US says Pakistan harbouring terrorists; hints at reducing military aid to Islamabad

WASHINGTON: A top US intelligence official said on Tuesday that Pakistan is harbouring terrorists and using them as reserve in Afghanistan to counter India, even as the Trump administration has indicated it intends to cut down the dole and military freebies Islamabad has long thrived on.
"Pakistan views Afghanistan or desires for Afghanistan some of the same things we want: a safe, secure, stable Afghanistan. One addition, one that does not have heavy Indian influence in Afghanistan,'' Lt Gen Vincent Stewart, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during a Congressional hearing on worldwide threats.Consequently, he said, ''they (Pakistan) hold in reserve terrorist organisations so that if Afghanistan leans towards India, they will no longer be supportive of an idea of a stable and secure Afghanistan that could undermine Pakistan interest."
"They view all of the challenges through the lens of an Indian threat to the state of Pakistan," Stewart explained, adding, "We've got to convince Pakistan that … it is not in their interest to continue to host of Haqqani network, that we ought to be working together to go after those 20 terrorist organisations that undermine not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but all of the region.''
Stewart also informed lawmakers that "India has sought and continues to move to isolate Pakistan diplomatically and is considering punitive options to raise the cost to Islamabad for its alleged support to cross- border terrorism,'' while telling them that ''continued threat of high level terror attacks in India, violence in Kashmir and bilateral diplomatic recriminations will further strain India-Pakistan ties in 2017.''
The open hearing indictment of Pakistan as a terrorist state came even as the White House talked of ending freebies for a country that has bilked billions of dollars in foreign and military aid (more than $30 billion after 9/11, by some accounts) from the United States, but has continued to nurture and aid terror groups.
The Trump administration is now saying age of freebies is over and most US aid may now be converted to loans, part of its overall budget cuts and pay-for-yourself policy towards allies.
The White House move, being resisted by the State Department, calls for military aid to Pakistan being reduced from $ 265 million in 2018 to $ 100 million in 2018, in a total assistance of $344 million. This is drastic fall from the time the country belonged to the ''billion dollar club'' that includes Israel and Egypt, among the biggest recipients of US aid.
Aid to the latter two is not affected in the latest cuts, but the White House budget director Mick Mulvaney identified Pakistan as one of the countries for whom grants will be converted to loans.
"ur argument was instead of … giving somebody US$100 million, we could give them a smaller number worth of loan guarantees and they could actually buy more stuff,'' Mulvaney said, adding that the State Department will have some flexibility to come up with a final plan, ''but we have proposed to move several countries from a direct grant program to a loan guarantee program.''
The move is seen as a big blow to a country that, for all its friendship with China, has thrived on billions in US dole for bulking itself up militarily against India, contributing to its bravado.
The US dialing down also comes on the heels of a perceived humiliation of Pakistan at the US-Islam summit in Riyadh that left many Pakistani commentators shrieking that the country’s ''sacrifices'' in the war on terror and its self-proclaimed primacy in the Muslim world was not being recognized.
In hysterical outbursts on television, Pakistani anchors and talking heads have been fulminating that President Trump and his Saudi hosts insulted Pakistan by not allowing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to address the summit , even though Pakistan is the only Islamic nuclear power and is a ''front-line state in the war on terror'' that has suffered greatly from terrorism.
Many commentators are outraged that Trump specifically identified India among the victims of terror attacks and did not mention Pakistan (although the U.S President did mention broadly that most victims of terror were Muslims and Muslim nations).
The perceived slight, which included the US forsaking bilateral meeting with Pakistan even though Trump met with leaders of Afghanistan and Bangladesh, has caused a great deal of heartburn in the Pakistani commentariat, even as Washington has begun to talk more openly about Pakistan’s backing of terror groups and the need to take punitive action.
Some moderate and progressive analysts, notably Rauf Klasra and Amir Mateen, argued that it is time Pakistan disabused itself of its fantasy of being a leader of the Muslim ummah on account of its nuclear arsenal, recognize that it was poor, broke, and disdained by rest of the world, and repaired ties with India to better its economy and its security.