Report urges Obama to freeze Pakistan aid

WASHINGTON: An influential US think-tank urged the Obama administration on Friday to freeze its aid to Pakistan until the country took actions against perpetrators of the US Embassy attack in Kabul and helped shut down the Haqqani network.


The Heritage Foundation, often used by former US president George W. Bush to announce foreign policy decisions, also asked
the administration to back Congress on conditioning all US aid to Pakistan on certain counter-terrorism benchmarks. But the report warned that while this would be “a welcome tactic, it may be insufficient”.


The foundation demanded that the Obama administration designate the Haqqani network a Foreign Terrorist Organisation. It argued that failing to do so after the Sept. 13 attack on the US Embassy in Kabul would signal America’s weakness and invite additional attacks on its interests in Afghanistan.


The report also proposed establishing a congressional commission to oversee US relations with Pakistan. “Congress should investigate Pakistan’s role in fomenting the insurgency in Afghanistan and the extent to which its actions were preventing the US and Nato from achieving their security objectives in the region,” the report added.The foundation also urged the White House to change its Afghan strategy, noting that President Obama’s aggressive withdrawal plan to remove 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next September only “reinforces the Pakistani view that the US will turn its back” on the region. “We cannot afford to leave a void the Taliban can again fill. We should make clear that the US will remain engaged.”