Bush Failure In War Against Al Qaeda: Senators Menendez And Harkin Unveil GAO Findings On Funds For Pakistani Military

Initial observations preview full report due out soon

May 6, 2008 -- WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) today helped unveil new findings from the independent Government Accountability Office showing the failure of $5.56 billion in U.S. taxpayer money since 9/11 intended to help defeat al Qaeda (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08735r.pdf).

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These “Coalition Support Funds” are meant to reimburse Pakistan for its military efforts against the terrorists in the Federally Administered Tribal Area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, but the GAO is reporting that the Pakistani military has failed in the fight against al Qaeda, that oversight of the funds is non-existent once they are given to Pakistan and that only recently has the Bush administration’s scrutiny of Pakistani claims for reimbursement seemed to increase.

“The Bush administration has basically been shoveling taxpayer money to Pakistan, no questions asked, crossing its fingers and hoping that our al Qaeda problem goes away,” said Senator Menendez. “Now six years later, our al Qaeda problem is just as big as before. This is what happens when you don’t keep tabs on the resources we are putting into defeating enemy number one. Our funding to Pakistan can no longer be a blank check – it must have benchmarks to ensure that progress is being made in the war against al Qaeda.”

“Today’s news emphasizes once again that this Administration, fully embroiled in a war in Iraq, still has no real plan for destroying the same types of terrorist camps that were used in planning the devastating attacks on our country,” said Senator Harkin. “They lack a plan, they seem to lack oversight and they do not seem very concerned about it. But we will continue our due diligence in Congress. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the reality that the Bush Administration has funneled millions of dollars into the hands of the Pakistani military without bothering to check on our investment. Future funding must be subject to strict guarantees that the money is actually being used to fight terrorism and make Americans safer.”

The GAO’s “Preliminary Observations” are a preview of a full investigation into the Coalition Support Funds due out in the near future, which was requested by the House Foreign Affairs Committee along with Senators Menendez and Harkin. The findings released today include:

• “After reimbursement to Pakistan for prior expenditures there is no requirement for further oversight of these funds by the U.S. government”, and

• “According to DOD, Pakistan Army has been unsuccessful at defeating terrorists in FATA
o Pakistani security forces lack counterinsurgency capability
o Army neither structured nor trained for counterinsurgency
o Serious equipment and training deficiencies exist in Frontier Corps”

In addition, the GAO released a chart of disallowed Pakistani reimbursement claims (p. 10), which presumably is a gauge of the level of scrutiny over Pakistan’s military activity. That chart shows a spike the oversight level in mid-2007, years after the money first began flowing to Pakistan.

Source: Senator Robert Menendez