[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 126 (Tuesday, September 25, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S9811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself and Mr. McConnell):
  S. 1465. A bill to authorize the President to provide assistance to 
Pakistan and India through September 30, 2003; to the Committee on 
Foreign Relations.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I am introducing today a bill, along 
with Senator McConnell, and there will be others who will be added as 
cosponsors to the bill, to provide limited authority to the President 
to provide assistance to Pakistan and India.
  This bill provides a limited waiver authority to the President to 
provide foreign aid assistance to Pakistan and to India. I do not need 
to remind anybody in this body of the difficulty facing particularly 
Pakistan at this time, as General Musharraf, the Chief Executive of the 
country, stepped forward to support the United States in this time of 
fighting international terrorism, particularly that which is based in 
Afghanistan.
  Yet because of prior legislation, the United States cannot provide 
certain types of aid to Pakistan that I believe the administration may 
well need to provide to Pakistan to keep the Government there, to 
provide support and help to the Government.
  For instance, the U.S. Government today, because of sanctions that 
were put on Pakistan by law and there is no waiver authority, cannot 
provide more than $50 million in foreign aid assistance to Pakistan. 
They can in some areas provide below $50 million, but they cannot 
provide any more than that. They can do no debt rescheduling. There are 
no balance of payment supports the United States can provide to 
Pakistan. These are a lot of funds, but I want to point out what would 
take place if the Pakistani Government gets into great difficulty and 
the United States is not able to help.
  General Musharraf controls nuclear weapons and missile capacity as 
well. If the Government of Pakistan does not survive, it will probably 
move to a more radical regime that will have both nuclear weapons and 
the capacity to delivery those nuclear weapons to our allies and even 
possibly U.S. interests.

  Pakistan is helping us against this battle of terrorism. We need to 
lift all sanctions to work with them. We are going to need to help them 
economically during this very difficult time for them and for us.
  As we move forward in this battle on terrorism, we are going to have 
to work with people in many ways. There is a military component that 
people watch, but there is also a strong cooperative component which 
needs to take place. We need to work with our potential allies around 
Afghanistan so that we can go into the country of Afghanistan or 
support resistance fighters around Afghanistan and in Afghanistan, 
which I think is the better route to go, for us to drain the swamp and 
be able to get the terrorism at that point in time or cause them to 
move and capture them at that time.
  The administration is asking for this important assistance. They will 
need to work very closely with Pakistan. The Musharraf government has 
had sanctions imposed on it because they triggered particular 
provisions by their own actions. The administration is going to have to 
weigh that very carefully. If they are going to return to an elective 
government, which the Pakistani President and the Supreme Council of 
Pakistan, the Supreme Court has stated that they will next October have 
free elections to elect their leadership, we are going to have to 
appraise this as it moves forward.
  Right now the Bush administration does not even have the authority to 
waive these sanctions to provide foreign aid, debt repayment, and 
assistance. They do not even have the option. This bill will provide 
them the waiver authority to provide that assistance. It means the 
sanctions will still be in place, and the administration will have to 
decide whether or not to lift them.
  I am introducing this bill now because I would like to see it 
included either on the Defense authorization bill, foreign ops 
appropriations bill, or as a freestanding bill passing through this 
Congress. This needs to take place. That is why I am introducing this 
bill and drawing it to the attention of my colleagues. We need to do 
this, and we should not be parsimonious in this time of great 
difficulty for us and for them. I thank the Chair.

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