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The gift that never, ever stops giving
By Ned | February 21, 2008
I feel Robin Wright’s pain. She’s written an important story that’s going to get completely drowned out in the next news cycle because John McCain’s been accused of shtupping a lobbyist.
Once a month, Pakistan’s Defense Ministry delivers 15 to 20 pages of spreadsheets to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. They list costs for feeding, clothing, billeting and maintaining 80,000 to 100,000 Pakistani troops in the volatile tribal area along the Afghan border, in support of U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
No receipts are attached.
Helping a corrupt despot like Musharraf combat Al Qaeda because it’s the lesser of two evils is one thing. But this is basically handing him fistfuls of money because somebody over at the Defense Ministry knows how to enter big numbers into Microsoft Excel. How much money are we talking here? $5.7 billion. $80 million a month.
So what does the Bush administration have to say for themselves?
“It’s a big job to go through and figure out what the Pakistanis have spent. The State Department doesn’t know the toys,” said the second U.S. official familiar with policy.
He added: “The embassy doesn’t have the manpower or expertise to tell whether an aviator widget doohickey costs 50 or 50,000 rupees, or to find out if they really burned out four aviatics packages in an Apache helicopter and, if so, could we see them because maybe they only need maintenance.”
An aviator widget doohickey?!
Listen, Secretary Rice, I think I can help you out here. See, I’ve got this magical anti-terrorism stick that I’m willing to sell you for the low, low price of $20 million. Hell, that’s less than you give to Musharraf in a week. Anyway, think about it. You have my number.
Topics: International Politics, Terrorism, The White House |
February 21st, 2008 at 7:03 pm
[…] by Matt Zeitlin on February 21, 2008 Ned Resnikoff is right, it’s unfortunate that Robin Wright’s story about our unaccountable aid to Pakistan is […]