Count U.S. Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem, among those who are understandably concerned about the effectiveness of U.S. aid to the Musharraf regime in Pakistan.
He was quoted in a New York Times story published around Christmas as having serious doubts whether money designated to quell terror cells in Pakistan’s tribal area will have the intended effect.
Jane Perlez, writing from Peshawar, noted:
The civilian aid program would provide jobs and schooling, build 600 miles of roads and improve literacy in an area where almost no women can read. It adds to the more than $1 billion in American military aid to Pakistan annually — much of which does not make its way to frontline Pakistani units, some American officials now acknowledge. The tribal area for which this new money is intended remains so unsafe that no senior American official has visited in the last nine months.
“My sense is they are ready to start, but who is going to be responsible for management?” said Representative John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is one of several members of Congress who have begun pushing the State Department for details of how the civilian aid will be monitored. They said they had not received satisfactory answers. The importance of the issue, they said, was underlined by the scores of investigations into corruption connected with huge amounts of money and equipment for reconstruction and strengthening Iraq’s army and police forces that cannot be accounted for.
“We’re not quite certain about it,” Mr. Tierney said. “I have concerns that it not be a repeat of situations in Iraq.”
Tierney’s comments came just before the assassination of Benazir Bhutto which has thrown the country into further chaos. But his concerns extend beyond the Musharraf government to the U.S. contractors the Bush administration would like to see administer the new aid programs.
Based on what he’s seen in Iraq and Pakistan, the North Shore congressman sees relatively big profits for a few with relatively little benefit for either the U.S. or the native population the aid is supposed to help.
