morning about Pakistan.
Mr. Cooper. Are we producing results? Is American approval
going up in the Muslim world?
Mr. Boucher. It is a hard question to answer, sir. In some
places we do have very strong approval; in others we have very
dismal approvals.
Mr. Cooper. Can you remind me of some places in the Muslim
world where we have strong approval other than among the Kurds?
Mr. Boucher. Well, that isn't the Muslim world, but
Afghanistan I think, you know, people are still very supportive
of the U.S. effort there. As I said, I haven't really seen
polls in Pakistan, but I think a lot of people understand what
we are doing and they are supportive of what we are doing
there.
Mr. Cooper. You haven't seen polls in Pakistan, and this is
your account?
Mr. Boucher. I am afraid it is not one of the things I look
at on a regular basis. Maybe I should, but I have not tried to
track things through polls. I have tried to keep in touch with
a lot of people throughout society and try to understand their
opinions.
Mr. Cooper. Can you remind me how many predecessors there
were to Karen Hughes? Wasn't there a Charlotte Beers? Weren't
there several folks who----
Mr. Boucher. A number of people have had the job.
Mr. Cooper. Can you recall how many in the last 6 years?
Mr. Boucher. I was acting at one point, so I don't know if
you count that. There was Charlotte. There was Margaret
Detwiler. I hate to do this, because I am probably leaving
somebody out.
Mr. Cooper. That is four right there: Charlotte, you,
Margaret, Karen.
Mr. Boucher. I was more nominal than effective, but anyway,
yes.
Mr. Cooper. That is an interesting self-appraisal. What can
America be doing to be more successful in this region?
Mr. Boucher. Sir, as you know, and I know why you are
asking these questions, because I did spend a long time as
spokesman for the State Department. I tried to grapple with
these questions over the course of my career many times.
Frankly, I start with the premise that good policymakes
good press. You have to do good things. You have to help people
get safety and justice and economic opportunity and education
for their kids, and the more of that you do, the more in the
long run people will appreciate you.
You have places like India where we have enormously
positive approval ratings. I think it is largely because we
offer educational and economic opportunity to people and their
children.
So that is the premise that I start with, and that is where
my focus is now.
Mr. Cooper. It sounds like your theory is that American
foreign aid makes us popular. The taxpayer has limited
patience.
Mr. Boucher. I understand that, but I think also the
taxpayer has a very strong interest in seeing these parts of
the world stabilized, in taking away the ungoverned spaces and
letting government gain control there, and in helping people
whose frustrations lead them to horrible acts of violence.
Mr. Cooper. But the American taxpayer I think also wants
results, and to see three of the world's most wanted
international outlaws--we are still not even allowed to
interview A.Q. Khan, right?
Mr. Boucher. He is under house arrest and----
Mr. Cooper. We are not allowed to----
Mr. Boucher. No, we don't have direct access, but we have
gotten good cooperation on that. And, frankly, he is out of
business. The network has been destroyed.
Mr. Cooper. But we don't know how many nations he sold the
technology to?
Mr. Boucher. I think we have had good cooperation and they
provided a lot of information to the International Atomic
Energy Agency.
Mr. Cooper. I see that my time has expired. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
holding this very important hearing and very timely hearing.
Mr. Secretary, I don't want to be too repetitive and
apologize for missing some of the early questions, coming in
late. In looking back to the events of September 11, 2001, and
President Bush's address to the Nation on September 20th from
the House of Representatives, he spoke about the importance of
countries making a choice. They are either on the side of good
against Al Qaeda and the terrorist efforts or on the side of
evil and siding with them, but they need to make a choice. And
President Musharraf on behalf of his nation made a choice and
said, We will no longer stand with the Taliban and recognize
them, and we will now stand with the United States and other
nations around the world against Taliban, Al Qaeda, and their
efforts in having attacked us and seeking to do harm to others,
as well.
In him making that choice, that certainly was an important
one for his country and for us in having their assistance.
Given the current environment in the Federal overseeing
tribal areas of western Pakistan, is the choice he made in the
days after September 11th still valid in how it is impacting
our national security, given the sanctuary that we now see
occurring in western Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. I think the choice is still there, the
commitment is still there, the intention is still there. Is it
fully effective? No, not yet. We work with him, we follow this
closely. We follow the intelligence closely. They have been
able to get at a lot of the top Al Qaeda figures who have been
in and out in Pakistan over the years. They have had, as I
said, some success in the tribal areas with Taliban leaders.
They have had some success in the tribal areas against a few of
the training camps and madrassas. But, unfortunately, these
areas has been infested with extremists of all kinds, and they
have gotten some of them but certainly not all.
Mr. Platts. It is my understanding from the recent threat
assessment that has been done regarding Pakistan that Al
Qaeda's efforts in Pakistan to kind of re-energize itself were
not successful until recently and following the December 2006,
agreement between President Musharraf and the tribal leaders
that he would remove his military presence from those areas and
rely on the tribal leaders and their colleagues to self-govern,
to self-patrol, I guess, that region, and not allow it to
become a safe haven.
Given that apparently is not working, what indications, if
any, do we have from President Musharraf that he is going to
take a different approach in that region? And if there is no
different approach being discussed, is it something that we
need to then look at how to take action to ensure the security
of our Nation because of his not maybe lack of commitment or
interest in doing so, but inability to do so?
Mr. Boucher. I think it was mis-reported in the paper. The
agreement was actually last September, and by about December
2006 they had realized--we had realized that the agreement
wasn't working. The tribes were not effectively dealing with
the foreigners and the Taliban that were in their midst. And so
what we have seen over the early part of this year was an
effort on the part of the tribes, supported by the government,
to expel some of the Taliban, and with Pakistani help we were
able to get some of the very top leaders of the Taliban who had
operated out of Pakistan and to expel the Uzbeks, Chechins, and
hundreds of others who have been in those areas.
President Musharraf made a speech about 2 weeks ago up in
Peshawar to the tribes saying we have to get all of the foreign
militaries, the Al Qaeda and the Arabs, as well, and we have to
stop the Taliban, sort of what you want to call the Pakistani
Taliban, the ones who are not only supporting the Taliban in
cross border but also trying to infect the settled areas of
Pakistan. So that seems to be the direction that he is headed
now, and we keep in close touch with him about that.
Mr. Platts. Is his actions regarding the Red Mosque in just
the past days a positive indication of him being more
aggressive in going after the extremists in this country?
Mr. Boucher. I think it is a very positive indication that
he is serious about dealing with the problem of extremism. I
think he has popular support in trying to do that.
Mr. Platts. My hope is that the actions he has taken with
the Red Mosque and your statements of renewed efforts of
working with the tribal leaders resulting in efforts to capture
key terrorist leaders is going to fulfill itself in a greater
sense in the weeks and months ahead.
I know when Congressman Steve Lynch led our delegation to
Afghanistan in April, one of our visits was down to one of our
forward outposts on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and
clearly in the briefings we received the threat coming in from
Pakistan is a daily constant threat, and it seems a little
illogical, I guess, to me that if we know where the enemy is
and we have an ally that is, you know, the host country of that
enemy, and they are not able to address the daily threat, that
arbitrary border should not prevent our military from doing
what it needs to do to not just protect themselves and go after
the source of the daily attacks, but in the broader picture
better secure our Nation's safety and citizens' safety.
If President Musharraf is going to follow through,
obviously it is appropriate that we work with him; but if not,
I think we need to rethink how we are dealing with that tribal
area for the safety of our soldiers there and their courageous
work in Afghanistan, and then ultimately our safety here.
I want to ask one other area, and that deals with, given
reports of Taliban and Al Qaeda kind of re-emerging and
strengthening in the western region of Pakistan, my
understanding is that Britain, Denmark, Germany, a number of
countries have a pretty free flow of their citizens between
their countries and Pakistan. Those countries are also part of
our visa waiver program. Is there a renewed look on how we are
operating our visa waiver program with those countries, given
their interactions with Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. Sir, I think it is something that the
appropriate people do look closely at, but I haven't been
involved in those discussions, so I can't give you any more
detail.
Mr. Platts. It is something that if, on behalf of the
Department, you could followup with the committee--Mr.
Chairman, if that would be OK to make the request on behalf of
the committee to have the Secretary followup with us on that
issue?
Mr. Tierney. Ambassador, is that something you are able to
do?
Mr. Boucher. I would be glad to.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Platts. In conclusion, Mr. Secretary, I want to thank
you for your efforts and don't want by my questions to imply
that I don't appreciate your service to your country and your
colleagues at the Department here State-side and in some very
dangerous parts of the world in working on behalf of their
fellow citizens. We certainly appreciate your patriotic and
dedicated service, sir.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Platts. Yes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Higgins, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just have
a couple of brief questions, really.
I am just trying to get my arms around this situation. What
always amazes me about, you know, the Middle East is its
relative youth, including Pakistan. I think the real fight
against terrorism is a fight for the imagination of the youth
of the Middle East, including areas like Pakistan, relative to
giving them a better sense of what their future--not what they
know it to be, but what it can be, dealing with the potential.
Is it safe to say that the basis for fundamental terrorism,
Al Qaeda and Taliban, is located along the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border?
Mr. Boucher. I think the answer is yes. I am sure others
would be more precise on the wording, but there is considerable
activity of the Taliban in those border areas of Pakistan.
There is considerable Al Qaeda presence, including training,
some of the command and control. But, as I said, I think they
are under pressure. It is not the only place that they operate.
Certainly Al Qaeda people have been picked up in Karachi and
other parts of Pakistan. And it is not just in tribal areas,
but it does cut down to Quetta, and the Baluchistan border area
has been a center of activity, as well.
Mr. Higgins. Let me put it a different way. The Al Qaeda
base that has emerged in Iraq, the origin of that, is it safe
to conclude, is Pakistan, Afghanistan?
Mr. Boucher. I don't think that would be precisely
accurate. I think you would have to ask the intelligence folks
to do that in more detail.
Mr. Higgins. Where would be the origin of that Al Qaeda
presence in Iraq then?
Mr. Boucher. I think they have come from a lot of places
and gathered there, and to some extent the base comes from
there. They do have some ties with Al Qaeda in other places,
including Al Qaeda who are in Pakistan, and there is a
significant presence still there.
Mr. Higgins. Does the United States' continued support for
Musharraf hurt us in the eyes of the 165 million people that
live in Pakistan? I mean, he is a military dictator. He is
increasingly becoming more unpopular.
Mr. Boucher. I think people understand that we have a lot
of interest in Pakistan. We have interest in fighting the war
on terror, keeping our country safe and their country safe. We
have interest in building the economy, in building the
education system. We have interest in elections and seeing a
free and fair election. We work with President Musharraf and
his government on all those things. He is a military ruler, and
that is the government that is there.
But we also have very close ties with all the people in the
political parties. I think people, by and large, understand
that our goal is a strategic one and a broader one, and I know
people often say, well, the United States supports Musharraf.
Well, yes, we do support Musharraf, but that is part of our
overall support for Pakistan in the course that Pakistan has
set upon.
Mr. Higgins. A final thought on this. The pronouncements of
this administration relative to essentially what amounts to a
zero tolerance policy concerning those who harbor terrorism,
there seems to be a fundamental disconnect here that all the
intelligence, including especially the most recent
intelligence, conclude that a big problem for us, a big problem
for the free world, is what is going on in these training
camps.
Pakistan, despite Musharraf's tough talk, seems to be
facilitating not only the growth but the strength of what
threatens the United States primarily, and I think the free
world generally.
How does the administration reconcile this? I mean, I know
that there is a duplicitous nature in terms of foreign policy,
particularly in the Middle East, but it seems to me that
Pakistan has made some early commitments to the United States
relative to our fight against terrorism, and yet concurrently
seems to be, or if it is not intentional, very ineffective in
suppressing the growth and the strength of the Taliban and Al
Qaeda.
Mr. Boucher. I think, sir, we look at what they are trying
to do and we look at how we can help them doing it more
effectively. We look at the fact that they have picked up
hundreds, hundreds of Al Qaeda over the last few years.
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Mr. Boucher. We look at the fact that they have helped us
capture or kill 3 out of the top 10 Taliban commanders in the
last 6 months. We look at the fact that they just the other
day, according to press reports, have picked up several more
top Taliban commanders. We look at the fact that they have
helped the tribes expel the Uzbeks, who were a source of great
trouble, training, and fighters have been in that area. We look
at the fact that they have attacked Madrassas. They have
attacked training camps where these foreign fighters are being
trained. There has been a lot of activity up in that area.
Mr. Higgins. Yes, but you know----
Mr. Boucher. But there is a lot to do.
Mr. Higgins. The former Secretary of Defense, I always
remember, had said that the measure of success in the war on
terrorism is--and this was several years ago--are we capturing,
are we detaining, are we stopping more terrorist activity every
day than is being created. I think this most recent
intelligence report is a repudiation of the effect of the
strategies advanced by this administration, because there is
one thing that sticks out in all of this, and that is that,
again, intelligence reports are concluding that Al Qaeda, the
Taliban, are at pre-9/11 strength levels, and to me it all adds
up to the same conclusion, and that is that our fight has been
highly ineffective. The pronouncements of the Secretary of
Homeland Security this week about, you know, the heightened
threat, you know, obviously I would disagree with any
conclusion that we have been effective in our efforts to
undermine the strength and growth of the terrorist threat.
Mr. Boucher. I haven't seen the report that the newspapers
all seem to be talking about right now, so I can't give you the
full intelligence assessment. My own view is that this is a
difficult and long process. The chief threat to all of us has
been ungoverned spaces. That is what Afghanistan was with the
Taliban and Al Qaeda operating from there, place where no
reasonable government had sway. And that is how we were
attacked on 9/11.
And our job, whether it is militarily or diplomatically, is
to get government cooperation, government control of the
ungoverned spaces in the world. We have done that militarily in
Iraq and Afghanistan, are doing that still militarily in Iraq
and Afghanistan, also done it diplomatically with our work
with, you know, Yemen and Sudan and Libya and a whole bunch of
other places. But it is a constant and long-term effort. The
government of Pakistan has never had full control over all its
territory, and it is trying to extend its control. The
government of Afghanistan is trying to extend its control, and
we are a major part of that. But until we can help those
governments provide good governance and the benefits of good
governance, as well as the control of good governance to all
its territory, there is still going to be a threat against us,
and that is what we have to work very hard to get rid of.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Burton, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. Burton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think this
is a very timely hearing.
I listened to my colleagues. Some of them are evidently
very critical of what the administration is doing. I hope that
they are aware that George Washington was criticized the same
way and they wanted to remove him from leadership during the
Revolutionary War. He was also criticized when the J Treaty was
signed. Abraham Lincoln was going to be defeated without any
question by McClellan because the war wasn't going well until
Sherman took Atlanta. So in every war, I think almost without
exception, there have been people who have been very critical
of incumbent Presidents when things weren't going well, and I
think this is no exception because things haven't been going
well.
I would like to say to my colleagues that Senator
Lieberman, who is a Centrist Democrat, has been over to Iraq a
number of times, as many of us have, and he has said very
clearly that in Iraq, if we don't deal with the training camps
in Iran, that we are going to see a continual problem over
there, and that if we pull out of Iraq with all this going on,
that there would be a vacuum created which would be filled by
the radicals, and it will become a training ground not just in
Iran but throughout Iraq for additional terrorism throughout
the world.
Now, regarding Pakistan, I would like to ask Secretary
Boucher what would happen if we didn't have an ally like
President Musharraf over there, in your opinion?
Mr. Boucher. I think if Pakistan was not fighting
terrorism, there would be no way we could succeed in
Afghanistan or in terms of the security of our homeland.
Mr. Burton. Well, Musharraf is a major part of our fight to
stop the Taliban and terrorist training camps over there, is he
not?
Mr. Boucher. Absolutely, and he has been a good partner in
doing that.
Mr. Burton. And there have been a number of Taliban
leaders, as you said, that have been captured, killed, and just
recently they were captured?
Mr. Boucher. Over the months and in recent weeks.
Mr. Burton. And President Musharraf, because of this, in
large part, has had a number of assassination attempts on him,
has ne not?
Mr. Boucher. And some of the militants in the mosque--you
saw Al Zawah just yesterday was threatening Musharraf because
he is fighting against extremists.
Mr. Burton. Let me also ask you about Mr. Khan. This may be
classified, and we will have to get it some other way. Has he
been questioned by any of our intelligence people? And do we
have any intelligence information on what technology and other
nuclear information he may have given to Iran or other
countries like Libya?
Mr. Boucher. I think we have said in public that we have
not had direct access to Mr. Khan, but we have had good
cooperation from Pakistani authorities. We have had a good flow
of information to the international community, us, other
countries, International Atomic Energy Agency, and that we are
confident that, based on that information, we have been able to
put the network out of business.
Mr. Burton. I really appreciate you stressing that there is
so much wild or vacant land there in the mountainous region
that it is very difficult to take care of all the areas and get
this thing completely solved in one fell swoop, and the same
thing is true in Afghanistan with the Taliban, so I appreciate
very much your pointing that out, and also that you pointed
out, as I said before, that he has been very cooperative and
they have captured a number of the terrorists and the training
camps and the leaders over there.
So I appreciate your being here today.
I would just like to say to my colleagues that there is no
perfection in war. In every single war that I have read about--
and I have been around quite a while--in every single war there
has been tremendous disenchantment when things weren't going
well. This is no exception.
In World War II--and I have talked about this before--
because everybody was worried about appeasing Hitler and
Mussolini and Tojo and all the others over there, we ended up
seeing 62 million people die and about half a million American
troops.
This is a very insidious war that we are fighting right
now. Iran is trying to develop a nuclear capability. On my Web
site a number of times it showed a mockup of a briefcase
nuclear weapon that weighs about 40 pounds that, if it were
placed within three blocks of here, would kill every one of us.
It would destroy eight square blocks and the radioactive
fallout would probably kill another 50,000 to 100,000 people.
So, you know, this is a very difficult time, and I think
Senator Lieberman hits the nail on the head. He sees what is
going to happen. If we start pulling in our horns and not
supporting our allies, there will be a vacuum created, in my
opinion, in Pakistan, in Iraq, and that is going to be filled
by the radicals, and they will not be in any way convinced that
they should stop their wild movement toward nuclear
development, and it will imperil not just the Middle East, but
the United States, as well.
So I think we should not be myopic. I think we should look
at the big picture and realize, as Winston Churchill did in
World War II, that they had to prepare for and deal with people
like Hitler, and we have to deal with people like the president
of Iran and the leaders in the Taliban and those tribal leaders
over there. Otherwise, we are going to have a big problem down
the road.
I appreciate very much, again, your being here, and I
appreciate your forthrightness. I hope you will come back with
further reports in the future.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Lynch, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
ranking member, as well. I think it is great that you are
having this hearing, and I appreciate all of the attention that
you have given to this issue, and I want to thank the Secretary
for coming before the committee and helping us with our work.
First of all, I just want to say I concede the complexity
of the task here. I admit, having spent a little time down on
the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with Mr. Platt and also the
chairman and others who have gone down there, as well, it is a
very complex situation. President Musharraf has a difficult
balancing act between the Islamic radicals within his own
country. However, I must admit I must say that I think your
assessment of him, even though he may be the irreplaceable man
at this point, I still think that your assessment of his
performance objectively is a bit rosier than I would, you know,
measure from my own judgment of him.
I just want to say that, having been on the border there,
he actually has a policy in place where I was with Colonel
Sweitzer of the 82nd Airborne and the Fourth Combat Team down
there in the Parrot's Beak area just south of Torra Bora, where
he has some folks where the Taliban are coming across the
border on a regular basis, and because of Musharraf we have a
no-fire border on our troops. We can't fire into Pakistan in
pursuit of Taliban and other forces coming out of that tribal
area.
I know terrorists are coming from all over into
Afghanistan, but that area over there, bin Laden has a
longstanding history in that area, even when they were fighting
the Soviets and war on Afghanistan. He has a long history in
that area. He has had a longstanding friendship with Hakani and
some others who operate in that border area, and that is a
definite and central source of insurgency, Taliban, Al Qaeda,
and others into Afghanistan. It is demanding great resources,
not only of ourselves but the Afghani government, as well.
I also want to point out that the somewhat offhand comments
that the Pakistanis don't have a lot of influence in those
tribal areas is a choice that they have made. It is a choice
that they have made. They made an agreement to create a safe
haven there for whoever can dominate that area, whether it be
the Taliban or Al Qaeda or other governments. I know the Saudis
for a very long time were pumping money into those Madrassas,
and, you know, we have 50 percent of the kids in Pakistan don't
go to school between the ages of 5 and 9. The fact that these
Madrassas are allowed to operate and are being funded provides
the only option for a lot of those kids and a lot of those
families.
You know, I noticed in our own budget we spend about $10
billion a year in Pakistan. A little bit more than one-half of
1 percent of that goes to USAID for helping with education. I
really think if we are going to get to the root of this we
can't provide it directly, because I don't think we have the
credibility in Pakistan, especially in those tribal areas, but
we have to have some type of honest broker in there to provide
a good, solid public education to those kids; otherwise, they
will be the terrorists of the future, and we have to figure out
a way of stopping this cycle where the Madrassas are creating
jihadists in that area. And if we don't get to that, everything
else we do will be secondary.
I would like to at some point hear your own opinions on
what we can do about getting the shackles taken from our own
troops in that tribal area to allow them to go after the
Taliban and go after Al Qaeda and to provide a little bit more
cooperation on that border area.
This idea that our troops--and I spoke to them personally.
They cannot fire over the border, even though they know that
the Taliban and Al Qaeda and those jihadists are just over the
border and they have been given a safe haven area to launch
attacks into Afghanistan.
You know, the great criticism of us after 9/11 was that we
allowed training camps to operate in Afghanistan. We allowed
the camps in Torra Bora. We allowed that to happen. We knew
they were there and we didn't take action and 9/11 happened.
Well, I have to admit there is a little parallel here. We
are recognized as a safe haven here and Waziristan. We know
they are operating. We have some surveillance there. But we are
not taking direct and deliberate action.
Again I go back to the complexity of this situation that
Mr. Musharraf has. No doubt about it. But I think we can push
him a little harder. We can demand that more positive and
affirmative action be taken, you know, against the terrorists
who are just growing their organization in that area. I just
really believe that we are missing an opportunity here, and I
would like to hear, you know, your own views about how we might
reduce that threat in Waziristan and allow some of the
moderate--and there is a lot of moderate influence in Pakistan.
Allow some of that moderate influence to predominate and to
shape the future of that country in a way differently than it
is right now.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you, sir. I don't disagree with very
much of what you just said. I think we all have to be aware of
the fact that the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate from these
areas, operate in these areas. They are a threat to our troops
in Afghanistan. They are a threat to the Nation of Afghanistan
and what we are trying to achieve there. They are a threat to
the Nation of Pakistan and to all of us, even in our homeland.
And it is one of the critical threats that we have to deal with
today. The question is how we are going to deal with it.
In the end, what we are trying to do is to help the
Pakistani government exert better control on its side of the
border and the Afghan government exert better control on its
side of the border. We do it in different ways. We operate more
directly in Afghanistan because that is the relationship we
have there and that is because the Afghan government is not
fully capable yet. Pakistani government has the forces and has
the intention, and I don't--I guess, you know, maybe the only
difference between what some of you are saying and what I am
saying is that we are all aware of the things that haven't been
done and the problems that exist. I am also trying to put out
some of the things that have been done and that have been
achieved, because I think we have achieved a lot.
If you look at what has happened to the Taliban in
Afghanistan, for example, last year they set out to take towns
and cities and territory, and they failed. This year they set
out again to take towns and cities, particularly looking in
Kandahar, and they failed. They talked about a spring offensive
which never materialized, so now they talk about a summer
offensive. And, indeed, they have been able to mount some
actions, but more often than not all they have been able to do
is blow up school children like they did just the other day in
a particularly horrible attack where they killed 12 school
kids.
Taliban has not succeeded. It is a constant effort to get
after them, to push them out of places in Afghanistan, but we
have achieved a certain amount of success in the past year
against the Taliban, and that has been both through our efforts
and the Afghan government efforts, but also because of the
pressure that has been brought on them from the Pakistani side.
We need to continue our efforts and our allies' efforts and
the Afghan efforts and the efforts on the Pakistani side to be
completely effective.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. I want to thank you for your service
to our country, as well.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Yarmuth, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also appreciate
your being here and appreciate this hearing.
One of the things that occurs to me as I have read through
a lot of material and consumed much of the media in recent
weeks is the question of expectations. It seems to me that
Pakistan offers an example of that, and I am wondering whether
we have expectations that are not realistic in the sense of
looking at governments to do what we think needs to be done in
combatting terrorism.
The thought occurs to me, we talk about polling, we talk
about elections, and yet terrorism is, by definition, anti-
democratic. If you have 99.9 percent of the people agreeing
with a certain way of operating and you have 0.1 percent that
is intent on undermining that, the democracy in a certain sense
doesn't make any difference.
So I would like you to comment on that, with particular
respect to Pakistan, but also recognizing we had elections in
Iraq and obviously we haven't--it is obvious to me, anyway,
that has not particularly helped combat terrorism. So the
entire sense of whether our expectations of governments in
combatting terrorism, again in the context of Pakistan
particularly, are misplaced.
Mr. Boucher. I think it is a legitimate question. I think
we need to understand the background of these situations
without trying to make apologies for the way things are. The
governing relationships in the tribal areas go back to British
days. We read British books from 1903 about how they were
trying to get a hold of the tribes of Waziristan. We see many
of the same problems.
The government of Pakistan, when it came to being 60 years
ago, was unable or didn't change those arrangements. Those
arrangements were carried down.
And then you had the anti-Soviet period in the 1980's where
we and the Saudis and others funnelled a lot of money into
those areas and changed some of the relationships. The
relationship was always the government dealt with the tribal
leaders, the tribal leaders enforced order and discipline. But
during the anti-Soviet period there were other people who rose
up, the Mullahs and the Madrassas that were being heavily
financed, the partners in the Mujah Hadin against the Soviets,
a whole lot of other forces that came up in society.
So even now the same arrangements exist where the
government goes to the tribal leaders and the tribal leaders
imposed order, but the tribal leaders are no longer the sole
repositories of power, and so it has become even more complex
up there, so you have to deal with that situation. You have to
deal with it in some areas where the government can act
directly, like around Quetta and Baluchistan, some areas where
they have tried to work with the tribal areas and it hasn't
worked, like in Waziristan.
But overall you have to do everything you can to help them
and expect them to exert government control, understanding that
it is a difficult thing to do and that they are going to need
different kinds of help.
One of the things we have been trying to help with now is
the Frontier Corps, the people recruited into an army for a
local area from the area, people who know the area, because
people from outside the areas, not just foreigners, you know,
Americans or others, but people from other parts of Pakistan,
you know, can go in there and get shot at, and that has
happened many, many times to regular Pakistanis from other
parts of the country. So we want to transform the Frontier
Corps in a more effective force for stability and fighting
force there.
I was down on the border in Baluchistan last month with a
colonel who has I think 160 kilometers to protect. He has
border posts. He has some body armor for his troops, but he has
to divvy it up to the places where it is really important.
Other troops have to go without. And he has some night vision
goggles for some places; other troops have to go without.
So if we want them to be more effective in patrolling the
area and controlling the border we have to be in there with
them, and we are asking for money in our budgets, according to
the 2008 budget, to support the transformation of the Frontier
Corps to be a force that can exert better control in that area.
Mr. Yarmuth. Let me ask a slightly different question. It
seems to me that it is possible--and I don't want to sound like
I am insinuating, but I am asking you if this is possible--that
we might have a situation in which you talk about successes--
and yes there have been some, and some leaders have been
captured and killed--that there is a calculation that I can, if
I were Musharraf, I could bring in a couple of these token
leaders in order to portray myself adequately as an effective
fighter in order to generate continued support, while at the
same time I can play both sides and allow some of these things
to happen. Are you confident that is not happening in Pakistan,
or is that a possibility?
Mr. Boucher. I suppose theoretically it could be there, but
I don't really see it happening. I see a difficult situation
they have dealt with in different ways. We have seen sometimes
signs every now and then that there is not a wholehearted
effort at all levels and all institutions in Pakistan, and we
have raised those when we need to, but we have seen a great
deal of cooperation against some very serious and difficult
targets. They picked up really high level people from the
Taliban and helped us get the highest level people from the
Taliban, and we have seen, I think, more and more cooperation
as the months go on. And I think particularly since about
December of last year we have seen a lot more cooperation and a
lot more effective cooperation.
Mr. Yarmuth. Again, looking kind of universally at this
problem, one of the things that I think frustrates all of us is
that we look across the spectrum of Iraq, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, myriad places, and see a variety of settings and
situations, and yet there really doesn't seem to be any example
of where the war on terror has succeeded. Again, going to the
question of expectations, are we looking at something at which
there will never be success, or just we haven't found the right
approach to success?
Mr. Boucher. I think, to get back to your question about
expectations, it takes a long time. I think, you know, I
certainly think we are all going to be taking our shoes off at
airports for decades to come. We are going to have to integrate
a certain level of higher security in all our lives and all our
actions throughout the world and all our embassies, and what my
colleagues will do in the future.
At the same time, this process of sort of getting
government control, getting legitimate government control over
all parts of the planet, you know, it has moved forward. It is
certainly not done yet, and certainly not done in very
important parts of my area, but I can see it proceeding. I can
see the Afghan government building up, building out, expanding
throughout its territory. I can see the pressure on the
extremists in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.
You know, as we look, you say where has it succeeded. There
are countries you could cite, I guess Yemen, Sudan, other
places like that have turned around and have been forces
against terrorism. In the area that I deal with, I think what
we did last summer was to look at what works in Afghanistan,
and what works in Afghanistan is a very comprehensive strategy,
while integrated strategy where you move the troops in to kick
out the Taliban and fight the bad guys, then you bring in
district officers, government officers, agents from ministries,
policemen, local forces to help provide safety, security, and
justice to the people there, and you bring in the AID projects,
the irrigation, the new crops, the roads, the electricity. If
you do that in a comprehensive and integrated manner, we have
been able to stabilize large parts of Afghanistan that way.
As we see some of these problems, they are more and more in
certain areas of Afghanistan rather than throughout the
country.
The same with the narcotics problem. One of the things you
will see, despite the enormous crop that is going to be
harvested this year, there are going to be more parts of the
country that are largely poppy free. The problem of poppy is
more and more associated with the areas of insurgency. Again,
the basic question of having government control and giving
people the benefits of government throughout the country.
So I think we have seen what works in parts of Afghanistan,
and the reason we came into Congress this year with a
supplemental request and the funding request of $11.6 billion
over 2 years for Afghanistan is because we looked at what
worked and we said we have to do this more generally throughout
the country.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Boucher, as you know the votes have been
called, but there are three quick votes, and we are going to
run right up to the time on the 15 minute vote and go down
quickly. There will be a 5 and a 5. We will be back within 15
minutes. But Mr. Shays is going to take his 10 minutes now that
will run us up to that time.
Mr. Shays, you go ahead; 10 minutes.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Boucher, I appreciate your being here. I
think this is a hugely important issue. I have tremendous
concerns about Pakistan. I think you have basically a dictator
who took control from a secular government, and now to maintain
control he is responding, in my judgment, to sectarian wishes.
So the irony is I think he is more vulnerable to the sectarian
pressures than a duly elected secular government would be. That
is one bias I have.
Another bias I have that I want you to respond to is I find
it outrageous that, of the 46,000 troops, we are 26,000. I have
learned that of the 20,000 NATO troops, only four countries are
at the tip of the spear, so most of our troops are in direct
line of fire, whereas some of the NATO troops.
I would like you to tell me why only four NATO troops are
putting their soldiers at risk, because I find that just
astonishing. With what we have to do in Iraq and Afghanistan,
it seems to me our allies, if they don't agree with what we are
doing in Iraq, should at least agree in Afghanistan. So I would
like you to comment on that, as well, and then I have some
other questions.
Mr. Boucher. On the question of sort of the stability of
Pakistan and the military rule of military government there, I
think on the one hand we all think Pakistan would be better
off, more stable with an elected government, and that is why we
are pushing so hard for fair and free elections this year, why
we are supporting that with our rhetoric but also our money and
our effort, why we are working with all of the political
parties to try to achieve that. We believe that democracy is a
force for stability. We believe that an elected government,
particularly one that brings together the centrist parties,
would be a better base on which to fight extremism in the
country.
Frankly, I have heard that from political leaders, from
opposition parties. I have heard that from President Musharraf,
himself. I think everybody recognizes that is the case, so we
all look to elections to be a force for stability.
We have seen a lot of change in Pakistan in the last 8
years. It is not purely a military dictatorship. We have seen a
lot of politics, seen the growth of civil society. We have seen
an explosion of media, free press. We have tried to support
that and speak out in favor of it whenever it was under threat.
But in the end it has created a direction for the society, more
modern, moderate, open direction for the society, and one that
has done well by most of its citizens.
So I think, as you look at the problems of extremism, it is
just sort of the general process of building a stronger,
moderate center is one that is very important to all of us. We
have tried to support that.
Mr. Shays. How about NATO?
Mr. Boucher. NATO has, first of all, a lot of different
countries involved in a lot of different ways. I do think we
have to say that every contribution is appreciated and every
contribution is important, whether you are trying to run a PRT
in the north somewhere, where you may be dealing with local
authorities and trying to extend the Governor and the
government, or whether in the south fighting the Taliban and
the drug traffickers.
Mr. Shays. Why is it that we only have four countries
willing to engage in battle?
Mr. Boucher. It is probably more than four, but not too
many more than four. I would have to do the counting.
Mr. Shays. Why?
Mr. Boucher. And the Canadians, the Dutch, the British, us.
There are a few others, Romanians and a few others.
Mr. Shays. What about the French, the Italians? I mean, do
they----
Mr. Boucher. They are there. Some of them are in different
places doing different missions. We have argued very strongly,
every NATO meeting we go to the Secretary of State, Secretary
of Defense, for countries to drop what are called their
caveats. You know, We will do this, but won't do that. We will
go here, but not there. And we have had a little bit of success
over the course of the last 6 months getting some of those
caveats dropped by some of the countries. We have had some
success in getting more NATO troops there. There have been
about 7,000 troops promised since last fall, but, again, half
of those are American. Big chunk of British, Australians, a few
others like that, Canadians. So the mission rests on----
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you, what is their argument?
Mr. Boucher [continuing]. The countries to participate.
Mr. Shays. What is their argument? They can make an
argument against Iraq. What is their argument against
participating by risking their lives in Afghanistan like our
troops are? What is their argument for not doing that?
Mr. Boucher. It depends on the country. Sometimes you get,
well, you know, we are doing this in Africa, we are doing this
in Bosnia, we are doing this in Kosovo, we don't have any more,
you know, available. Sometimes it is, We don't have popular
support and parliamentary support for a war fighting mission.
We only have that support from our parliament to go on a
peacekeeping or a humanitarian mission. There are a variety of
things that you hear.
Mr. Shays. The bottom line for me is we have long-term and
short-term needs. Our short-term needs are shutting down
training camps, stopping threats to U.S. coalition troops in
Afghanistan, and that is emanating from Pakistan. A long-term
would be education reform, democracy building, women's rights,
and so on.
Tell me how successful we have been on the short term.
Mr. Boucher. I think, first of all, I think you are right
in the way you put it. We are involved in some transformations
that will take years, but we are also looking for goals and
results that need to be done now because people are under
direct threat.
I guess I would come back and say we have had some
successes in the short term. Part of the fact that we have been
able to blunt the Taliban intentions and that the Taliban has
failed this year in Afghanistan is because what we are doing in
Afghanistan, but also because there is pressure on them and on
the Pakistan side. So we have seen a great number of very
dangerous people picked up and killed or arrested with the help
of Pakistan. So we are making progress. We are not done with
the problem.
Mr. Shays. My colleague had a question that he wanted to
ask.
Mr. Boucher. Sure.
Mr. Burton. Thank you for yielding.
I don't know that this question has been asked. Have the
tribal leaders or any of the tribal leaders been cooperative in
trying to stop the Taliban leaders?
Mr. Boucher. Sure.
Mr. Burton. To my knowledge, that hasn't been really
illuminated here. I mean, Musharraf has pulled his troops out
of a number of areas, and the impression is that Al Qaeda has
taken over those areas because of the cooperation of the tribal
leaders. So what I would like to know is do we have cooperation
with a lot of the tribal leaders? And are they working with us
and Musharraf to try to----
Mr. Boucher. I think we have seen cooperation between the
Pakistan government and the tribal leaders. We saw the tribal
leaders in some areas turn on the Uzbeks, for example, earlier
this year, turn on some of the Taliban that were coming out of
that area.
I think it is true that, as the checkpoints and the
government presence in Waziristan was removed last fall, the
there was an influx of fighters, that Al Qaeda found more
freedom to operate there, and then since about December there
have been some steps by the government and the tribes to exert
more control. There have been new forces that have been moved
in there. There have been checkpoints re-established and taking
back control.
Mr. Shays. Before my time ends, if we saw Osama bin Laden
in Pakistan, what would likely our posture be? Would we wait to
get permission and then fear that we would lose him, or would
we just go in and get him, if he were in Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. I think we would work with the Pakistanis to
make sure that one way or the other he was gotten.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. The gentleman yields back.
Thank you for your forbearance and your patience, Mr.
Ambassador. We are going to be gone for about 10 or 15 minutes,
if you would like to take a little recess. We will be back for
the concluding questions.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your patience on
that. We are going to reconvene.
Since we have such a great bipartisan committee here, Mr.
Shays is speaking on the floor in another matter. He is
perfectly comfortable with us proceeding in his absence. He
will be back. Mr. Hodes, who was next to speak on this, is not
certain that he is going to be able to come back, because he
had a conflict. Mr. Van Hollen I understand is on his way back.
While that is all happening, I thought I would take the
prerogative of the Chair and ask a few questions that we are
probably going to have to put off until the end, but may not
have to do that now.
I am sort of struck, I have to tell you, that with what I
see as somewhat of a defense of the Musharraf actions here in
all ways, and it seems to be the administration's position, so
I don't leave it just with you, but it doesn't really seem to
me to be what is happening on the ground, from our own
observations or from the myriad of people that we have talked
to.
I know you have spoken to a range of people, and so do we,
an opportunity not just while we were in country but also back
here, as witnesses and testimony. It seems like there is Mr.
Musharraf's view of things and perspective and then everybody
else's on that, and that the administration is sort of coming
down with the Musharraf view.
I am struck by your repetition that you think we are
getting cooperation on the border area because a couple of
people have been arrested and, you know, you say there is a
number of troops on the border. My observation was they are not
quite on the border, that they are up toward the border and
that you have a few Frontier Corps groups up on the border, and
they are not very active in that.
The issue I am seeing here is we have a government that
appears--and Mr. Shays got a hit on that--to lack legitimacy
because you have a person that took office through a coup, has
been operating both as a military general and as a president.
We have questionable progress toward election shares, some real
serious concerns about whether they are going to be free and
fair. And then we have today reported in a number of ways about
a national intelligence estimate which apparently is classified
but, par for the course, executive branch people seem to be
chatting about it and then they want to blame it on Congress
for a leak, I am sure, even to the point where people who are
not talking directly but about it are testifying in front of
congressional committees.
What they are telling us is that, you know, despite what
you say and Mr. Musharraf says about all this activity, that
area leaves Al Qaeda better positioned to strike the west,
according to one of the National Counter-Terrorism Center
commentators. John Kringen, who is the Deputy Director for
Intelligence at the CIA, says Al Qaeda appears to be fairly
well settled into the safe haven and the ungoverned spaces of
Pakistan. We see more training, we see more money, we see more
communications. It just goes on and on.
The new report concludes the group is stronger than it has
been in years. There is a heightened concern over Al Qaeda's
operational activity and operational levels among the Pakistan-
Afghanistan border. One U.S. official said, ``At the end we see
a worse condition than it was before the agreements up in
Waziristan.'' And it goes on and on that way.
So clearly to some of us, apparently not to General
Musharraf or to you, there is not the kind of activity that we
would hope we would be getting out of somebody that is supposed
to be a partner, and a lot of it may well be because of the
fear of the instability of his government.
We look at reports in the paper on July 8th about a United
States' aborted raid on Al Qaeda chiefs in Pakistan in 2005.
Reportedly the reason that we didn't go in, even though there
was identification of targets we wanted to get, was a fear of
the instability of the Musharraf regime and the fact that we
were afraid of what ramifications it might have.
Wouldn't we be better off insisting that there be free and
fair elections, that all participants be allowed to be in the
country and take part in them so that there was a legitimacy
behind any Pakistani government, so that when we needed to go
after Al Qaeda types of Taliban in that area we wouldn't have
to fear the instability of the government, would have a
properly elected, duly appointed government with the legitimacy
that could stand with us and do something there, as opposed to
what we have now?
Mr. Boucher. Sir, I have tried to be objective with my
statements here and tried to look at the whole picture. I have
said the agreements in Waziristan didn't work. There was an
influx of Al Qaeda. They found more freedom of movement when
checkpoints were removed and they have been able to reorganize
themselves to some extent in that area. That is a current
threat, and that is an important threat to all of us--to
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and to our homeland. We need to deal
with it. We need to deal with it working with the Pakistanis.
But at the same time I think we need to recognize what they
have done and we need to recognize the direction they are
headed in and we need to look at how to help them to be more
effective and completely effective.
Mr. Tierney. Well, I guess we don't have disagreement about
looking at what they have done.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. I recognize Pakistanis have died there, and we
would be wrong to not understand that they have suffered pain
on that and people have given their lives and made the effort,
and it would be wrong to not recognize that some people have
been killed or arrested with their cooperation. But the fact of
the matter is you say looking forward what they are doing. When
we look forward from our perspective, you know, and see that
they are not doing all that you seem to indicate you believe
they are doing, you know, and their own NIE and reports of the
NIE seem to indicate that, as well, that area is not getting
the attention and the action that is needed.
You referred a couple of times to the Uzbeks out there. Let
me tell you, we were there during that operation and we got
variants of estimates between 100 Uzbeks to 3,000 Uzbeks.
Depending on which intelligence agency you talked to, which
military group, or what government you talked to, it ranged
back and forth, but almost all of them recognized the fact that
there essentially was one Taliban group fighting another
Taliban group, with the government putting its foot on the
scale at the tail end and then claiming that it had been
instrumental in helping remove the Uzbeks.
If that is what you are referring to as, you know, their
great efforts and looking forward how much they are being
cooperative with us, I think we have a problem. You know, the
fact really is that we are giving enormous amounts of military
money, but I don't see any accountability of that being spent
on equipment that will help in an anti-terrorism, international
terrorism effort more so than stocking up on what may be a fear
they have butted into you. With enormous moneys and basic
support, then I don't think we have any accountability at all
in terms of how much of that really goes for reimbursement of
what they might have spent on military efforts, particularly
when those military efforts don't show any fruits being born
here.
I think in a nutshell that is really where we are going at
here, and wondering why this administration continues. You say
you have been objective, and I appreciate that, but I guess
some of us are saying you may be too objective. You may not be
standing here taking a subjective enough look at weighing in on
what has not been done here and what could be done if we had,
you know, a government with more legitimacy and willingness to
stand up there and take a tough stand, both from the border
area and as they at least started to do with some of the
internal extremists that are going on with Red Mosque the other
day.
Mr. Boucher. Let me try to answer quickly, but these are
serious questions.
There is no doubt in our mind that there are real dangers
that emanate from this area. There is no doubt in our mind that
we need to deal with them and we need to work with the
Pakistanis to deal with them more effectively, and that is what
we are focused on. We are focused on getting after the rest of
the Taliban, the Taliban on the Pakistan side, their
supporters, Hakini network, people like that, focused on how to
identify and get the Al Qaeda elements that are there, how to
get the training camps, leadership bases, and things like that.
That is something that is a constant daily, very close, very
dedicated effort that we carry on.
Would all this be aided by an open election and democratic,
incredible election and a better-strengthened, moderate center
with more legitimacy in Pakistan? Absolutely. And that is why
we have seen an election as a force for stability and a
successful transition from military rule to civilian elected
government this year as being one of the key elements in
helping Pakistan come together in a moderate center in order to
fight extremism better.
Mr. Tierney. Are we not conditioning some of our financial
assistance on the performance of free and fair elections?
Aren't we making it really clear to this Musharraf
administration that, unless they start working more
cooperatively and have the election and work more cooperatively
in getting the registration in order, unless they do all the
other things that are necessary to have a truly free and fair
election, shouldn't we condition some of our resources that go
to him, particularly the basic support, which I think there is
some argument that some of that is a slush fund? Anyway,
condition some of that on performance? Doesn't that make sense?
Mr. Boucher. Well, I mean, some of our money that we give
to Pakistan is reimbursements, and so there are conditions that
we pay for things. If they didn't have the 85,000 troops on the
border area, God knows what would be going on out there. Not
anything we could deal with ourselves, I am sure.
So the fact that they are there, they can do more, we can
all do more. We are doing more on the Afghan side. We have
asked for enormous influx of funds from Congress, which
Congress has supported, so we can do more on the Afghan side.
On both sides of the border there is a lot more to do.
In terms of sort of conditioning our other assistance, you
have talked about the importance of education, getting a better
public education system in Pakistan. You have talked about the
support for democracy, for civil society, justice, things like
that, and we need to do all those things.
It is not a question of conditioning and saying, unless you
do this, unless you do that. It is a question of saying all
these things are important to us, where there is no doubt in
anybody's mind the United States wants to see a free, fair, and
open election in Pakistan this year. There is no doubt in
anybody's mind that we are working very hard to achieve that,
both in our work directly with the political parties, but also
our work with the Election Commission and everything we do in
Pakistan.
Mr. Tierney. I think, Mr. Ambassador, there is a real
question about the urgency behind our wanting these elections
to be free and fair and the urgency of making sure that it
happens. I think that would be resolved by conditioning it,
because I think that some people might not take it as seriously
unless we do something more serious on that.
I am going to interrupt my questions because Mr. Van Hollen
has joined us, and he is entitled to 10 minutes of questioning.
You are recognized for 10 minutes, Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this series of hearings on the situation in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other parts of South Asia.
Mr. Ambassador, let me just join others in welcoming you
and thanking you for your service to our country. It is much
appreciated.
As I understood your earlier testimony, you had a number of
questions related to an article that appeared today on the
front page of the Washington Post, essentially entitled: U.S.
Warns of Stronger Al Qaeda. As I understood your response, you
said you were not familiar with that report; is that correct?
Mr. Boucher. I have seen the Washington Post story, but the
Washington Post seemed to have gotten the intelligence report
before it came to my reading.
Mr. Van Hollen. All right. Here is my question. One of the
things we as a country decided after 9/11--it was one of the
key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission--was that we would
try and get away from the stovepipe approach to collecting and
analyzing information so that all people who were experts and
had information to contribute with respect to this kind of
analysis would participate.
I have to say I am surprised that you woke up this morning
and read about this in the Washington Post along with the rest
of us. This is obviously no fault of your own if you weren't in
the loop, but it is surprising to me, given the fact that we
did say we wanted more people to be involved in this process. I
recognize it is an intelligence analysis.
On the other hand, you are essentially the senior policy
person when it comes to South Asia. You obviously have a lot to
say with respect to interpreting and analyzing information
regarding the political and military situation in Pakistan. I
have to say I am surprised to hear you didn't know about the
report.
Can you enlighten us a little bit as to how this process
works, should work?
Mr. Boucher. Well, if I believe what I read in the
Washington Post, the report isn't even finished yet. Generally,
NIEs, they finish it up before they send it around.
You know, that said, I am part of the information and
analysis process every day, and I am constantly reading the raw
material and the reports that are coming in from embassy
sources and intelligence sources all over, all kinds of
different sources, and I have a constant dialog with the folks
in the intelligence community. We meet on a very regular basis.
I see somebody every morning that I talk to.
I know this is kind of the summary that is being done at
this moment, that I may not have seen that particular document
yet, but the underlying trends are something I think I am very
familiar with because of these constant discussions, and we
have talked about how the Al Qaeda has presence in Pakistan,
has grown, and how it has been reorganized, and what the
dangers are from that.
Mr. Van Hollen. OK. Well then do you share the assessment
that was given by one of your colleagues who is in the
intelligence community before the Armed Services Committee
yesterday, the House Armed Services Committee, John Kringen,
who said Al Qaeda seems to be fairly well settled into the safe
haven and ungoverned spaces of Pakistan? Do you agree with that
conclusion?
Mr. Boucher. I basically agree with the conclusion, but it
is not the whole story.
Mr. Van Hollen. All right. I guess my question is: what has
our position been, you as the head policymaker for this region,
in terms of communicating to the Pakistani government whether
we support their decision to essentially have these hands-off,
described by your colleagues as safe haven areas, where, as I
understand it, according to public reports our intelligence
community has included, that has allowed Al Qaeda to strengthen
itself. As he says, we see more training, more money, more
communications. What have we said to the government of Pakistan
with respect to our position on whether that was a good idea or
not a good idea?
Mr. Boucher. Sir, I think we have made absolutely clear
that the presence of Al Qaeda in Pakistan is a danger to all of
us, in whatever strength they are at any given moment, and that
we look to them for cooperation, as we have since 9/11, for
cooperation against the Al Qaeda elements and the Al Qaeda
elements who have been able to take refuge and operate from
Pakistan.
Mr. Van Hollen. Do you agree with your colleague----
Mr. Boucher. It is a constant effort.
Mr. Van Hollen. Do you agree with your colleague that
providing a safe haven has allowed Al Qaeda to strengthen
itself?
Mr. Boucher. I do, but providing safe haven, I mean, let's
not draw improper implications from that. This is not done with
the authorization of the Pakistani government. They did some
things that led to that influx and strengthening, but the
Pakistani government has made very clear through its words and
its actions that it, too, is opposed to extremism, it, too, is
opposed to the presence of Al Qaeda. In these last few weeks
you have seen President Musharraf at Jirga and Peshawar making
that explicitly clear.
Over the course of time, you have seen hundreds of arrests
of Al Qaeda people in Pakistan and you have seen pressure on
various Al Qaeda associates and people that are in these tribal
areas.
We know there are still a lot of them there. There is a lot
of training. There is command and control that are still there
that need to be gotten out. But they are not there, you know,
as a policy of the Pakistani government.
Mr. Van Hollen. I understand. But, as you said, words and
actions, and one of the actions the Pakistani government took
was obviously to enter into this arrangement with the leaders
in that region, and at least our publicly reported intelligence
assessment is that has resulted in strengthening of Al Qaeda.
Let me just go on and pick up on a point that the chairman
and others have made with respect to making sure we have open
and democratic elections.
This committee, back in May, took testimony from a Dr.
Samina Ahmed, who is the South Asia project director for the
International Crisis Group.
Mr. Boucher. Yes, I know.
Mr. Van Hollen. I am sure you know her.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Van Hollen. She provided testimony to this committee
via satellite. Essentially, what her message was was that
Musharraf had actually relied, to a certain extent, in terms of
putting together a coalition, on some of the more religious
parties in Pakistan to provide the majority he needed
essentially to stay in power, in contrast to some of the more
moderate parties.
In fact, I am just reading from her testimony. She said,
``Lacking a civilian constituency, Musharraf remains dependent
today on the religious parties, particularly his Coalition
party in the Baluchistan government, the JUI, the pro-Taliban
party, and the major partner in the MMA alliance to counter his
moderate civilian opposition.'' That is her testimony.
My first question is: do you share that assessment?
Mr. Boucher. That is one of the results of the election in
2002 and some of the subsequent arrangements, and that is one
of the important things about a new election: it gives an
opportunity for the moderate center to reform.
Mr. Van Hollen. But, I mean, do you share that essential
analysis of his political reliance on some of the religious
parties to maintain his governing coalition?
Mr. Boucher. In some of the provincial, especially
Baluchistan, he does rely on the religious parties. In the
National Assembly, all of them are in opposition to Musharraf,
and you have seen that in recent days the way they have spoken
about the Mosque, frankly.
Mr. Van Hollen. Now, in terms of the position we have taken
with respect to the upcoming elections--and I appreciate your
statement that we are pushing for free and fair elections--in
specific terms, have we publicly called on President Musharraf,
for example, to make sure that Benazir Bhutto is allowed to
return to Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. We have said that all the parties need to be
able to participate and the voters need to be given real
choices, but when it comes to individuals, I mean, each of them
faces a particular situation with regard to justice and other
things in Pakistan, and so no, we have not gone to endorse
specific individuals.
Mr. Van Hollen. Well, this does get to the chairman's
question, it seems to me, about the urgency and the content,
policy content behind the words, because I think many people
would agree that, with respect to the People's Party, that if
you have a leader who is the, you know, essentially the
selected leader of her particular political party, and you
don't allow them to come back and participate in the elections,
clearly you are not allowing for a free and fair election.
It seems to me, if our position is that we want free and
fair elections, we need to be making sure that anybody who
wants to run individuals included as the head of their party
are allowed to return.
Why shouldn't we do that? How is it consistent to say we
want free and fair elections but not call upon the president to
allow the return of the leader of one of the major opposition
parties?
Mr. Boucher. Because our job as the United States I don't
think is to endorse any particular party or any particular
candidate.
Mr. Van Hollen. Let me interrupt. I am not talking about
endorsing any candidate. I am not talking about endorsing any
candidate; I am talking about making real the statement that we
want free and fair elections. I am saying we want to call upon
the government to make sure that any individual who wants to
participate--of course we should not go anywhere near endorsing
any candidate in any election in Pakistan, but it seems to me,
wouldn't you agree, that to have a free and fair election,
every individual or certainly party leader who wants to
participate in the election should be allowed to be present in
Pakistan and fully participate?
Mr. Boucher. There are three different leaders of political
parties in Pakistan who are outside the country, three major
leaders----
Mr. Van Hollen. Right.
Mr. Boucher [continuing]. Who are outside the country, and
each has different circumstances, different judicial
circumstances and other things. They are out for different
reasons, they face different things if they go back. Ms. Bhutto
talks about going back, talks about facing justice. Whether she
does that or not depends to some extent on what she decides and
how it works out with the government. But, you know, an
individual's circumstances I guess we think have to be
addressed by the individual and the government.
Mr. Van Hollen. If I could just, Mr. Chairman, one question
with respect to the situation in Afghanistan. I wrote a letter
to the Secretary of State with respect to the situation there.
Mr. Boucher. I have seen it.
Mr. Van Hollen. I think we all agree on this issue, which
is we want to make sure that, as we aggressively go after Al
Qaeda and aggressively go after the Taliban, we do everything
possible to limit civilian casualties, non-combatant
casualties. After all, part of the mission is to make sure we
win the hearts and minds of the people in Afghanistan. A
concern that has been raised is that, partly as a result of the
fact that there are, according to some assessments, not enough
United States and Allied forces, ground forces, in Afghanistan,
we have relied more on air power, which is less discriminating
in terms of the targets, and that overall--and Karzai, himself,
the president of Pakistan [sic], has said that he thinks that
the level of civilian casualties has not been justifiable.
If you could just address this issue, because clearly we
want to do everything we can to root out Al Qaeda and the
Taliban, but it is clearly counter-productive if, in the
process of trying to do that, we lose the support of the local
population, because that makes it more difficult to accomplish
our mission.
Mr. Boucher. Absolutely, sir. I think we all understand how
very important this is.
I was just at the Rule of Law Conference for Afghanistan
that was held in Rome last week, and President Karzai I think
put it well. He said, you know, we are all there to protect the
innocents of Afghanistan, and it is the innocent people of
Afghanistan that deserve our protection and can't be made
casualties of the fighting.
We know we are fighting an enemy that puts civilians in
harm's way. We have had cases where they have, you know, kept
people locked up inside compounds where they were operating
from. We have had cases, you know, frequently where they take
refuge in civilian compounds and areas, knowing that if we go
after them there will be some civilian casualties, and then
they publicize it.
So it is a difficult enemy, an enemy that often goes out to
kill civilians and kill school kids, kill school teachers, kill
policemen. Recognizing how difficult it is for our military
people, I think we and our military all understand how critical
it is to success and the bigger mission that they do everything
that they can to minimize civilian casualties. So each one of
these incidents is taken very seriously. Each one of these
incidents is looked at very carefully. We do have strict rules
of engagement that we are always trying to improve, and we need
to do better. I think we are trying very hard to do that.
Mr. Van Hollen. I realize and understand fully the tactical
challenge here, given the enemy that is being faced and the
fact that they have been unscrupulous and, as you say, have
killed civilians on the other side in brazen sort of terrorist
type activities.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Van Hollen. No doubt about it. But, as you say, in
order to accomplish the larger mission, we need to make sure we
go after them without in any way enlarging or expanding their
political support.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Van Hollen. As Karzai has said, it has been at least
his feeling, as he publicly stated, that we can do better.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Van Hollen. So I think we just need to make sure that
we----
Mr. Boucher. I should address the other half of your
question, air power versus civilian versus military forces. I
am probably not the best qualified to try to address that. What
I do know is that there is still a shortfall in the NATO force
requirements, and we work very hard to try to get people to
meet that force shortfall, and then there is the question of
flexibility of the forces. Our feeling is that, you know,
whatever commanders decide they need, they need to have the
tools available. And we have pushed very hard on all countries
to give the NATO commanders the flexibility and the capability
to do the job in the best way possible with the minimum,
absolute minimum, of civilian casualties.
So our feeling is that having that additional flexibility
and capability would give the commanders more tools to use, and
perhaps make it a little easier for them to avoid these
casualties.
But I want to say that whatever they have as tools,
whatever they can use, they make a very serious effort and
continuing effort to improve this in order to avoid civilian
casualties.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you. But do you believe that the fact
that we haven't hit the full troop levels that we think that we
need, that we are somewhat short, has resulted in a somewhat
over-reliance on air power that would not otherwise be used?
Mr. Boucher. I have seen it said, but I am not qualified to
judge.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Ambassador, does it at all trouble the State Department
and the administration that Julaluddin Hakini continues to be
free, despite the Musharraf administration and their military
telling us they know where he is, and despite some pretty
prevalent rumors that he may also be providing bin Laden
protection as his guest up under the culture situation? I mean,
why is it that we don't press harder for more definitive action
to be taken against Mr. Hakini?
Mr. Boucher. I think he is one of a number of facilitators
of the Taliban on the Pakistani side that are part of the
problem and that do need to be taken out of the picture,
arrested, eliminated, whatever. And, you know, there are a
number of areas where we have seen support for the Taliban from
people and groups on the Pakistani side. The Quetta Shura
around Baluchistan was one of the major problems that we had
earlier this year, and we have gone after--Pakistanis have
helped us go after a number of those people.
There is a Hakani network. There are other facilitators.
And yes----
Mr. Tierney. I mean, it is as simple as turning on the TV
and watching Frontline, where they are interviewing members of
the Musharraf regime saying, Yes, we know where Mr. Hakani is,
and we know who he is. And when they are asked point blank why
don't you just go in and get him, no answer. I mean, how is it
that we are not pressing for something as simple as that to be
done? Everybody understands the role this individual is playing
and understands the need to do it.
Mr. Boucher. I think we all do understand the role that he
is playing and is one of the targets that needs to be gotten.
Mr. Tierney. But not the inability to do it because they
tried and failed, but the unwillingness to try to do it I
should think would somehow color what has otherwise been by you
pretty rosy picture of the cooperation of the Musharraf
government.
Mr. Boucher. We have talked about things that have been
done and things that remain to be done. This is one of the
things that remains to be done.
Mr. Tierney. I say so.
You know, I am going to leave that issue and go to another,
but a quote that one of our witnesses at our most recent
hearing had is, ``The choice that Pakistan faces is not between
the military and the Mullahs, as is generally believed in the
west, including the United States; it is between genuine
democracy and a mullah military alliance that is responsible
for the religious extremism that poses a threat to Pakistani,
regional, and international security.'' That was a sentiment
that I found to be prevalent through all segments of the
Pakistani society--people testifying here, people that we have
met here in Washington, and the myriad of people from different
occupations, as well as different political parties--that we
met there.
I would hope that this administration at least has some
recognition that is a fairly prevalent feeling amongst
Pakistanis, and if we want to start being friends with the
Pakistani people, as opposed to one individual who took over a
coup in 1999, that we have to somehow reflect in our policy and
our decisions that we understand that is their feeling, and
maybe press harder in some areas.
Let me just cover some other areas quickly so I can let you
go on this. I appreciate the time you are spending.
What is our strategy with respect to the FATA area, the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas? You know, who is going to
be our development partner up there? To whom are we going to
give this substantial amount of money that you have mentioned?
Is it going to be to local, non-government officials, to tribal
leaders, to international NGO's? It is a considerable amount of
money. How do we make sure that it is accounted for and that it
goes to the purposes for which we intend?
Mr. Boucher. If I can comment on the Mullah military
question?
Mr. Tierney. Absolutely. Sure.
Mr. Boucher. That certainly is a prevalent view, and it
has, I think, been a clear view in the past that, you know, the
Mullah--if you look at Pakistani history and the history of
some of the military regimes, you see an alliance at various
moments with some of the more extremist religious elements.
That was accentuated particularly during the anti-Soviet fight.
I mean, that was the core: the mullahs, the military, and the
Mujah Hadin fighting the Soviets. So all the contributions that
we and others made helped solidify that kind of alliance.
But I think, you know, times change, things change, and
circumstances change over time. I find it hard to say there is
a military Mullah alliance in Pakistan on the day that the
military has just completed an operation against an extremist
mosque.
Mr. Tierney. I guess the point there being it took them
several months to get to that point. The people that make the
statement rather recently----
Mr. Boucher. It took them 20 or 30 years to get to that
point, but----
Mr. Tierney. Well, this particular government, but for
Musharraf it took several months----
Mr. Boucher [continuing]. Particularly they have been
dealing with it in the last 8 or 9 months.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. From the time this started to do
it.
Again, going back to Mr. Hakani and example after example
of sort of an allowance for things to fester and to buildup
without action being taken until absolutely forced to take it.
And then yes, some people are going to be upset, but the point
is, you know, but for their fear for that and what some people
perceived as that alliance, things would have been done a lot
sooner and would continue at a lot higher level on that.
But to the other point----
Mr. Boucher. Let me answer your question----
Mr. Tierney. Please.
Mr. Boucher [continuing]. On the tribal area funding. One
of the key elements I think of the plan that was developed, the
tribal area development strategy, was to build the institutions
that can do things and handle funding and to build a tribal
area development organization that can reliably use money,
build the schools, build the vocational training centers, put
in the roads, whatever needs to be done under that plan. They
can do it reliably, effectively, get results, provide the
information, make sure it was done the right way and money was
not wasted.
And so a lot of the effort at the beginning of the program
is, in fact, to build those institutions and capabilities
there.
We also run----
Mr. Tierney. Can I just interrupt? Where do you think that
stands right now? I mean, do you think you have completed that?
Mr. Boucher. I think it is just starting, basically. We are
just getting started on a lot of this stuff.
We already have some pretty effective counter-narcotics
programs in the area where we build roads, we provide training,
do a lot of different things with counter-narcotics money in
the tribal areas, and in some places we are able to do that,
some not so well, but we use contractors to do things there. We
are able to check up and make sure it gets done.
We have an AID program to build 65 schools in the tribal
areas, and we use contractors there who do the work, but we are
able to check and make sure it gets done properly.
Mr. Tierney. I don't know if you had something else to say.
I just wanted to make sure we covered that point. Are you
completed on that?
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
The money that we spend in Pakistan, broken down a little
bit into different categories, and I am interested in your
comments on some of the accountability. The budgetary support
aspect, $200 million: how do we account for that?
Mr. Boucher. A couple of different ways. I mean, account
for it, we know where the money goes.
Mr. Tierney. Well, originally.
Mr. Boucher. The question is----
Mr. Tierney. You deliver a check and you know who you
deliver the check to. After that, where does it go?
Mr. Boucher. How do we know what gets done with it?
Mr. Tierney. Right.
Mr. Boucher. A couple of things. First, the first purpose
of the money and providing it as budgetary support is so that
they can take care of budget and fiscal policy in a way that
strengthens the economy. It is macro economic reform money. So
the first purpose is to check whether it is achieving macro
economic goals in terms of budget deficit and a variety of
other sort of indicators of macro economic stability, because
that is why we give them money through their budget.
Second purpose is we sit down, we have a series of meetings
every year called the Shared Objectives Exercise, and we sit
down with them and we define how our money shall be used. So of
that $200 million, for example, we define that, I think it is
$56.25 million will be used on education. Another chunk gets
used, $50 million, for earthquake recovery. Another chunk gets
used for health. So we define with them together.
Then we set indicators that are not just how our money will
be used, but what they are going to do in that sector, because
the goal of our money is really to leverage their budget and
make it possible for them to spend more and better on
education.
So even though directly our money, of that amount $56.25
million may go into education this year, we are looking at
indicators that say are they increasing education as a
percentage of GDP, are they increasing the number of girls in
school, are they increasing the number of kids in school. So
are they meeting those overall targets for these different
sectors? And that is the second way we account for the money.
Mr. Tierney. So it is an output sort of a measure as
opposed to identifying dollar for dollar where it actually gets
spent?
Mr. Boucher. Yes. Are we catalyzing, accelerating the work
in sectors that are important to us.
Mr. Tierney. We are told by some of the witnesses that were
here that the education budget of Pakistan is hovering
somewhere around 2 percent of the gross domestic product, and
that still falls--UNESCO's benchmark usually would recommend
somewhere about 4 percent. Are they moving and trending in the
right direction here?
Mr. Boucher. They are. They spent $1.3 billion on education
dollars in 2003. That was almost doubled to $2.4 billion in
2006, and they plan to continue to double education and health
expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product by 2015.
What we are trying to do is support that effort.
Mr. Tierney. I am a little bit troubled with the way that
we are accounting for this, only because we never seem to be
able to nail down exactly that the money has been spent where
we hope it is. We have those shared objectives, and then sort
of if things look like they are tending somewhere then we are
satisfied, but we never get to see whether all of the $200
million goes where we want it to go. I would hope that we think
of a better way to do that at some point, which is one of the
reasons why we sort of went in when we did that bill and took a
little more money for education.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Because we really feel strongly that education
gets more attention.
How many USAID personnel that are focused on education are
currently on the ground in Pakistan?
Mr. Boucher. I have to check on that. I don't know the
number.
Mr. Tierney. I say that because off the record we heard
one. That would be a little troubling. I would think they would
need a larger presence, you know, in order to do something
really meaningful on that and to make those numbers move in the
direction in which we want them to move and to send a message
clearly that we expect more to happen there.
Mr. Boucher. One of the reasons we do some of this
ourselves and some of it through the budget is because when we
put the money into their budget and they are expanding
education sector, it can do things like pay salaries for
teachers, hire and train more teachers, buy books, providing
lunch to kids in school--I mean, things that aren't really
projects that we would carry out. They are things that they can
do as part of their education programs, and expand, you know,
use Federal money to expand the availability of books and
better curricula to the provinces and things like that. So the
money goes to almost slightly different purposes than what we
would spend directly ourselves in projects.
Mr. Tierney. And it seems we have to do a little bit better
job on tracking where that is going to. Right now the
indications we have are that, you know, we are still a long,
long way to go in terms of teachers. We hear about the ghost
schools----
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. And the opportunity there, and
that is, I think, key to our long-range issue of how we are
going to deal with it.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Not just in Pakistan, but a whole host of
different countries.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. What are we doing about providing good
alternative education that doesn't push them back toward the
sort of extremist Madrassas situation.
Mr. Boucher. I learned a long time ago in Africa, when I
was responsible for cold storage of vaccines in an AID project,
you not only ask do you have a refrigerator, you ask do you
have electricity.
Mr. Boucher. Exactly.
Mr. Tierney. When I was up in the tribal areas, you know,
looking at some of these schools that we built with AID money,
the question is: is the school done? Are there teachers? Are
there books? And the answers are yes. We are careful about a
lot of that.
And I agree with you that some of these specifics of, you
know, are they really expanding the availability of education
as they spend more money, are important to track, as well.
Mr. Tierney. Well, on our recent visit up in the Peshawar
area and leading into the tribal areas there, we weren't
convinced that you are very far along in putting this
infrastructure together that you are going to need to really
effectively spend the President's proposed program, so it may
be that we need to take another trip out there before that all
comes to fruition to see how that is going or whatever. I think
the idea is good.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. I think the idea is excellent. The question
is: is it going to be executable? We would like to work with
you at least on that part.
Can you give us a little run-down of what precautions the
administration is taking to ensure that the military support
money is actually going to the types of military equipment and
purposes that effectively fight international terrorism, as
opposed to some other purposes--for instance, Orion submarines
and F-22 bombers and things like that actively look like they
are shoring up against India than fighting international
terrorism?
Mr. Boucher. I think, sir, we do try to do both. I mean, we
try to help Pakistan with legitimate defensive needs, with its
ability to patrol in the Arabian Sea in part of NATO missions
out there, to provide maritime security in that area. So we do
try to help them with their sort of basic defensive needs, and
that is a chunk of our money. That is pretty much what the $300
million for foreign military financing goes to is a lot of
those kind of things.
But also some of that money and other things that we do--
buy night vision goggles, body armor, you know, equipment for
troops that are in the war on terror. And then in addition,
then you have the money that is the reimbursement for the
expenses on the war on terror, and the Pentagon is in charge of
getting receipts and making sure they know how that money is
being spent in the right places.
Mr. Tierney. I think there is a whole host of people here
in the Congress that think those numbers, you know, ought to be
swayed a little bit differently. There ought to be more toward
international terrorism action and less toward the general part
of it, which they already have their military designed and set
up to do. But we will look at that as the budget comes through.
Have you had the opportunity to talk to General McNeil in
terms of what he sees going on, in terms of communicating what
happens in his eyes at the cross-border movement between the
Taliban from the Pakistani side to the Afghani side?
Mr. Boucher. Sure.
Mr. Tierney. Do you have regular meetings with him on that?
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. And other intelligence officials, what they
talk about in terms of them giving actual intelligence to the
Pakistani side and the cooperation or lack of cooperation that
they get back as a response to that?
Mr. Boucher. Sure.
Mr. Tierney. OK. I am a little surprised that you are still
as positive about what is being done, because I have had
conversations in depth on a regular basis with those people,
and I don't get a very pleasant position----
Mr. Boucher. I have talked to General McNeil. I think the
Dutch general, General van Loon, was just in Washington. I
don't know if you saw him. He has been the general for Regional
Command South, and, you know, he was saying there are things
going on on the Pakistani side that are helpful, that are
important to us. That is all I am saying.
I also know there is a regular flow of people across, that
the ability to take refuge in Pakistan and regroup and organize
has been a serious danger to our troops.
Mr. Tierney. And serious questions about people getting
information or intelligence and have it not be acted upon, that
then obviously puts our people in jeopardy. That is not an
irregular situation; it is a fairly common occurrence, at least
what is reported to us.
Mr. Boucher. It is something that happens, and it is an
occurrence, and nothing ever quite happens as fast or
effectively as we might like. But that doesn't mean abandon the
effort. That means you continue to make it better.
Mr. Tierney. Just some comments on the judicial situation
that is going on over there. How do you see that evolving and
winding up?
Mr. Boucher. We have said that everybody needs to respect
the decisions of the judicial process. There is a judicial
process in Pakistan to handle these matters, and in the end
everybody needs to respect that and let those decisions be made
in a judicial manner. In the meantime, there are a lot of
demonstrations. A lot of people I met the last time I was in
Pakistan were out demonstrating and, you know, political
parties are rallying. Part is just a reflection of the fact
this is a very political year in Pakistan.
Mr. Tierney. Do we have any diplomatic comments to make to
President Musharraf when he sacked Chief Justice Chaudhry?
Mr. Boucher. We asked a lot of questions. Again, it is
going to be up to the Pakistani judicial system to decide if--a
referral, it is called, referred charges to another judicial
body--if the referral was warranted. I think we are going to
have to respect that process ourselves.
Mr. Tierney. Well, are we being firm and clear in our
conversation with the Musharraf government that we expect them
to also respect the process?
Mr. Boucher. We have been very clear that everybody should
do that, including the government, and that is what the
government has pledged to do.
Mr. Tierney. You made some comments in the Pakistani Times,
I think it was last month, where you were talking about your
belief that the media in Pakistan is free, so I thought that I
would like to ask you about what you say about the recent
reports about the government's detention of reporters, control
of television coverage, and what appeared to many of us to be
forms of intimidation that were initially started and pulled
back eventually. How do you account for that?
Mr. Boucher. We have said it was a bad idea and we are glad
that it was pulled back, and we think our comments probably had
something to do with the fact that it was pulled back.
Mr. Tierney. And, last--I think it is last--A.Q. Khan.
There was a little bit of discussion there. Now we are led to
believe that he is under so-called house arrest, allowed to
brunch and have tea with friends and family. Is that accurate?
And what is your confidence level that the Pakistani nuclear
secrets and materials are safe at this point? And what more
ought Congress be doing to ensure their continued safety, if
they are?
Mr. Boucher. I think we are confident that the Khan network
is out of business, that we have been able to get at it in a
lot of parts of the world, that he is no longer operating kind
of black marketing that he was doing in the past. I think we
are confident that Pakistan has good control over its nuclear
materials. It is something we keep a close eye on.
Mr. Tierney. Are we making efforts to get in and question
Mr. Khan, because I am sure that we must feel that he has
significant information about other sales that he made prior to
his detention, and that would be fairly useful to our efforts
at nonproliferation.
Mr. Boucher. We are always interested in getting
information----
Mr. Tierney. Are we getting any cooperation----
Mr. Boucher [continuing]. From him and about his network.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. From Mr. Musharraf?
Mr. Boucher. We have gotten good cooperation in terms of
the flow of information to us and to the IAEA and to others
around the world.
Mr. Tierney. From questioning of Mr. Khan or from other
sources?
Mr. Boucher. From Pakistanis and their questioning of Mr.
Khan.
Mr. Tierney. But we have not been allowed access to him at
this point?
Mr. Boucher. No.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Ambassador, I want to thank you for all of
the time that you have given us this morning.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. And for your candor and your answers and for
your objectivity, I guess, although I might argue that, again,
I would like to see some more subjectivity into it. But I
appreciate it very much. Thank you for coming.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you very much, sir.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]