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JERUSALEM - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday the U.S.
will review its aid to Pakistan after the country's military ruler
suspended the constitution. Her announcement puts in question some of
the billions in U.S. assistance to a close terrorism-fighting ally.
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On a Mideast trip now overshadowed by the unfolding crisis in nuclear-
armed Pakistan, Rice suggested that the Bush administration would not
suspend aid wholesale.
The U.S. has provided about $11 billion to Pakistan since 2001, when
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, made a strategic shift to
ally with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Some of the aid that goes to Pakistan is directly related to the
counterterrorism mission," Rice told reporters traveling with her. "We
just have to review the situation. But I would be very surprised if
anyone wants the president to ignore or set aside our concerns about
terrorism," Rice said.
The top U.S. diplomat said she had not spoken directly with Musharraf
since he announced what she called "extraconstitutional" moves on
Saturday. In addition to suspending the constitution, he ousted the
country's top judge and deployed troops to fight what he called rising
Islamic extremism.
"I'm disappointed in his decision, sure," Rice said. "I think his
decision sets Pakistan back in the considerable progress it made
toward democratic change."
After hearing word of the U.S. review, Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "I would be on the phone
with Musharraf making it clear to him that there's a price to pay if
he does not rectify what he's just done."
After Musharraf imposed a state of emergency, the Pentagon said the
declaration did not affect U.S. military support of Pakistan.
The review cited by Rice would look in part at whether some current
aid cannot continue because of U.S. legal restrictions that set
conditions for governments to receive money. That probably would cover
only a small amount of the total aid, which now runs to about $150
million each month.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies reported in August
that less than 10 percent of the aid bill since 2001 has paid for
economic and social projects.
Rice promoted such assistance, particularly for education, when she
told reporters that the U.S. has looked beyond Musharraf and made a
choice to support what had seemed to be an increasingly democratic
nation at a critical time.
"The United States did not put all its chips on Musharraf," Rice said.
Biden, D-Del., said an aid review was appropriate, but that the
administration has embraced policies that limit its options.
"I don't that they have any notion of what they're going to do right
now," he said. "This administration has a Musharraf policy, not a
Pakistan policy. It's tied to Musharraf and it's hands are pretty well
tied right now," said Biden, who is running for president in 2008.
"This is the most dangerous and complex relationship that we have and
we have a huge stake ... in seeing to it that the moderate majority in
Pakistan have a political outlet," he added. "Absent that political
outlet, what I worry about is they will join in league with the
extremists," citing what happened with Iran in 1979 when the shah was
overthrown and an Islamic theocracy set up.
Speaking of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, Biden said "all these dots
are connected" and the administration "doesn't have a policy. It has a
Musharraf policy but it doesn't have a policy relative to Pakistan and
how it affects everything else in the region."
Biden also said, however, that he believes Musharraf's military is in
firm control of the country's nuclear arsenal and does not think that
is a cause for concern now.
The center's report put U.S. aid for Pakistani schools at about $64
million.