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PAKISTAN AT THE CROSSROADS; AFGHANISTAN

IN THE BALANCE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 12, 2007

Serial No. 110–173

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE TURK, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 12, 2007 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Boucher, Richard A., Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of South and

Central Asian Affairs .................................................................................... 10

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Boucher, Richard A., Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of South and

Central Asian Affairs, prepared statement of ............................................ 15

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 9

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 4

(1)

PAKISTAN AT THE CROSSROADS;

AFGHANISTAN IN THE BALANCE

THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN

AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tierney, Lynch, Higgins, Yarmuth,

Braley, Cooper, Van Hollen, Hodes, Shays, Burton, Platts, Duncan,

and Turner.

Staff present: Dave Turk, staff director; Andrew Su and Andy

Wright, professional staff members; Davis Hake, clerk; A. Brooke

Bennett, minority counsel; and Benjamin Chance, minority clerk.

Mr. TIERNEY. Good morning. As a quorum is present for our purposes here this morning, the Subcommittee on National Security

and Foreign Affairs hearing entitled, ‘‘Pakistan at the Crossroads;

Afghanistan in the Balance,’’ will come to order.

I ask unanimous consent that the chairman and ranking minority member of the subcommittee make opening statements. Without objection, that is so ordered.

Also, I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept

open for 5 business days so that all members of the subcommittee

may be allowed to submit a written statement for the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the following written statement

and materials be placed in the hearing record: that of the Honorable Richard A. Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of

South and Central Asian Affairs. Without objection, so ordered.

For purposes of this hearing, I would like to just put some remarks on the record and then invite Mr. Shays to do the same, and

then we would like to go directly to our witness who has been kind

enough to join us here this morning.

Today we are continuing our sustained oversight of U.S. policy

toward Pakistan. We do it for two fundamental reasons: first, that

Pakistan has been and remains absolutely vital for the United

States’ national security. The 9/11 Commission stressed, ‘‘It is hard

to overstate the importance of Pakistan in the struggle against Islamic terrorism.’’ More recently, Fareed Zakaria, among others, has

reiterated that Pakistan should be considered the ‘‘central front in

the war on terror.’’

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Second, Pakistan finds itself at the most important crossroads it

has faced in years, and it is absolutely vital that we in the U.S.

Government seize this opportunity to ask ourselves whether current U.S. policy needs to be reassessed in order to best ensure longterm U.S. national security interests.

Pakistan faces this crossroads as it rounds the bend into upcoming national elections. The crossroads is represented by two ongoing dramas: one, the full-blown judicial crisis precipitated by President Musharraf’s suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry;

and two, the fallout from the bloody conclusion to the tense standoff with extremists at Islamabad’s Red Mosque.

Protests of President Musharraf’s suspension of the Chief Justice

are populated by lawyers and proponents of a robust civil society,

judicial independence, and democratic rule of law, while those rising in support of the Red Mosque are populated by extremists and

jihadis who wish to impose a repressive view of Islam on all Pakistanis.

This subcommittee’s May hearing focused on the links between

Pakistan’s rising tide of extremism and its relation to a failing Pakistani education system. The Red Mosque is merely a stark symbol

of the deeper, more pervasive problem in Pakistan, where there are

far more jihadists, extremist madrassas, Al Qaeda operatives,

Taliban safe havens, and international terrorist training camps

than Pakistani government officials are willing to admit. In fact,

just 2 months ago our own State Department concluded, ‘‘Pakistan

remains a major source of Islamic extremism and a safe haven for

some top terrorist leaders.’’

It is vitally clear that extremism in Pakistan is of immediate concern to the United States’ interests, including its having fueled a

resurgence of violence in Afghanistan. The 9/11 Public Disclosure

Project warned that President Musharraf, ‘‘has not shut down extremist-linked madrassas or terrorist camps. Taliban forces still

pass freely across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and operate in

Pakistani tribal areas.’’ And these border groups gained political legitimacy last year when General Musharraf signed a series of dubious peace deals with the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan’s intensifying extremism also has consequences that

reach far beyond Afghanistan. The July 7, 2005, London subway

terrorist bombings and a later incident involving fertilizer bombs

both involved terrorists who had attended Pakistani madrassas

and training camps.

Due to President Musharraf’s, some would say, tepid cooperation

in controlling extremism and disrupting terror networks, along

with signs that these crises have compromised his grip on power,

there is a growing chorus calling for a significant reevaluation of

U.S. policy toward Pakistan.

This past Monday, alone, critical editorials ran in both the Washington Post and the New York Times. The Times noted, ‘‘America

needs to maintain friendly relations with Pakistan. This is exactly

why Washington should hasten to disentangle itself from the sinking fortunes of General Pervez Musharraf, a blundering and increasingly unpopular military dictator and a halfhearted strategic

ally of the United States.’’

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The Washington Post editorial stressed their view of the administration’s policy this way: ‘‘Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf is running

out of supporters—except in Washington.’’

Today’s hearing presents an opportunity to explore a whole slew

of critical questions with the administration’s point person on Pakistan.

For example, where does Pakistan’s cooperation against international terrorism stand, especially in light of the spread of jihadi

extremism in Pakistan, and what impact does this have on U.S.

forces and efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world?

Is our current aid package to Pakistan, one in which we are providing at least 10 times more for military aid than for basic education assistance, in the best long-term interests of United States’

national security?

What should United States’ policy be with respect to Pakistan’s

civil society, in light of the escalating crisis following President

Musharraf’s dismissal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme

Court?

And what is the United States doing to help ensure that the upcoming Pakistani national elections occur and are free and fair,

from voter registration to vote tally? And what are the consequences for President Musharraf if they are not?

The people of Pakistan stand at a crossroads and U.S. efforts in

Afghanistan and the world’s success against international terrorism hang in the balance.

This Congressman feels that the United States needs to send a

powerful message at this critical juncture that we stand shoulderto-shoulder with our brothers and sisters in Pakistan in their pursuit of education for their children and democracy for their country.

It has often been said that Pakistan is a place of breathtaking

complexity. It is in part because of this that our long-term national

security interests are best served by forging bonds with the Pakistani people and not necessarily with any one particular leader.

I am pleased that our State Department’s Pakistan point person

is here with us today in order to present the administration’s viewpoint and to engage in what I hope will be a robust discussion.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Today the subcommittee again discusses serious

issues involving Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the broader region.

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate you on holding such a timely hearing—timely in light of all eyes having turned toward Islamabad

with last week’s military action against nearly 2,000 extremists

holed up in the Red Mosque.

These dynamic developments—and in Pakistan’s capital city

nonetheless—underscore our need to understand the forces threatening the peace and stability of our allies in the South Asia region

and allies across the globe.

I look forward to today’s hearing as an opportunity to discuss

first the effects of extremism in Pakistan; second, the effects of

U.S. aid to Pakistan; third, the prognosis for Pakistan’s forthcoming elections, and; fourth, the implications for Pakistan’s civil society and President Musharraf’s attempted dismissal of the Pakistani Chief Justice.

Subcommittee staff recently met with a delegation of provincial

leaders from the Afghan side of the Pakistan-Afghan border. These

Afghani leaders expressed hope for a peaceful Afghanistan, but

stated peace and development cannot be achieved without security.

Security cannot be achieved without stricter border enforcement.

And strict border enforcement cannot be achieved without cooperation from the Pakistani government and stronger action by President Musharraf. These are strong and insightful sentiments expressed by the Afghani leaders, especially as they are most directly

affected by Pakistani action or inaction.

Some strongly question the will and inclination of President

Musharraf to stand up to the challenges faced by Pakistan. We

hear President Musharraf is thwarting the role of the judiciary.

There are indications he is thwarting democracy by not allowing

political candidates to return to Pakistan to stand for election.

President Musharraf may be turning a blind eye toward the

growing ranks of Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan, lacking the

ability or will to crack down on terrorist training camps in western

Pakistan, and stopping the proliferation of jihadists moving across

the Pakistan-Afghan border, and attacks on Coalition forces and

Afghan civilians. In fact, some say with confidence that Osama bin

Laden is currently in a training camp near the Pakistani-Afghan

border not far from Peshawar, in fact, yet somehow President

Musharraf has not been able to find it.

So what of all of this is true? If any of it is true, how does the

United States justify continuing its seemingly unconditional support for Musharraf’s government? And how do we in Congress justify to the American people writing checks for billions of dollars to

a regime that may not be the partner against terrorism the United

States needs it to be but may actually be hurting national security

interests of the United States and our allies? While many inside

and outside Pakistan question President Musharraf’s policies, Pakistan remains a strategic U.S. partner in the struggle against terrorism, and we should not forget Pakistan has been a strong supporter and ally to the United States.

That said, our support cannot be unconditional. We look forward

to getting answers to some basic questions that go to the heart of

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protecting the security of this Nation and her allies, the safety of

the United States and Coalition forces serving in Afghanistan, and

peace and stability around the world.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Shays.

We will now receive testimony from our witness that is with us

here today. I want to begin by introducing the witness. I won’t go

into the long resume. I think most people are familiar with it, but

it is a long and distinguished career as a public servant in Foreign

Affairs, and I appreciate that, and we all do. I would like to welcome Ambassador Richard A. Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State

for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.

Mr. Boucher, as you know, it is the policy of this subcommittee

to swear you in before you testify, so I ask you to please stand and

raise your right hand.

If any other person is going to be assisting you in testimony

today, we would ask them also to stand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. I am going to suggest, Mr. Boucher, that you can

recognize that your written remarks are already on the record and

will be incorporated in there. Please feel free to either reiterate

them or to speak in an abbreviated fashion. We have 5 minutes

generally for the opening statement. We are going to be liberal

with that because of the complexity of the topic, but with some

mindfulness, allowing Members at some point to be able to get

some questions in.

Thank you, sir.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD A. BOUCHER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN

AFFAIRS

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shays, other members of the subcommittee. It is a great pleasure to be here today,

and I thank you for holding a hearing that is both topical and timely. I appreciate the effort that you all put into supporting and

working with Pakistan and the travel that you have made out

there to help further our policy goals.

I would like to give a sort of abbreviated introduction, because

I am sure that with the breathtaking complexities that you referred to, that we will probably get to a lot of different things during the course of questions. But if I can, I would like to lay out sort

of the basic framework of how we see Pakistan and what we are

doing there.

As you noted, Pakistan is a vital ally to us in a very broad variety of ways. Our goal is to see that Pakistan succeeds as a democratic nation, a prosperous people, and a moderate Moslem society.

First of all, Pakistan is vital to the war on terror. We all need

to do everything we can to prevent attacks that could come from

this part of the world.

Second of all, Pakistan is vital to the fight in Afghanistan. We

all know we won’t have stability in Afghanistan unless Pakistan is

stable, and vice versa. The militancy, the extremism can move both

ways across the border, and that is something that leaders in both

Pakistan and Afghanistan recognize.

Third, in a more long-term, strategic way, Pakistan is vital to

opening up the flow of people, energy, ideas, and trade between

South and Central Asia. That is a strategic change that can reverse

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hundreds of years of history and open up opportunities for the

countries of Central Asia, as well as South Asia.

We have and will have a long and very enduring strategic relationship with Pakistan, to work together for its success in all these

areas, but achieving our goals in Pakistan is going to take time.

So how can we help Pakistan succeed politically, economically,

and militarily? I talk about the four E’s—education, economy, energy, and elections.

First, we are supporting the renewal of Pakistan’s public education system. If you look at all the various money we put in

through project assistance, through the Fulbright program, through

their own budget, it is well over $100 million a year that we put

into the reform and expansion of education in Pakistan. That is a

small part of their own efforts to reform and expand their education system. They have, I think, gone from $1.3 billion a year on

education from the Federal budget in 2003 to about $2.3 billion a

year spent in education from their own Federal budget. Our assistance helps support that.

Second is the reform and expansion of the economy. The economy

is growing at 6, 7 percent a year, based on open investment climate, open economy, and that is doing quite well. We want to support and continue that.

The third is helping them support the diversification of their energy supplies. One of the problems that Pakistan faces, particularly

this year, is called load shedding. It is basically brownouts, cutting

in power to a lot of people. That is one of the things that you see

a lot of comment on in the press and in politics. We are trying to

work with the government, work with other nations to bring energy

down from the north in the form of electricity from Tajikistan and

other places, as well as to help them develop new sources of energy

in coal or alternate energy systems.

The fourth E is elections. Pakistan is poised now for a peaceful

transition this year from military rule to civilian government. We

are doing everything we can to support a free and fair election. We

put about $20 million this year into supporting the Election Commission doing basic poll watcher training, political parties training,

things like that, and we have been very active and outspoken in

pushing for an open election and trying to help look at some of the

areas where they can do better in terms of making sure that everybody has a choice, and that the choices of voters in Pakistan are

respected.

We have also made clear we think this election is important for

the body politic of Pakistan, not just for the choices the people

have, but in order to form a more stable, moderate center to Pakistani politics. We have tried to encourage that, for the moderates

to come together at the center so that they are better poised to

fight extremist elements in this society.

That is the fifth E, which is the danger, and that is extremism

that afflicts Pakistan. It is a threat to the people of Pakistan. It

is a threat to the national goals of modernizing Pakistan. It has

manifest itself in a number of ways, but let me start with the tribal

areas.

Tribal areas of Pakistan have never been governed by the same

arrangements as the rest of the country. Going back to British

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days, these were covered under sort of hands-off arrangements,

then during the modern period those arrangements were never

changed. So the government doesn’t have the full authority and

writ in those places. They operate through agents and through

tribes.

Nonetheless, the government is interested in trying to bring

these places into the national system, into the national economy,

one of the reasons being to give people alternate ways of earning

a living than smuggling and picking up guns. So they have developed a very comprehensive development plan for the tribal areas.

The Pakistan government is going to put $100 million a year for

10 years into the development of these areas, and we have told

them we will come up with $150 million a year for the next 5 years

to support the economic development of the tribal areas.

In addition, we are trying to open up some economic opportunity

for the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and have said

we are going to propose to the Congress reconstruction opportunity

zones. We hope that there will be a legislative opportunity for that

in the coming months, and we hope that Members will support that

legislation when it appears, because it is, again, the idea that if

you can have economic development in these regions you can use

the economic development to bring people into the national economy and to get them to take up different occupations than the ones

many of the young men there have been following.

The second big thing going on in the tribal areas has been the

security efforts. Now, Pakistan, as I said, has been a strong ally

in the fight against terrorism. They have captured more Al Qaeda

than any country in the world, lost more people in doing that. They

have been key to the efforts that have been made over the last 5

years.

You have also seen perhaps, over the last 6 to 9 months, more

of the focus on the tribal areas of Pakistan, the border areas of

Pakistan. And, indeed, they have had a number of successes. Several major Taliban leaders have been captured or killed this year

so far, Molaz Mani in January and Mullah Obadullah, Muladu

Dulalang. Some of these gentlemen were killed in Afghanistan, but

these were all joint efforts with Pakistan that led to the elimination of some of the top Taliban leaders who have been operating

from Pakistan to support the insurgency in Afghanistan.

The addition you saw earlier this year, the tribal leaders with

some support from the government turned on what they call the

Uzbeks, some of the foreign militants who have been in these areas

associated with Al Qaeda, engaging in trade and engaging in bombing and engaging in fighting alongside the Taliban, and hundreds

of those people were expelled from the tribal regions this year with

the support of the government.

The government has now made clear to the tribes that all the

foreign elements, the foreign militants, are a danger to—those

areas are a danger to Pakistan and need to be expelled, and you

have seen very strong warnings from President Musharraf about 2

weeks ago, from Governor Orakzai, the Governor of Northwest Region, in recent days warning the tribes that they need to expel the

foreigners and not allow the Taliban to cross the border or to cross

into the settled areas of Pakistan. That has been a big concern

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throughout Pakistan, that the Taliban are somehow trying to expand the heir influence in the settled areas.

So you have seen steps that the government has taken in terms

of moving troops into the region, putting up better checkpoints

near the borders. They have built more border posts. They have

equipped the people there better, and we have tried to support that

and will try to support that as we go on.

And the other manifestation of extremism that we have seen the

government deal with is the Red Mosque controversy. I looked it

up on the internet. This Mosque was founded in 1965. It really

grew over the last 20 years into a major center for extremist views,

extremist ideologies, and has been accused over the last year to

many attacks, abductions, forays against policemen or people in society, and really has led to, you might say, a popular backlash. A

lot of Pakistanis see this activity, a lot of Pakistanis have seen the

activity of the Taliban in some of the settled areas, have really

risen up and said no, you know, we want video stores, we want

barber shops, we want to have a normal, modern life.

The government tried to contain this problem for a long time,

was very reticent about going after the Mosque or going into the

Mosque because of the large numbers of women and children who

were there, but they found in the last couple of weeks that they

were not able to do that any more, and because the militants were

coming out and attacking policemen and others and trying to seize

weapons, so the government did react. They have spent the last 9

days, I think it is, in a military operation to clear the place out,

and it looks like it is pretty much over today.

There was some loss of life. We don’t yet know the final numbers

on how many people might have been killed in the operation, some

soldiers, some militants inside the Mosque, but I would say that,

considering the difficulty of the operation, the scope of the operation, and the refusal of the people inside to negotiate and lay

down their arms and come out peacefully, the government did act

with relative restraint and care as they conducted this operation.

Let me say again, Mr. Chairman, these are all elements in stabilizing Pakistan. Everything from education and energy and elections to dealing with the problems of extremism, they are all part

of helping Pakistani people achieve better lives in a more modern

society.

This is the direction that President Musharraf is leading the nation, and we are proud to work with him. It is a fundamental direction that is important to us and important to him and important

to the Pakistani people, and we work with the government, we

work with the people, we work with people, civil society, political

parties who want to lead Pakistan in this direction.

If they succeed, Pakistan can not only be a stable anchor for the

region, prosperous nation for its people, but it can also be a model

to others in the developing world, particularly in Moslem countries.

So it is important that we help Pakistan succeed, especially in

making the transition this year to civilian government and to a

democratic government for its country.

As I said at the beginning, I am pleased to see the interest of

Members of Congress and very happy to be able to work with Congress as we go forward in trying to achieve these goals, so thank

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you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your time. I would be glad to

take questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boucher follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. We appreciate your

comments and your willingness to have a dialog with us.

I am going to start. Mr. Shays and I were talking, and his suggestion, if there is no objection, we might do 10 minute rounds of

questioning, unless anybody has a pressing engagement elsewhere.

Sometimes, as you know, Ambassador, we have other committees

going on at the same time.

Mr. BOUCHER. I do.

Mr. TIERNEY. I will take the liberty of starting, if I may.

Ambassador, do you think that we have sufficiently broad and

deep enough ties to Pakistan to maintain a strategic relationship

with that country if President Musharraf were to exit the scene?

What are we doing specifically to facilitate ties directly with the

Pakistani people, and what else should we be doing?

Mr. BOUCHER. Let me say I think we do have very broad ties in

Pakistan to people throughout the society. We know people all over

the country. We have consulates in Lahore, Kashower, Karachi. We

have people who worked down in Quetta, largely in drug enforcement missions, but they work with local authorities down there.

Whenever I travel there I meet with a wide variety of people, from

the political parties of Pakistan—I have met with people from all

the political parties of Pakistan, and these are, in fact, regular contacts of our embassy.

We certainly think the fundamental direction that President

Musharraf has been leading Pakistan is one that is compatible

with our goals and, frankly, compatible with the goals of the majority of the Pakistani people, but we have very broad outreach to all

segments of society. We have been very involved with the development of civil society. We have close ties with women’s groups, with

academics, with legal people in the legal profession, some of whom

are now protesting, and politicians of all stripe. So we do try to

make sure that we have very broad contacts there.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I want to give you a quote of the author Ahmed Rashid, who I think you are familiar with, ‘‘To spook

the west into continuing to support him, Musharraf continues to

grossly exaggerate the strength of the Islamic parties that he

warns might take over his nuclear-armed country. In fact, the

United States would be far safer if it pushed for a truly representative Pakistani government that could marginalize the jihadists

rather than placing all its eggs in Musharraf’s basket.’’

Do you agree with that statement? If not, why not?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think he is totally wrong. I think he is wrong

in his characterizations. I think his policy prescription is exactly

right, but I think that was the article that he mentioned my name

in quite a few times, and, frankly, a half a dozen things in there

are just flat out wrong.

We don’t put all our eggs in one basket. We do support moderation and we don’t—I have never heard Musharraf or anyone else

exaggerate the strength of the Islamist parties. Most of the people

that I have talked to in Pakistani politics, whether they are in government parties or other ones, think that because of the distortions

of the 2002 elections the Islamist parties were able to actually gain

more seats than they would get and will get in a free and fair election. We will ultimately see what the voters decide.

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There have been some bi-elections, like the one up in Bajaur,

where the Islamist parties didn’t do that well.

So I think the contention is not made. The idea that we should

push for a more centrist political orientation in Pakistan and work

with the parties to try to encourage that is a correct observation,

but, in fact, that is what we do, and that is what I said in my testimony we do.

Mr. TIERNEY. I am encouraged to hear you say things along that

line. I happen to agree that if you have a legitimate elected government under free and fair elections, the legitimacy is going to better

empower you to deal with extremism. I think that is why it is important.

Looking at the election situation, I want to ask you if you have

reviewed the National Democratic Institute’s USAID funded review

of preliminary voters list. I assume that you have.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. So what should we do regarding the finding? And

I am going to go through basically a number of these. One finding

that, based on a statistically significant sample size, up to 13 of 52

million entries of the voter polls’ rolls may be duplicates or incorrect. What should we do about the fact that, using that same sample size, up to 16 million eligible voters are yet to be registered?

What should we do with regard to the finding that the voter rolls

contain vastly fewer numbers than previous elections on a scale

suggesting that the reduction cannot be attributed to the de-duplication, alone?

These are serious issues. When I hear you speak about making

sure that the votes are open and transparent, no disagreement

there; but tallying the votes on election day is only one part of it.

If we don’t make sure that they have a list over there from which

they are working that enables everybody to be registered that

should be registered, that doesn’t put up poll taxes or other barriers to get people, I think we are in for some difficulty there.

So on top of asking whether or not you read that poll and respond to that, let me also ask you if you have read former Prime

Minister Benazir Bhutto’s June letter in which she laid out, I

think, about 10 different issues that were significant, and your reaction to that, as well.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes, sir, I have looked at the National Democratic

Institute report. I have seen Former Prime Minister Bhutto’s letter.

Her party also did a very detailed and extensive analysis of the

2002 election and a lot of the problems that they saw there, and

we have looked at that. We have also looked at other reports on

previous elections and what needed to be corrected. So, you know,

there are things in there, basic things like transparent ballot boxes,

that they said, you know, really were needed, and that is one of

the things that we are paying for in Pakistan is to get them transparent ballot boxes, which are harder to stuff.

So we have tried to take to heart all those things. More important, I think, is we have tried to really encourage the Election

Commission to take those things seriously and to look at all these

specifics and deal with them.

When I was in Pakistan last time, I met again with the Election

Commissioner to talk to him about these things. The voter rolls is,

23

indeed, an issue. First of all, everybody thinks there was a lot of

duplication on the voter rolls, and, second of all, everybody thinks

there are a lot of people left out. So at one point you have to reduce

the duplication, but you have to register all the unregistered people.

There were issues over ID cards that seem to have been settled,

but really the parties need to be able to go through these lists and

make sure that they are accurate and check their voters, check

their precinct voters, and check for duplications.

Mr. TIERNEY. But if I can interrupt, that is not being done. I

mean, clearly as recently as yesterday, conversation with people

over there that is not being done and there is still considerable concern about that.

Mr. BOUCHER. It is being done in some ways and not others. The

voting lists are now published at election centers. There are display

centers where the voter lists are on display in a particular precinct.

I went in Quetta to one of those display centers at a school, and

they have them there, and anybody can come in and look and make

sure my name is on and make sure other names aren’t on five

times.

To do that in a nation of 50 to 70 million voters is pretty hard,

and particularly when you are doing across places, and so we have

pushed, encouraged the Election Commission to make these lists

available in CD form and computerized form so the parties can go

through them more thoroughly and use modern technology to try

to identify lapses.

At this point, you know, they talk about it. They haven’t done it.

We keep pushing.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I hope that you will continue to keep

pushing——

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Because I think those elections are not

going to be able to be termed free and fair——

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Unless we get that resolved and, given

all the money that USAID and the United States is putting into

the elections, we are going to be the ones that are going to be

arguably——

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Complicit, or at least people are going

to say that we are complicit——

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. In not having made that happen.

Mr. BOUCHER. Can I add one more thing?

Mr. TIERNEY. Sure.

Mr. BOUCHER. There is a lot of discussion right now in Pakistan

among the political parties about having all the parties get together and agree on basic code of conduct and rules, guidelines for

the election. We think that would be a very good thing. We have

tried to encourage that with all the parties.

Mr. TIERNEY. And I hope, which hasn’t been done yet, encouraging the Election Commission to have those parties at the table and

be able to work off of any complaints or suggestions that they have.

Mr. BOUCHER. Absolutely.

24

Mr. TIERNEY. Which is not happening, either.

Mr. BOUCHER. That is one of the first things I said in my first

meeting with the Election Commissioner last year.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, in your written testimony you said, ‘‘President Musharraf reiterated his resolve to stop Talibanization of the

frontier areas.’’ And you said, ‘‘The government of Pakistan has developed a comprehensive strategy to combat terrorist extremists by

integrating these ungoverned spaces into the mainstream of Pakistan’s economy and government.’’

I have to tell you that, you know, after having been there and

witnesses here in other hearings, what went on in the Waziristan

agreement clearly looks to be failed policy. Have you had that conversation with President Musharraf? Does he recognize and acknowledge that has been an extremely failed policy? And reiterated

again just yesterday by our own individuals testifying in front of

another committee telling us that there are worse conditions there

than before the agreements, that not enough is being done.

Mr. BOUCHER. I think we all recognize that the agreement in

North Waziristan hasn’t worked. The basic framework, because the

government doesn’t have direct control, they thought they could go

and sign an agreement with the tribal leaders that was based on

three key premises: one is no foreigners, no foreign militancy; two

is no cross-border activity; and three is no infiltration into settled

areas.

That was a premise of the agreement that was signed in September. By November we and others realized it wasn’t working. In fact,

lifting the check points had led to probably more freedom of movement and something of an influx of Al Qaeda people into that area

that was of serious concern to us.

President Musharraf recognizes that, as well, and has said so in

public, as well as in meetings.

So what they have done since then is to try to call the tribes to

account to make it work, and that was part of what they did in December and January before they moved against the Taliban and

the Uzbeks in the area, and as part of what he has done again in

his recent statements, and General Orakzai’s recent statements to

the tribes, that they need to expel all of the foreigners, including

the Al Qaeda Arabs.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. My time is up and I am going to pass

on to Mr. Shays.

I just want to say in the contest between the Uzbeks, we were

there pretty much when that was happening, and we had some

fairly good accounts from a number of different sources. There was

more like one Taliban group fighting another Taliban group, and

the government finally decided to weigh in. I would like to explore

that a little bit more with you later on.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. If you would just go to Mr. Duncan, I

might take some of his time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Certainly.

Mr. Duncan.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling

this important hearing, and thank you Mr. Shays for coming to me

first.

25

Mr. Secretary, like I am sure most Members, I have read a few

thousand pages of articles, reports, news stories, excerpts from

books about Iraq over the last 5 years. I have read far less about—

and I have been to Iraq once, not like Mr. Shays, who has been

there I think 15 or 16 times, but I have never been to Pakistan or

Afghanistan and I know far less. I have come mainly to learn here

today.

I know most of your testimony so far has been about Pakistan.

The hearing is entitled, ‘‘Pakistan at the Crossroads; Afghanistan

in the Balance.’’ I am wondering can you tell us what is the total

U.S. presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan at this time, counting

civilian government personnel, military personnel, and U.S. Government contractors? Do you have any rough guess?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think somewhere in a briefing book I have some

exact numbers, but in Afghanistan the United States——

Mr. DUNCAN. I am asking about both countries.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. DUNCAN. Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mr. BOUCHER. So let me do it piece by piece, and then——

Mr. DUNCAN. Sure. Go ahead.

Mr. BOUCHER. And then we can try to add them up.

The U.S. forces in Afghanistan are now about 26,000. There are

about 46,000 United States and NATO forces together. And, in fact,

we not only have more NATO troops in Afghanistan than we did

a couple of years ago, but we have more U.S. troops even than

when NATO started to deploy, so some of the feeling over the last

couple of years, maybe the United States was leaving and NATO

was coming in, is just wrong. We have had an expansion of our

forces and expansion of their area of operations, which has been

very important.

I would have to get an exact number on the number of civilians

that we have. We have, you know, several hundred at our embassy.

We have people out in the PRTs. I think a couple dozen of the provincial reconstruction teams have Americans in them, including

American staff. I can get you the exact numbers on that.

In Pakistan we have about I think 350 regular personnel assigned to our embassy and associated with our embassy. As I said,

we have consulates in Mahor, Karachi, Peshawar. We have drug

enforcement personnel and some others down in Quetta at the air

wing down there. Some of those are contractors. And then at any

given moment we have several hundred temporary duty people in

Pakistan. So you probably have at any moment maybe 600 to 700

U.S. officials working in Pakistan, but, again, I would have to get

you more exact numbers.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I would appreciate it if you would submit

that information.

A similar and related question, you have mentioned that we have

promised $150 million over the next 5 years, for a total of $750 million for economic development in the tribal areas. We are spending

$100 million a year on education. You mentioned $20 million at another time. We have been given several articles. One article mentions that Vice President Cheney apparently expressed some concern that this Congress might cut military aid that we are giving

to the Pakistani military.

26

Can you tell me how much military aid we are giving? And what

I am wondering about, do you have any idea about how much we

are spending on a yearly basis on everything put together—contractors, military, civilian—how much we are spending in Pakistan

on a yearly basis total?

Mr. BOUCHER. We spend——

Mr. DUNCAN. Aid direct and indirect.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes. We spent $738 million this year on assistance

programs; $300 million of that goes to military assistance. The rest

is economic assistance, including things like education, economic

reform, some health programs, earthquake relief and reconstruction programs, you know, bit of emergency relief money we found

after the cyclones hit Pakistan recently. So that is 738, the bulk

of which, 60 percent of which is economic.

There is an addition. It is not assistance, it is reimbursements.

We reimburse the Pakistani military through Coalition support

funds for their costs in supporting the war on terror and stationing

troops and moving them around and gasoline and bullets and training and other costs that they incur as part of the war on terror,

and so that is in additional amounts that the Pentagon would have

to get you, but that comes to probably in the range of $100 million

a month. It is a lot of money. But they have 85,000 troops stationed

at the border areas and we pay for that support. But that is reimbursements.

Mr. DUNCAN. So we are paying all their troops for their work?

Mr. BOUCHER. I don’t know if it comes to the whole amount of

their expenses, but we support their expenses, yes.

Mr. DUNCAN. Is there any other country in the world that is coming anywhere close to doing what we are doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. No. Other countries are more and more involved.

The British have stepped up their aid program. The European

Union has just come forward with some money, but in a smaller

range than ours.

Mr. DUNCAN. We have been given a lot of articles from various

publications. One article is entitled: Pakistan’s Shaky Dictatorship.

Do you think that most people in Pakistan regard us as a neutral

power broker or peacemaker, or do you think that to most of them

or many of them see us as propping up a shaky or corrupt dictatorship?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think most people see us as supporting a moderate, modernizing force in society, which includes President

Musharraf, it includes some of the political parties who push in

that direction, and it certainly includes all the people who look for

a free and fair election and a free press, growth of civil society—

all of those things that we have been helping with and working

with over the years.

I do think that the majority in Pakistan is headed in a moderate

and modern direction. They want the education. They want the free

election. They want the open press.

You know, they have gone from one TV station 8 years ago to

42 or 44 now, so a lot of changes, positive changes in the economy

and the society in Pakistan. I think most people want that to conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:28 Jul 06, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\50110.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
27

tinue, and most people do associate us with those things that have

happened and with the idea that progress needs to be continued.

Mr. DUNCAN. One last question. The State Department’s polls

over the last few years, except in the Kurdish areas in Iraq, have

shown that two-thirds or three-fourths of the Iraqi people want us

to leave or not occupy the country. I am wondering has the State

Department taken polls in Pakistan or Afghanistan? And what percentage of the people would you estimate in those two countries see

us or look at us in a favorable light? What would the polls show

on that?

Mr. BOUCHER. I can’t recall anything specific about Pakistan

polling that I have seen. In Afghanistan I have seen polls that indicate that President Karzai continues to have very strong support

in the 60 or 70 percent range, that people do support the government. They turned out to vote for it. They voted for a president and

parliament and they liked that. So there is still very strong popular

support there and support for the U.S. presence.

Naturally they have concerns. They have concerns about some of

the operations and civilian casualties that have been associated

with those. They have concerns the government is not delivering

what they expect from government. And I think it is, you know, incumbent on all of us not just to take for granted what it may say

in the polls, but look in the areas where we can do better, and that

is something we do try to do.

Mr. DUNCAN. Of course, I know they certainly want our money.

I yield back my time to Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. If I could take your last 30 seconds, Mr. Boucher, I

am going to go speak on the House floor on the rule on Iraq.

Mr. BOUCHER. Certainly, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I will be back. I think this is an extraordinarily important hearing, and I compliment my colleagues for participating

and thank them all for being here.

I will be back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Cooper, recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to thank

you for this timely and topical hearing.

Our witness, Ambassador Boucher, is a diplomat, and he has

done an excellent job of putting a positive spin on U.S.-Pakistani

relationship. I worry, though, that the average American who occasionally reads the international section of the newspaper looks and

sees a country they don’t know much about that is on the other

side of the world. They may have seen the Angelina Jolie movie,

A Mighty Heart, but that might be the limit of their knowledge of

Pakistan. But if they read the newspaper articles they see that

they are probably harboring Osama bin Laden, who, according to

our U.S. military, is still rated as about our No. 1 enemy in the

world. They are probably harboring Mullah Amar, the Taliban. We

know they are harboring A.Q. Khan, the world’s leading nuclear

proliferator.

I ask myself: is there anything else they could do to harbor an

international bad guy? And yet they are still listed as a strong ally

of our country and we are still, as my colleague from Tennessee

pointed out, giving them extraordinary amounts of aid, both miliVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:28 Jul 06, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\50110.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
28

tary, domestic? And here you are, a perfectly nice, calm diplomat,

talking about polling elections in Pakistan when also in your testimony you admit much of the country is ungoverned space, tribal

areas the government doesn’t even pretend to claim, and yet we are

holding elections? The chairman just pointed out that, what, 12

million of the names on the rolls are duplicates or faulty?

I know you have to work with what you have, but there seems

to be a disconnect here. How can you solve this problem of cognitive dissonance?

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, I mean, I solve it personally by reading all

the newspapers and not just a couple, because in the end Mullah

Amar is somewhere in that border region. If you have ever flown

over it, you have seen, you know, vast deserts, a sort of hole-in-thewall canyon where the people can hide out. You have seen enormous mountains where people can hide out. You have seen parts

of the country, not large parts of the country, parts of the country

where the government doesn’t hold sway.

Mullah Amar is probably out there somewhere. Bin Laden is

probably out there somewhere. But we are capturing the bad guys,

if you read, have been reading the papers about Pakistan for years,

you may remember that Ramsey Usef and Kalal Sheik Mohammed

were picked up there, that they have consistently picked up Al

Qaeda people, that they have lost people doing that. You may have

seen that Mulla Obadullah was picked up in Pakistan, and Muladu

Dulalang, a top leader of the Taliban from Quetta, was killed in

Afghanistan, in part with the help Pakistanis provided us.

You may have seen press reports last week that indicated they

picked up several more top Taliban people associated with Mullah

Omar.

This is a constant effort. It is a constant effort. There is good

stuff going on and there is bad stuff going on. There is a lot of turmoil. There is breathtaking complexity, and it is sometimes hard

to sort out.

Mr. COOPER. I am still trying to decide whether you are being

moderate and fair or whether you are just making excuses.

Mr. BOUCHER. I am trying to look at the whole picture.

Mr. COOPER. If they are able to harbor three of the world’s international outlaws, how many more can they harbor and the State

Department would still approve of their behavior? Is this an open

invitation, a Motel 6 for terrorists in Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. I don’t think——

Mr. COOPER. That they can come and it is always OK and we are

doing the best we can?

Mr. BOUCHER. No. You know, a few days after September 11th

this administration put very blunt choices in front of the Pakistanis and said, Are you going to fight these guys or not? They

said, Yes, we are going to fight those guys. And they have done

that, and they have done that for 5 years now. They haven’t gotten

everybody, frankly nor have we gotten everybody on the Afghan

side. So we are always working together, always talking to them.

What’s next? What do we need to do? Where can we go? How do

we cooperate across the border?

29

That is a constant effort. That is what Vice President Cheney

has been out there doing this year, Secretary Gates, Deputy Secretary Negroponte.

Mr. COOPER. Let me ask a different question. Are you confident

that the State Department is even kept in the loop of what America is really doing in Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. COOPER. I know this is an open hearing, so we can’t talk

about current events, but let’s talk about some history. The book,

Charlie Wilson’s War, a movie is coming out on that, and then

maybe Americans will tune in to what happened. Were you aware

at the time that Congressman Charlie Wilson from Texas was funnelling billions of dollars in aid to the Mujah Hadin?

Mr. BOUCHER. I wasn’t working in this area at the time, so no,

I probably wasn’t.

Mr. COOPER. Were you aware that——

Mr. BOUCHER. I read a lot of accounts of it and I look forward

to seeing the movie.

Mr. COOPER. Congressman Charlie Wilson was apparently made

a general in the Pakistani army——

Mr. BOUCHER. I have heard things like that, yes.

Mr. COOPER [continuing]. Due to his money shipments to Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. COOPER. A Texas Congressman was made a general in the

Pakistani army, given a uniform, and the only condition, according

to the book, is that he was asked not to wear the uniform while

he was in Pakistan. But apparently in any other country on earth

he could parade around in a Pakistani general’s uniform. Was the

State Department aware of that?

Mr. BOUCHER. I don’t know if we were aware at the time, sir. I

just don’t know. If you read Ghost Wars, that kind of stuff is talked

about there. I am not sure if that particular incident is in the book.

I know it is in other books. But a lot of that stuff has come out.

I mean, let’s remember, you know, we were all together from 1979

to 1989 fighting the soviets in Afghanistan, whether Mujah Hadin

or the Pakistanis or the ISI or the Saudis. A lot of what we are

dealing with now came out of that period. The question is not what

did we all do back then; the question is what are we doing now.

Mr. COOPER. Well, let’s talk about what are we doing now. I

haven’t heard much from Karen Hughes lately. Is she still the

America’s public face to the Islamic world?

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, she is organizing America’s public face to

the Islamic world. But yes, I talked to her just this morning about

Pakistan.

Mr. COOPER. Are we producing results? Is American approval

going up in the Muslim world?

Mr. BOUCHER. It is a hard question to answer, sir. In some places

we do have very strong approval; in others we have very dismal approvals.

Mr. COOPER. Can you remind me of some places in the Muslim

world where we have strong approval other than among the Kurds?

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, that isn’t the Muslim world, but Afghanistan I think, you know, people are still very supportive of the U.S.

30

effort there. As I said, I haven’t really seen polls in Pakistan, but

I think a lot of people understand what we are doing and they are

supportive of what we are doing there.

Mr. COOPER. You haven’t seen polls in Pakistan, and this is your

account?

Mr. BOUCHER. I am afraid it is not one of the things I look at

on a regular basis. Maybe I should, but I have not tried to track

things through polls. I have tried to keep in touch with a lot of people throughout society and try to understand their opinions.

Mr. COOPER. Can you remind me how many predecessors there

were to Karen Hughes? Wasn’t there a Charlotte Beers? Weren’t

there several folks who——

Mr. BOUCHER. A number of people have had the job.

Mr. COOPER. Can you recall how many in the last 6 years?

Mr. BOUCHER. I was acting at one point, so I don’t know if you

count that. There was Charlotte. There was Margaret Detwiler. I

hate to do this, because I am probably leaving somebody out.

Mr. COOPER. That is four right there: Charlotte, you, Margaret,

Karen.

Mr. BOUCHER. I was more nominal than effective, but anyway,

yes.

Mr. COOPER. That is an interesting self-appraisal. What can

America be doing to be more successful in this region?

Mr. BOUCHER. Sir, as you know, and I know why you are asking

these questions, because I did spend a long time as spokesman for

the State Department. I tried to grapple with these questions over

the course of my career many times.

Frankly, I start with the premise that good policymakes good

press. You have to do good things. You have to help people get safety and justice and economic opportunity and education for their

kids, and the more of that you do, the more in the long run people

will appreciate you.

You have places like India where we have enormously positive

approval ratings. I think it is largely because we offer educational

and economic opportunity to people and their children.

So that is the premise that I start with, and that is where my

focus is now.

Mr. COOPER. It sounds like your theory is that American foreign

aid makes us popular. The taxpayer has limited patience.

Mr. BOUCHER. I understand that, but I think also the taxpayer

has a very strong interest in seeing these parts of the world stabilized, in taking away the ungoverned spaces and letting government gain control there, and in helping people whose frustrations

lead them to horrible acts of violence.

Mr. COOPER. But the American taxpayer I think also wants results, and to see three of the world’s most wanted international

outlaws—we are still not even allowed to interview A.Q. Khan,

right?

Mr. BOUCHER. He is under house arrest and——

Mr. COOPER. We are not allowed to——

Mr. BOUCHER. No, we don’t have direct access, but we have gotten good cooperation on that. And, frankly, he is out of business.

The network has been destroyed.

31

Mr. COOPER. But we don’t know how many nations he sold the

technology to?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think we have had good cooperation and they

provided a lot of information to the International Atomic Energy

Agency.

Mr. COOPER. I see that my time has expired. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your holding

this very important hearing and very timely hearing.

Mr. Secretary, I don’t want to be too repetitive and apologize for

missing some of the early questions, coming in late. In looking back

to the events of September 11, 2001, and President Bush’s address

to the Nation on September 20th from the House of Representatives, he spoke about the importance of countries making a choice.

They are either on the side of good against Al Qaeda and the terrorist efforts or on the side of evil and siding with them, but they

need to make a choice. And President Musharraf on behalf of his

nation made a choice and said, We will no longer stand with the

Taliban and recognize them, and we will now stand with the

United States and other nations around the world against Taliban,

Al Qaeda, and their efforts in having attacked us and seeking to

do harm to others, as well.

In him making that choice, that certainly was an important one

for his country and for us in having their assistance.

Given the current environment in the Federal overseeing tribal

areas of western Pakistan, is the choice he made in the days after

September 11th still valid in how it is impacting our national security, given the sanctuary that we now see occurring in western

Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think the choice is still there, the commitment

is still there, the intention is still there. Is it fully effective? No,

not yet. We work with him, we follow this closely. We follow the

intelligence closely. They have been able to get at a lot of the top

Al Qaeda figures who have been in and out in Pakistan over the

years. They have had, as I said, some success in the tribal areas

with Taliban leaders. They have had some success in the tribal

areas against a few of the training camps and madrassas. But, unfortunately, these areas has been infested with extremists of all

kinds, and they have gotten some of them but certainly not all.

Mr. PLATTS. It is my understanding from the recent threat assessment that has been done regarding Pakistan that Al Qaeda’s

efforts in Pakistan to kind of re-energize itself were not successful

until recently and following the December 2006, agreement between President Musharraf and the tribal leaders that he would remove his military presence from those areas and rely on the tribal

leaders and their colleagues to self-govern, to self-patrol, I guess,

that region, and not allow it to become a safe haven.

Given that apparently is not working, what indications, if any,

do we have from President Musharraf that he is going to take a

different approach in that region? And if there is no different approach being discussed, is it something that we need to then look

32

at how to take action to ensure the security of our Nation because

of his not maybe lack of commitment or interest in doing so, but

inability to do so?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think it was mis-reported in the paper. The

agreement was actually last September, and by about December

2006 they had realized—we had realized that the agreement wasn’t

working. The tribes were not effectively dealing with the foreigners

and the Taliban that were in their midst. And so what we have

seen over the early part of this year was an effort on the part of

the tribes, supported by the government, to expel some of the

Taliban, and with Pakistani help we were able to get some of the

very top leaders of the Taliban who had operated out of Pakistan

and to expel the Uzbeks, Chechins, and hundreds of others who

have been in those areas.

President Musharraf made a speech about 2 weeks ago up in Peshawar to the tribes saying we have to get all of the foreign militaries, the Al Qaeda and the Arabs, as well, and we have to stop

the Taliban, sort of what you want to call the Pakistani Taliban,

the ones who are not only supporting the Taliban in cross border

but also trying to infect the settled areas of Pakistan. So that

seems to be the direction that he is headed now, and we keep in

close touch with him about that.

Mr. PLATTS. Is his actions regarding the Red Mosque in just the

past days a positive indication of him being more aggressive in

going after the extremists in this country?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think it is a very positive indication that he is

serious about dealing with the problem of extremism. I think he

has popular support in trying to do that.

Mr. PLATTS. My hope is that the actions he has taken with the

Red Mosque and your statements of renewed efforts of working

with the tribal leaders resulting in efforts to capture key terrorist

leaders is going to fulfill itself in a greater sense in the weeks and

months ahead.

I know when Congressman Steve Lynch led our delegation to Afghanistan in April, one of our visits was down to one of our forward

outposts on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and clearly in the

briefings we received the threat coming in from Pakistan is a daily

constant threat, and it seems a little illogical, I guess, to me that

if we know where the enemy is and we have an ally that is, you

know, the host country of that enemy, and they are not able to address the daily threat, that arbitrary border should not prevent our

military from doing what it needs to do to not just protect themselves and go after the source of the daily attacks, but in the broader picture better secure our Nation’s safety and citizens’ safety.

If President Musharraf is going to follow through, obviously it is

appropriate that we work with him; but if not, I think we need to

rethink how we are dealing with that tribal area for the safety of

our soldiers there and their courageous work in Afghanistan, and

then ultimately our safety here.

I want to ask one other area, and that deals with, given reports

of Taliban and Al Qaeda kind of re-emerging and strengthening in

the western region of Pakistan, my understanding is that Britain,

Denmark, Germany, a number of countries have a pretty free flow

of their citizens between their countries and Pakistan. Those counVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:28 Jul 06, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\50110.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tries are also part of our visa waiver program. Is there a renewed

look on how we are operating our visa waiver program with those

countries, given their interactions with Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. Sir, I think it is something that the appropriate

people do look closely at, but I haven’t been involved in those discussions, so I can’t give you any more detail.

Mr. PLATTS. It is something that if, on behalf of the Department,

you could followup with the committee—Mr. Chairman, if that

would be OK to make the request on behalf of the committee to

have the Secretary followup with us on that issue?

Mr. TIERNEY. Ambassador, is that something you are able to do?

Mr. BOUCHER. I would be glad to.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. PLATTS. In conclusion, Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for

your efforts and don’t want by my questions to imply that I don’t

appreciate your service to your country and your colleagues at the

Department here State-side and in some very dangerous parts of

the world in working on behalf of their fellow citizens. We certainly

appreciate your patriotic and dedicated service, sir.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. PLATTS. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman yields back.

Mr. Higgins, you are recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just have

a couple of brief questions, really.

I am just trying to get my arms around this situation. What always amazes me about, you know, the Middle East is its relative

youth, including Pakistan. I think the real fight against terrorism

is a fight for the imagination of the youth of the Middle East, including areas like Pakistan, relative to giving them a better sense

of what their future—not what they know it to be, but what it can

be, dealing with the potential.

Is it safe to say that the basis for fundamental terrorism, Al

Qaeda and Taliban, is located along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think the answer is yes. I am sure others would

be more precise on the wording, but there is considerable activity

of the Taliban in those border areas of Pakistan. There is considerable Al Qaeda presence, including training, some of the command

and control. But, as I said, I think they are under pressure. It is

not the only place that they operate. Certainly Al Qaeda people

have been picked up in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan. And

it is not just in tribal areas, but it does cut down to Quetta, and

the Baluchistan border area has been a center of activity, as well.

Mr. HIGGINS. Let me put it a different way. The Al Qaeda base

that has emerged in Iraq, the origin of that, is it safe to conclude,

is Pakistan, Afghanistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. I don’t think that would be precisely accurate. I

think you would have to ask the intelligence folks to do that in

more detail.

Mr. HIGGINS. Where would be the origin of that Al Qaeda presence in Iraq then?

34

Mr. BOUCHER. I think they have come from a lot of places and

gathered there, and to some extent the base comes from there.

They do have some ties with Al Qaeda in other places, including

Al Qaeda who are in Pakistan, and there is a significant presence

still there.

Mr. HIGGINS. Does the United States’ continued support for

Musharraf hurt us in the eyes of the 165 million people that live

in Pakistan? I mean, he is a military dictator. He is increasingly

becoming more unpopular.

Mr. BOUCHER. I think people understand that we have a lot of

interest in Pakistan. We have interest in fighting the war on terror, keeping our country safe and their country safe. We have interest in building the economy, in building the education system.

We have interest in elections and seeing a free and fair election.

We work with President Musharraf and his government on all

those things. He is a military ruler, and that is the government

that is there.

But we also have very close ties with all the people in the political parties. I think people, by and large, understand that our goal

is a strategic one and a broader one, and I know people often say,

well, the United States supports Musharraf. Well, yes, we do support Musharraf, but that is part of our overall support for Pakistan

in the course that Pakistan has set upon.

Mr. HIGGINS. A final thought on this. The pronouncements of

this administration relative to essentially what amounts to a zero

tolerance policy concerning those who harbor terrorism, there

seems to be a fundamental disconnect here that all the intelligence,

including especially the most recent intelligence, conclude that a

big problem for us, a big problem for the free world, is what is

going on in these training camps.

Pakistan, despite Musharraf’s tough talk, seems to be facilitating

not only the growth but the strength of what threatens the United

States primarily, and I think the free world generally.

How does the administration reconcile this? I mean, I know that

there is a duplicitous nature in terms of foreign policy, particularly

in the Middle East, but it seems to me that Pakistan has made

some early commitments to the United States relative to our fight

against terrorism, and yet concurrently seems to be, or if it is not

intentional, very ineffective in suppressing the growth and the

strength of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Mr. BOUCHER. I think, sir, we look at what they are trying to do

and we look at how we can help them doing it more effectively. We

look at the fact that they have picked up hundreds, hundreds of Al

Qaeda over the last few years.

Mr. HIGGINS. Yes.

Mr. BOUCHER. We look at the fact that they have helped us capture or kill 3 out of the top 10 Taliban commanders in the last 6

months. We look at the fact that they just the other day, according

to press reports, have picked up several more top Taliban commanders. We look at the fact that they have helped the tribes expel

the Uzbeks, who were a source of great trouble, training, and fighters have been in that area. We look at the fact that they have attacked Madrassas. They have attacked training camps where these

35

foreign fighters are being trained. There has been a lot of activity

up in that area.

Mr. HIGGINS. Yes, but you know——

Mr. BOUCHER. But there is a lot to do.

Mr. HIGGINS. The former Secretary of Defense, I always remember, had said that the measure of success in the war on terrorism

is—and this was several years ago—are we capturing, are we detaining, are we stopping more terrorist activity every day than is

being created. I think this most recent intelligence report is a repudiation of the effect of the strategies advanced by this administration, because there is one thing that sticks out in all of this, and

that is that, again, intelligence reports are concluding that Al

Qaeda, the Taliban, are at pre-9/11 strength levels, and to me it

all adds up to the same conclusion, and that is that our fight has

been highly ineffective. The pronouncements of the Secretary of

Homeland Security this week about, you know, the heightened

threat, you know, obviously I would disagree with any conclusion

that we have been effective in our efforts to undermine the

strength and growth of the terrorist threat.

Mr. BOUCHER. I haven’t seen the report that the newspapers all

seem to be talking about right now, so I can’t give you the full intelligence assessment. My own view is that this is a difficult and

long process. The chief threat to all of us has been ungoverned

spaces. That is what Afghanistan was with the Taliban and Al

Qaeda operating from there, place where no reasonable government

had sway. And that is how we were attacked on 9/11.

And our job, whether it is militarily or diplomatically, is to get

government cooperation, government control of the ungoverned

spaces in the world. We have done that militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, are doing that still militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan,

also done it diplomatically with our work with, you know, Yemen

and Sudan and Libya and a whole bunch of other places. But it is

a constant and long-term effort. The government of Pakistan has

never had full control over all its territory, and it is trying to extend its control. The government of Afghanistan is trying to extend

its control, and we are a major part of that. But until we can help

those governments provide good governance and the benefits of

good governance, as well as the control of good governance to all

its territory, there is still going to be a threat against us, and that

is what we have to work very hard to get rid of.

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman yields back.

Mr. Burton, you are recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think this

is a very timely hearing.

I listened to my colleagues. Some of them are evidently very critical of what the administration is doing. I hope that they are aware

that George Washington was criticized the same way and they

wanted to remove him from leadership during the Revolutionary

War. He was also criticized when the J Treaty was signed. Abraham Lincoln was going to be defeated without any question by

McClellan because the war wasn’t going well until Sherman took

Atlanta. So in every war, I think almost without exception, there

have been people who have been very critical of incumbent PresiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:28 Jul 06, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\50110.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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dents when things weren’t going well, and I think this is no exception because things haven’t been going well.

I would like to say to my colleagues that Senator Lieberman,

who is a Centrist Democrat, has been over to Iraq a number of

times, as many of us have, and he has said very clearly that in

Iraq, if we don’t deal with the training camps in Iran, that we are

going to see a continual problem over there, and that if we pull out

of Iraq with all this going on, that there would be a vacuum created which would be filled by the radicals, and it will become a

training ground not just in Iran but throughout Iraq for additional

terrorism throughout the world.

Now, regarding Pakistan, I would like to ask Secretary Boucher

what would happen if we didn’t have an ally like President

Musharraf over there, in your opinion?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think if Pakistan was not fighting terrorism,

there would be no way we could succeed in Afghanistan or in terms

of the security of our homeland.

Mr. BURTON. Well, Musharraf is a major part of our fight to stop

the Taliban and terrorist training camps over there, is he not?

Mr. BOUCHER. Absolutely, and he has been a good partner in

doing that.

Mr. BURTON. And there have been a number of Taliban leaders,

as you said, that have been captured, killed, and just recently they

were captured?

Mr. BOUCHER. Over the months and in recent weeks.

Mr. BURTON. And President Musharraf, because of this, in large

part, has had a number of assassination attempts on him, has ne

not?

Mr. BOUCHER. And some of the militants in the mosque—you

saw Al Zawah just yesterday was threatening Musharraf because

he is fighting against extremists.

Mr. BURTON. Let me also ask you about Mr. Khan. This may be

classified, and we will have to get it some other way. Has he been

questioned by any of our intelligence people? And do we have any

intelligence information on what technology and other nuclear information he may have given to Iran or other countries like Libya?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think we have said in public that we have not

had direct access to Mr. Khan, but we have had good cooperation

from Pakistani authorities. We have had a good flow of information

to the international community, us, other countries, International

Atomic Energy Agency, and that we are confident that, based on

that information, we have been able to put the network out of business.

Mr. BURTON. I really appreciate you stressing that there is so

much wild or vacant land there in the mountainous region that it

is very difficult to take care of all the areas and get this thing completely solved in one fell swoop, and the same thing is true in Afghanistan with the Taliban, so I appreciate very much your pointing that out, and also that you pointed out, as I said before, that

he has been very cooperative and they have captured a number of

the terrorists and the training camps and the leaders over there.

So I appreciate your being here today.

I would just like to say to my colleagues that there is no perfection in war. In every single war that I have read about—and I have

37

been around quite a while—in every single war there has been tremendous disenchantment when things weren’t going well. This is

no exception.

In World War II—and I have talked about this before—because

everybody was worried about appeasing Hitler and Mussolini and

Tojo and all the others over there, we ended up seeing 62 million

people die and about half a million American troops.

This is a very insidious war that we are fighting right now. Iran

is trying to develop a nuclear capability. On my Web site a number

of times it showed a mockup of a briefcase nuclear weapon that

weighs about 40 pounds that, if it were placed within three blocks

of here, would kill every one of us. It would destroy eight square

blocks and the radioactive fallout would probably kill another

50,000 to 100,000 people.

So, you know, this is a very difficult time, and I think Senator

Lieberman hits the nail on the head. He sees what is going to happen. If we start pulling in our horns and not supporting our allies,

there will be a vacuum created, in my opinion, in Pakistan, in Iraq,

and that is going to be filled by the radicals, and they will not be

in any way convinced that they should stop their wild movement

toward nuclear development, and it will imperil not just the Middle

East, but the United States, as well.

So I think we should not be myopic. I think we should look at

the big picture and realize, as Winston Churchill did in World War

II, that they had to prepare for and deal with people like Hitler,

and we have to deal with people like the president of Iran and the

leaders in the Taliban and those tribal leaders over there. Otherwise, we are going to have a big problem down the road.

I appreciate very much, again, your being here, and I appreciate

your forthrightness. I hope you will come back with further reports

in the future.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman yields back.

Mr. Lynch, you are recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. LYNCH. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the

ranking member, as well. I think it is great that you are having

this hearing, and I appreciate all of the attention that you have

given to this issue, and I want to thank the Secretary for coming

before the committee and helping us with our work.

First of all, I just want to say I concede the complexity of the

task here. I admit, having spent a little time down on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with Mr. Platt and also the chairman and

others who have gone down there, as well, it is a very complex situation. President Musharraf has a difficult balancing act between

the Islamic radicals within his own country. However, I must

admit I must say that I think your assessment of him, even though

he may be the irreplaceable man at this point, I still think that

your assessment of his performance objectively is a bit rosier than

I would, you know, measure from my own judgment of him.

I just want to say that, having been on the border there, he actually has a policy in place where I was with Colonel Sweitzer of the

82nd Airborne and the Fourth Combat Team down there in the

Parrot’s Beak area just south of Torra Bora, where he has some

38

folks where the Taliban are coming across the border on a regular

basis, and because of Musharraf we have a no-fire border on our

troops. We can’t fire into Pakistan in pursuit of Taliban and other

forces coming out of that tribal area.

I know terrorists are coming from all over into Afghanistan, but

that area over there, bin Laden has a longstanding history in that

area, even when they were fighting the Soviets and war on Afghanistan. He has a long history in that area. He has had a longstanding friendship with Hakani and some others who operate in that

border area, and that is a definite and central source of insurgency,

Taliban, Al Qaeda, and others into Afghanistan. It is demanding

great resources, not only of ourselves but the Afghani government,

as well.

I also want to point out that the somewhat offhand comments

that the Pakistanis don’t have a lot of influence in those tribal

areas is a choice that they have made. It is a choice that they have

made. They made an agreement to create a safe haven there for

whoever can dominate that area, whether it be the Taliban or Al

Qaeda or other governments. I know the Saudis for a very long

time were pumping money into those Madrassas, and, you know,

we have 50 percent of the kids in Pakistan don’t go to school between the ages of 5 and 9. The fact that these Madrassas are allowed to operate and are being funded provides the only option for

a lot of those kids and a lot of those families.

You know, I noticed in our own budget we spend about $10 billion a year in Pakistan. A little bit more than one-half of 1 percent

of that goes to USAID for helping with education. I really think if

we are going to get to the root of this we can’t provide it directly,

because I don’t think we have the credibility in Pakistan, especially

in those tribal areas, but we have to have some type of honest

broker in there to provide a good, solid public education to those

kids; otherwise, they will be the terrorists of the future, and we

have to figure out a way of stopping this cycle where the

Madrassas are creating jihadists in that area. And if we don’t get

to that, everything else we do will be secondary.

I would like to at some point hear your own opinions on what

we can do about getting the shackles taken from our own troops

in that tribal area to allow them to go after the Taliban and go

after Al Qaeda and to provide a little bit more cooperation on that

border area.

This idea that our troops—and I spoke to them personally. They

cannot fire over the border, even though they know that the

Taliban and Al Qaeda and those jihadists are just over the border

and they have been given a safe haven area to launch attacks into

Afghanistan.

You know, the great criticism of us after 9/11 was that we allowed training camps to operate in Afghanistan. We allowed the

camps in Torra Bora. We allowed that to happen. We knew they

were there and we didn’t take action and 9/11 happened.

Well, I have to admit there is a little parallel here. We are recognized as a safe haven here and Waziristan. We know they are operating. We have some surveillance there. But we are not taking direct and deliberate action.

39

Again I go back to the complexity of this situation that Mr.

Musharraf has. No doubt about it. But I think we can push him

a little harder. We can demand that more positive and affirmative

action be taken, you know, against the terrorists who are just

growing their organization in that area. I just really believe that

we are missing an opportunity here, and I would like to hear, you

know, your own views about how we might reduce that threat in

Waziristan and allow some of the moderate—and there is a lot of

moderate influence in Pakistan. Allow some of that moderate influence to predominate and to shape the future of that country in a

way differently than it is right now.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you, sir. I don’t disagree with very much

of what you just said. I think we all have to be aware of the fact

that the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate from these areas, operate

in these areas. They are a threat to our troops in Afghanistan.

They are a threat to the Nation of Afghanistan and what we are

trying to achieve there. They are a threat to the Nation of Pakistan

and to all of us, even in our homeland. And it is one of the critical

threats that we have to deal with today. The question is how we

are going to deal with it.

In the end, what we are trying to do is to help the Pakistani government exert better control on its side of the border and the Afghan government exert better control on its side of the border. We

do it in different ways. We operate more directly in Afghanistan because that is the relationship we have there and that is because

the Afghan government is not fully capable yet. Pakistani government has the forces and has the intention, and I don’t—I guess,

you know, maybe the only difference between what some of you are

saying and what I am saying is that we are all aware of the things

that haven’t been done and the problems that exist. I am also trying to put out some of the things that have been done and that

have been achieved, because I think we have achieved a lot.

If you look at what has happened to the Taliban in Afghanistan,

for example, last year they set out to take towns and cities and territory, and they failed. This year they set out again to take towns

and cities, particularly looking in Kandahar, and they failed. They

talked about a spring offensive which never materialized, so now

they talk about a summer offensive. And, indeed, they have been

able to mount some actions, but more often than not all they have

been able to do is blow up school children like they did just the

other day in a particularly horrible attack where they killed 12

school kids.

Taliban has not succeeded. It is a constant effort to get after

them, to push them out of places in Afghanistan, but we have

achieved a certain amount of success in the past year against the

Taliban, and that has been both through our efforts and the Afghan government efforts, but also because of the pressure that has

been brought on them from the Pakistani side.

We need to continue our efforts and our allies’ efforts and the Afghan efforts and the efforts on the Pakistani side to be completely

effective.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. I want to thank you for your service to

our country, as well.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you, sir.

40

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman yields back.

Mr. Yarmuth, you are recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also appreciate your

being here and appreciate this hearing.

One of the things that occurs to me as I have read through a lot

of material and consumed much of the media in recent weeks is the

question of expectations. It seems to me that Pakistan offers an example of that, and I am wondering whether we have expectations

that are not realistic in the sense of looking at governments to do

what we think needs to be done in combatting terrorism.

The thought occurs to me, we talk about polling, we talk about

elections, and yet terrorism is, by definition, anti-democratic. If you

have 99.9 percent of the people agreeing with a certain way of operating and you have 0.1 percent that is intent on undermining

that, the democracy in a certain sense doesn’t make any difference.

So I would like you to comment on that, with particular respect

to Pakistan, but also recognizing we had elections in Iraq and obviously we haven’t—it is obvious to me, anyway, that has not particularly helped combat terrorism. So the entire sense of whether

our expectations of governments in combatting terrorism, again in

the context of Pakistan particularly, are misplaced.

Mr. BOUCHER. I think it is a legitimate question. I think we need

to understand the background of these situations without trying to

make apologies for the way things are. The governing relationships

in the tribal areas go back to British days. We read British books

from 1903 about how they were trying to get a hold of the tribes

of Waziristan. We see many of the same problems.

The government of Pakistan, when it came to being 60 years ago,

was unable or didn’t change those arrangements. Those arrangements were carried down.

And then you had the anti-Soviet period in the 1980’s where we

and the Saudis and others funnelled a lot of money into those areas

and changed some of the relationships. The relationship was always the government dealt with the tribal leaders, the tribal leaders enforced order and discipline. But during the anti-Soviet period

there were other people who rose up, the Mullahs and the

Madrassas that were being heavily financed, the partners in the

Mujah Hadin against the Soviets, a whole lot of other forces that

came up in society.

So even now the same arrangements exist where the government

goes to the tribal leaders and the tribal leaders imposed order, but

the tribal leaders are no longer the sole repositories of power, and

so it has become even more complex up there, so you have to deal

with that situation. You have to deal with it in some areas where

the government can act directly, like around Quetta and Baluchistan, some areas where they have tried to work with the tribal

areas and it hasn’t worked, like in Waziristan.

But overall you have to do everything you can to help them and

expect them to exert government control, understanding that it is

a difficult thing to do and that they are going to need different

kinds of help.

One of the things we have been trying to help with now is the

Frontier Corps, the people recruited into an army for a local area

41

from the area, people who know the area, because people from outside the areas, not just foreigners, you know, Americans or others,

but people from other parts of Pakistan, you know, can go in there

and get shot at, and that has happened many, many times to regular Pakistanis from other parts of the country. So we want to

transform the Frontier Corps in a more effective force for stability

and fighting force there.

I was down on the border in Baluchistan last month with a colonel who has I think 160 kilometers to protect. He has border posts.

He has some body armor for his troops, but he has to divvy it up

to the places where it is really important. Other troops have to go

without. And he has some night vision goggles for some places;

other troops have to go without.

So if we want them to be more effective in patrolling the area

and controlling the border we have to be in there with them, and

we are asking for money in our budgets, according to the 2008

budget, to support the transformation of the Frontier Corps to be

a force that can exert better control in that area.

Mr. YARMUTH. Let me ask a slightly different question. It seems

to me that it is possible—and I don’t want to sound like I am insinuating, but I am asking you if this is possible—that we might

have a situation in which you talk about successes—and yes there

have been some, and some leaders have been captured and killed—

that there is a calculation that I can, if I were Musharraf, I could

bring in a couple of these token leaders in order to portray myself

adequately as an effective fighter in order to generate continued

support, while at the same time I can play both sides and allow

some of these things to happen. Are you confident that is not happening in Pakistan, or is that a possibility?

Mr. BOUCHER. I suppose theoretically it could be there, but I

don’t really see it happening. I see a difficult situation they have

dealt with in different ways. We have seen sometimes signs every

now and then that there is not a wholehearted effort at all levels

and all institutions in Pakistan, and we have raised those when we

need to, but we have seen a great deal of cooperation against some

very serious and difficult targets. They picked up really high level

people from the Taliban and helped us get the highest level people

from the Taliban, and we have seen, I think, more and more cooperation as the months go on. And I think particularly since about

December of last year we have seen a lot more cooperation and a

lot more effective cooperation.

Mr. YARMUTH. Again, looking kind of universally at this problem,

one of the things that I think frustrates all of us is that we look

across the spectrum of Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, myriad places,

and see a variety of settings and situations, and yet there really

doesn’t seem to be any example of where the war on terror has succeeded. Again, going to the question of expectations, are we looking

at something at which there will never be success, or just we

haven’t found the right approach to success?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think, to get back to your question about expectations, it takes a long time. I think, you know, I certainly think

we are all going to be taking our shoes off at airports for decades

to come. We are going to have to integrate a certain level of higher

security in all our lives and all our actions throughout the world

42

and all our embassies, and what my colleagues will do in the future.

At the same time, this process of sort of getting government control, getting legitimate government control over all parts of the

planet, you know, it has moved forward. It is certainly not done

yet, and certainly not done in very important parts of my area, but

I can see it proceeding. I can see the Afghan government building

up, building out, expanding throughout its territory. I can see the

pressure on the extremists in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.

You know, as we look, you say where has it succeeded. There are

countries you could cite, I guess Yemen, Sudan, other places like

that have turned around and have been forces against terrorism.

In the area that I deal with, I think what we did last summer was

to look at what works in Afghanistan, and what works in Afghanistan is a very comprehensive strategy, while integrated strategy

where you move the troops in to kick out the Taliban and fight the

bad guys, then you bring in district officers, government officers,

agents from ministries, policemen, local forces to help provide safety, security, and justice to the people there, and you bring in the

AID projects, the irrigation, the new crops, the roads, the electricity. If you do that in a comprehensive and integrated manner,

we have been able to stabilize large parts of Afghanistan that way.

As we see some of these problems, they are more and more in

certain areas of Afghanistan rather than throughout the country.

The same with the narcotics problem. One of the things you will

see, despite the enormous crop that is going to be harvested this

year, there are going to be more parts of the country that are largely poppy free. The problem of poppy is more and more associated

with the areas of insurgency. Again, the basic question of having

government control and giving people the benefits of government

throughout the country.

So I think we have seen what works in parts of Afghanistan, and

the reason we came into Congress this year with a supplemental

request and the funding request of $11.6 billion over 2 years for Afghanistan is because we looked at what worked and we said we

have to do this more generally throughout the country.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Boucher, as you know the votes have been

called, but there are three quick votes, and we are going to run

right up to the time on the 15 minute vote and go down quickly.

There will be a 5 and a 5. We will be back within 15 minutes. But

Mr. Shays is going to take his 10 minutes now that will run us up

to that time.

Mr. Shays, you go ahead; 10 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Boucher, I appreciate your being here. I think

this is a hugely important issue. I have tremendous concerns about

Pakistan. I think you have basically a dictator who took control

from a secular government, and now to maintain control he is responding, in my judgment, to sectarian wishes. So the irony is I

think he is more vulnerable to the sectarian pressures than a duly

elected secular government would be. That is one bias I have.

Another bias I have that I want you to respond to is I find it outrageous that, of the 46,000 troops, we are 26,000. I have learned

43

that of the 20,000 NATO troops, only four countries are at the tip

of the spear, so most of our troops are in direct line of fire, whereas

some of the NATO troops.

I would like you to tell me why only four NATO troops are putting their soldiers at risk, because I find that just astonishing.

With what we have to do in Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems to me

our allies, if they don’t agree with what we are doing in Iraq,

should at least agree in Afghanistan. So I would like you to comment on that, as well, and then I have some other questions.

Mr. BOUCHER. On the question of sort of the stability of Pakistan

and the military rule of military government there, I think on the

one hand we all think Pakistan would be better off, more stable

with an elected government, and that is why we are pushing so

hard for fair and free elections this year, why we are supporting

that with our rhetoric but also our money and our effort, why we

are working with all of the political parties to try to achieve that.

We believe that democracy is a force for stability. We believe that

an elected government, particularly one that brings together the

centrist parties, would be a better base on which to fight extremism in the country.

Frankly, I have heard that from political leaders, from opposition

parties. I have heard that from President Musharraf, himself. I

think everybody recognizes that is the case, so we all look to elections to be a force for stability.

We have seen a lot of change in Pakistan in the last 8 years. It

is not purely a military dictatorship. We have seen a lot of politics,

seen the growth of civil society. We have seen an explosion of

media, free press. We have tried to support that and speak out in

favor of it whenever it was under threat. But in the end it has created a direction for the society, more modern, moderate, open direction for the society, and one that has done well by most of its citizens.

So I think, as you look at the problems of extremism, it is just

sort of the general process of building a stronger, moderate center

is one that is very important to all of us. We have tried to support

that.

Mr. SHAYS. How about NATO?

Mr. BOUCHER. NATO has, first of all, a lot of different countries

involved in a lot of different ways. I do think we have to say that

every contribution is appreciated and every contribution is important, whether you are trying to run a PRT in the north somewhere,

where you may be dealing with local authorities and trying to extend the Governor and the government, or whether in the south

fighting the Taliban and the drug traffickers.

Mr. SHAYS. Why is it that we only have four countries willing to

engage in battle?

Mr. BOUCHER. It is probably more than four, but not too many

more than four. I would have to do the counting.

Mr. SHAYS. Why?

Mr. BOUCHER. And the Canadians, the Dutch, the British, us.

There are a few others, Romanians and a few others.

Mr. SHAYS. What about the French, the Italians? I mean, do

they——

44

Mr. BOUCHER. They are there. Some of them are in different

places doing different missions. We have argued very strongly,

every NATO meeting we go to the Secretary of State, Secretary of

Defense, for countries to drop what are called their caveats. You

know, We will do this, but won’t do that. We will go here, but not

there. And we have had a little bit of success over the course of

the last 6 months getting some of those caveats dropped by some

of the countries. We have had some success in getting more NATO

troops there. There have been about 7,000 troops promised since

last fall, but, again, half of those are American. Big chunk of British, Australians, a few others like that, Canadians. So the mission

rests on——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you, what is their argument?

Mr. BOUCHER [continuing]. The countries to participate.

Mr. SHAYS. What is their argument? They can make an argument against Iraq. What is their argument against participating by

risking their lives in Afghanistan like our troops are? What is their

argument for not doing that?

Mr. BOUCHER. It depends on the country. Sometimes you get,

well, you know, we are doing this in Africa, we are doing this in

Bosnia, we are doing this in Kosovo, we don’t have any more, you

know, available. Sometimes it is, We don’t have popular support

and parliamentary support for a war fighting mission. We only

have that support from our parliament to go on a peacekeeping or

a humanitarian mission. There are a variety of things that you

hear.

Mr. SHAYS. The bottom line for me is we have long-term and

short-term needs. Our short-term needs are shutting down training

camps, stopping threats to U.S. coalition troops in Afghanistan,

and that is emanating from Pakistan. A long-term would be education reform, democracy building, women’s rights, and so on.

Tell me how successful we have been on the short term.

Mr. BOUCHER. I think, first of all, I think you are right in the

way you put it. We are involved in some transformations that will

take years, but we are also looking for goals and results that need

to be done now because people are under direct threat.

I guess I would come back and say we have had some successes

in the short term. Part of the fact that we have been able to blunt

the Taliban intentions and that the Taliban has failed this year in

Afghanistan is because what we are doing in Afghanistan, but also

because there is pressure on them and on the Pakistan side. So we

have seen a great number of very dangerous people picked up and

killed or arrested with the help of Pakistan. So we are making

progress. We are not done with the problem.

Mr. SHAYS. My colleague had a question that he wanted to ask.

Mr. BOUCHER. Sure.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you for yielding.

I don’t know that this question has been asked. Have the tribal

leaders or any of the tribal leaders been cooperative in trying to

stop the Taliban leaders?

Mr. BOUCHER. Sure.

Mr. BURTON. To my knowledge, that hasn’t been really illuminated here. I mean, Musharraf has pulled his troops out of a number of areas, and the impression is that Al Qaeda has taken over

45

those areas because of the cooperation of the tribal leaders. So

what I would like to know is do we have cooperation with a lot of

the tribal leaders? And are they working with us and Musharraf

to try to——

Mr. BOUCHER. I think we have seen cooperation between the

Pakistan government and the tribal leaders. We saw the tribal

leaders in some areas turn on the Uzbeks, for example, earlier this

year, turn on some of the Taliban that were coming out of that

area.

I think it is true that, as the checkpoints and the government

presence in Waziristan was removed last fall, the there was an influx of fighters, that Al Qaeda found more freedom to operate

there, and then since about December there have been some steps

by the government and the tribes to exert more control. There have

been new forces that have been moved in there. There have been

checkpoints re-established and taking back control.

Mr. SHAYS. Before my time ends, if we saw Osama bin Laden in

Pakistan, what would likely our posture be? Would we wait to get

permission and then fear that we would lose him, or would we just

go in and get him, if he were in Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think we would work with the Pakistanis to

make sure that one way or the other he was gotten.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman yields back.

Thank you for your forbearance and your patience, Mr. Ambassador. We are going to be gone for about 10 or 15 minutes, if you

would like to take a little recess. We will be back for the concluding

questions.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you.

[Recess.]

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your patience on

that. We are going to reconvene.

Since we have such a great bipartisan committee here, Mr. Shays

is speaking on the floor in another matter. He is perfectly comfortable with us proceeding in his absence. He will be back. Mr.

Hodes, who was next to speak on this, is not certain that he is

going to be able to come back, because he had a conflict. Mr. Van

Hollen I understand is on his way back.

While that is all happening, I thought I would take the prerogative of the Chair and ask a few questions that we are probably

going to have to put off until the end, but may not have to do that

now.

I am sort of struck, I have to tell you, that with what I see as

somewhat of a defense of the Musharraf actions here in all ways,

and it seems to be the administration’s position, so I don’t leave it

just with you, but it doesn’t really seem to me to be what is happening on the ground, from our own observations or from the myriad of people that we have talked to.

I know you have spoken to a range of people, and so do we, an

opportunity not just while we were in country but also back here,

as witnesses and testimony. It seems like there is Mr. Musharraf’s

view of things and perspective and then everybody else’s on that,

46

and that the administration is sort of coming down with the

Musharraf view.

I am struck by your repetition that you think we are getting cooperation on the border area because a couple of people have been

arrested and, you know, you say there is a number of troops on the

border. My observation was they are not quite on the border, that

they are up toward the border and that you have a few Frontier

Corps groups up on the border, and they are not very active in

that.

The issue I am seeing here is we have a government that appears—and Mr. Shays got a hit on that—to lack legitimacy because

you have a person that took office through a coup, has been operating both as a military general and as a president. We have questionable progress toward election shares, some real serious concerns about whether they are going to be free and fair. And then

we have today reported in a number of ways about a national intelligence estimate which apparently is classified but, par for the

course, executive branch people seem to be chatting about it and

then they want to blame it on Congress for a leak, I am sure, even

to the point where people who are not talking directly but about

it are testifying in front of congressional committees.

What they are telling us is that, you know, despite what you say

and Mr. Musharraf says about all this activity, that area leaves Al

Qaeda better positioned to strike the west, according to one of the

National Counter-Terrorism Center commentators. John Kringen,

who is the Deputy Director for Intelligence at the CIA, says Al

Qaeda appears to be fairly well settled into the safe haven and the

ungoverned spaces of Pakistan. We see more training, we see more

money, we see more communications. It just goes on and on.

The new report concludes the group is stronger than it has been

in years. There is a heightened concern over Al Qaeda’s operational

activity and operational levels among the Pakistan-Afghanistan

border. One U.S. official said, ‘‘At the end we see a worse condition

than it was before the agreements up in Waziristan.’’ And it goes

on and on that way.

So clearly to some of us, apparently not to General Musharraf or

to you, there is not the kind of activity that we would hope we

would be getting out of somebody that is supposed to be a partner,

and a lot of it may well be because of the fear of the instability of

his government.

We look at reports in the paper on July 8th about a United

States’ aborted raid on Al Qaeda chiefs in Pakistan in 2005. Reportedly the reason that we didn’t go in, even though there was

identification of targets we wanted to get, was a fear of the instability of the Musharraf regime and the fact that we were afraid of

what ramifications it might have.

Wouldn’t we be better off insisting that there be free and fair

elections, that all participants be allowed to be in the country and

take part in them so that there was a legitimacy behind any Pakistani government, so that when we needed to go after Al Qaeda

types of Taliban in that area we wouldn’t have to fear the instability of the government, would have a properly elected, duly appointed government with the legitimacy that could stand with us

and do something there, as opposed to what we have now?

47

Mr. BOUCHER. Sir, I have tried to be objective with my statements here and tried to look at the whole picture. I have said the

agreements in Waziristan didn’t work. There was an influx of Al

Qaeda. They found more freedom of movement when checkpoints

were removed and they have been able to reorganize themselves to

some extent in that area. That is a current threat, and that is an

important threat to all of us—to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and to our

homeland. We need to deal with it. We need to deal with it working

with the Pakistanis.

But at the same time I think we need to recognize what they

have done and we need to recognize the direction they are headed

in and we need to look at how to help them to be more effective

and completely effective.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I guess we don’t have disagreement about

looking at what they have done.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. I recognize Pakistanis have died there, and we

would be wrong to not understand that they have suffered pain on

that and people have given their lives and made the effort, and it

would be wrong to not recognize that some people have been killed

or arrested with their cooperation. But the fact of the matter is you

say looking forward what they are doing. When we look forward

from our perspective, you know, and see that they are not doing all

that you seem to indicate you believe they are doing, you know,

and their own NIE and reports of the NIE seem to indicate that,

as well, that area is not getting the attention and the action that

is needed.

You referred a couple of times to the Uzbeks out there. Let me

tell you, we were there during that operation and we got variants

of estimates between 100 Uzbeks to 3,000 Uzbeks. Depending on

which intelligence agency you talked to, which military group, or

what government you talked to, it ranged back and forth, but almost all of them recognized the fact that there essentially was one

Taliban group fighting another Taliban group, with the government

putting its foot on the scale at the tail end and then claiming that

it had been instrumental in helping remove the Uzbeks.

If that is what you are referring to as, you know, their great efforts and looking forward how much they are being cooperative

with us, I think we have a problem. You know, the fact really is

that we are giving enormous amounts of military money, but I

don’t see any accountability of that being spent on equipment that

will help in an anti-terrorism, international terrorism effort more

so than stocking up on what may be a fear they have butted into

you. With enormous moneys and basic support, then I don’t think

we have any accountability at all in terms of how much of that

really goes for reimbursement of what they might have spent on

military efforts, particularly when those military efforts don’t show

any fruits being born here.

I think in a nutshell that is really where we are going at here,

and wondering why this administration continues. You say you

have been objective, and I appreciate that, but I guess some of us

are saying you may be too objective. You may not be standing here

taking a subjective enough look at weighing in on what has not

been done here and what could be done if we had, you know, a govVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:28 Jul 06, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\50110.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ernment with more legitimacy and willingness to stand up there

and take a tough stand, both from the border area and as they at

least started to do with some of the internal extremists that are

going on with Red Mosque the other day.

Mr. BOUCHER. Let me try to answer quickly, but these are serious questions.

There is no doubt in our mind that there are real dangers that

emanate from this area. There is no doubt in our mind that we

need to deal with them and we need to work with the Pakistanis

to deal with them more effectively, and that is what we are focused

on. We are focused on getting after the rest of the Taliban, the

Taliban on the Pakistan side, their supporters, Hakini network,

people like that, focused on how to identify and get the Al Qaeda

elements that are there, how to get the training camps, leadership

bases, and things like that. That is something that is a constant

daily, very close, very dedicated effort that we carry on.

Would all this be aided by an open election and democratic, incredible election and a better-strengthened, moderate center with

more legitimacy in Pakistan? Absolutely. And that is why we have

seen an election as a force for stability and a successful transition

from military rule to civilian elected government this year as being

one of the key elements in helping Pakistan come together in a

moderate center in order to fight extremism better.

Mr. TIERNEY. Are we not conditioning some of our financial assistance on the performance of free and fair elections? Aren’t we

making it really clear to this Musharraf administration that, unless they start working more cooperatively and have the election

and work more cooperatively in getting the registration in order,

unless they do all the other things that are necessary to have a

truly free and fair election, shouldn’t we condition some of our resources that go to him, particularly the basic support, which I

think there is some argument that some of that is a slush fund?

Anyway, condition some of that on performance? Doesn’t that make

sense?

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, I mean, some of our money that we give to

Pakistan is reimbursements, and so there are conditions that we

pay for things. If they didn’t have the 85,000 troops on the border

area, God knows what would be going on out there. Not anything

we could deal with ourselves, I am sure.

So the fact that they are there, they can do more, we can all do

more. We are doing more on the Afghan side. We have asked for

enormous influx of funds from Congress, which Congress has supported, so we can do more on the Afghan side. On both sides of the

border there is a lot more to do.

In terms of sort of conditioning our other assistance, you have

talked about the importance of education, getting a better public

education system in Pakistan. You have talked about the support

for democracy, for civil society, justice, things like that, and we

need to do all those things.

It is not a question of conditioning and saying, unless you do

this, unless you do that. It is a question of saying all these things

are important to us, where there is no doubt in anybody’s mind the

United States wants to see a free, fair, and open election in Pakistan this year. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that we are

49

working very hard to achieve that, both in our work directly with

the political parties, but also our work with the Election Commission and everything we do in Pakistan.

Mr. TIERNEY. I think, Mr. Ambassador, there is a real question

about the urgency behind our wanting these elections to be free

and fair and the urgency of making sure that it happens. I think

that would be resolved by conditioning it, because I think that

some people might not take it as seriously unless we do something

more serious on that.

I am going to interrupt my questions because Mr. Van Hollen

has joined us, and he is entitled to 10 minutes of questioning.

You are recognized for 10 minutes, Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for

holding this series of hearings on the situation in Afghanistan,

Pakistan, and other parts of South Asia.

Mr. Ambassador, let me just join others in welcoming you and

thanking you for your service to our country. It is much appreciated.

As I understood your earlier testimony, you had a number of

questions related to an article that appeared today on the front

page of the Washington Post, essentially entitled: U.S. Warns of

Stronger Al Qaeda. As I understood your response, you said you

were not familiar with that report; is that correct?

Mr. BOUCHER. I have seen the Washington Post story, but the

Washington Post seemed to have gotten the intelligence report before it came to my reading.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right. Here is my question. One of the

things we as a country decided after 9/11—it was one of the key

recommendations of the 9/11 Commission—was that we would try

and get away from the stovepipe approach to collecting and analyzing information so that all people who were experts and had information to contribute with respect to this kind of analysis would

participate.

I have to say I am surprised that you woke up this morning and

read about this in the Washington Post along with the rest of us.

This is obviously no fault of your own if you weren’t in the loop,

but it is surprising to me, given the fact that we did say we wanted

more people to be involved in this process. I recognize it is an intelligence analysis.

On the other hand, you are essentially the senior policy person

when it comes to South Asia. You obviously have a lot to say with

respect to interpreting and analyzing information regarding the political and military situation in Pakistan. I have to say I am surprised to hear you didn’t know about the report.

Can you enlighten us a little bit as to how this process works,

should work?

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, if I believe what I read in the Washington

Post, the report isn’t even finished yet. Generally, NIEs, they finish

it up before they send it around.

You know, that said, I am part of the information and analysis

process every day, and I am constantly reading the raw material

and the reports that are coming in from embassy sources and intelligence sources all over, all kinds of different sources, and I have

a constant dialog with the folks in the intelligence community. We

50

meet on a very regular basis. I see somebody every morning that

I talk to.

I know this is kind of the summary that is being done at this

moment, that I may not have seen that particular document yet,

but the underlying trends are something I think I am very familiar

with because of these constant discussions, and we have talked

about how the Al Qaeda has presence in Pakistan, has grown, and

how it has been reorganized, and what the dangers are from that.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. Well then do you share the assessment

that was given by one of your colleagues who is in the intelligence

community before the Armed Services Committee yesterday, the

House Armed Services Committee, John Kringen, who said Al

Qaeda seems to be fairly well settled into the safe haven and

ungoverned spaces of Pakistan? Do you agree with that conclusion?

Mr. BOUCHER. I basically agree with the conclusion, but it is not

the whole story.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right. I guess my question is: what has our

position been, you as the head policymaker for this region, in terms

of communicating to the Pakistani government whether we support

their decision to essentially have these hands-off, described by your

colleagues as safe haven areas, where, as I understand it, according

to public reports our intelligence community has included, that has

allowed Al Qaeda to strengthen itself. As he says, we see more

training, more money, more communications. What have we said to

the government of Pakistan with respect to our position on whether

that was a good idea or not a good idea?

Mr. BOUCHER. Sir, I think we have made absolutely clear that

the presence of Al Qaeda in Pakistan is a danger to all of us, in

whatever strength they are at any given moment, and that we look

to them for cooperation, as we have since 9/11, for cooperation

against the Al Qaeda elements and the Al Qaeda elements who

have been able to take refuge and operate from Pakistan.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Do you agree with your colleague——

Mr. BOUCHER. It is a constant effort.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Do you agree with your colleague that providing a safe haven has allowed Al Qaeda to strengthen itself?

Mr. BOUCHER. I do, but providing safe haven, I mean, let’s not

draw improper implications from that. This is not done with the

authorization of the Pakistani government. They did some things

that led to that influx and strengthening, but the Pakistani government has made very clear through its words and its actions that

it, too, is opposed to extremism, it, too, is opposed to the presence

of Al Qaeda. In these last few weeks you have seen President

Musharraf at Jirga and Peshawar making that explicitly clear.

Over the course of time, you have seen hundreds of arrests of Al

Qaeda people in Pakistan and you have seen pressure on various

Al Qaeda associates and people that are in these tribal areas.

We know there are still a lot of them there. There is a lot of

training. There is command and control that are still there that

need to be gotten out. But they are not there, you know, as a policy

of the Pakistani government.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I understand. But, as you said, words and actions, and one of the actions the Pakistani government took was obviously to enter into this arrangement with the leaders in that reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:28 Jul 06, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\50110.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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gion, and at least our publicly reported intelligence assessment is

that has resulted in strengthening of Al Qaeda.

Let me just go on and pick up on a point that the chairman and

others have made with respect to making sure we have open and

democratic elections.

This committee, back in May, took testimony from a Dr. Samina

Ahmed, who is the South Asia project director for the International

Crisis Group.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes, I know.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I am sure you know her.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. She provided testimony to this committee via

satellite. Essentially, what her message was was that Musharraf

had actually relied, to a certain extent, in terms of putting together

a coalition, on some of the more religious parties in Pakistan to

provide the majority he needed essentially to stay in power, in contrast to some of the more moderate parties.

In fact, I am just reading from her testimony. She said, ‘‘Lacking

a civilian constituency, Musharraf remains dependent today on the

religious parties, particularly his Coalition party in the Baluchistan

government, the JUI, the pro-Taliban party, and the major partner

in the MMA alliance to counter his moderate civilian opposition.’’

That is her testimony.

My first question is: do you share that assessment?

Mr. BOUCHER. That is one of the results of the election in 2002

and some of the subsequent arrangements, and that is one of the

important things about a new election: it gives an opportunity for

the moderate center to reform.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But, I mean, do you share that essential analysis of his political reliance on some of the religious parties to maintain his governing coalition?

Mr. BOUCHER. In some of the provincial, especially Baluchistan,

he does rely on the religious parties. In the National Assembly, all

of them are in opposition to Musharraf, and you have seen that in

recent days the way they have spoken about the Mosque, frankly.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Now, in terms of the position we have taken

with respect to the upcoming elections—and I appreciate your

statement that we are pushing for free and fair elections—in specific terms, have we publicly called on President Musharraf, for example, to make sure that Benazir Bhutto is allowed to return to

Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. We have said that all the parties need to be able

to participate and the voters need to be given real choices, but

when it comes to individuals, I mean, each of them faces a particular situation with regard to justice and other things in Pakistan,

and so no, we have not gone to endorse specific individuals.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, this does get to the chairman’s question,

it seems to me, about the urgency and the content, policy content

behind the words, because I think many people would agree that,

with respect to the People’s Party, that if you have a leader who

is the, you know, essentially the selected leader of her particular

political party, and you don’t allow them to come back and participate in the elections, clearly you are not allowing for a free and fair

election.

52

It seems to me, if our position is that we want free and fair elections, we need to be making sure that anybody who wants to run

individuals included as the head of their party are allowed to return.

Why shouldn’t we do that? How is it consistent to say we want

free and fair elections but not call upon the president to allow the

return of the leader of one of the major opposition parties?

Mr. BOUCHER. Because our job as the United States I don’t think

is to endorse any particular party or any particular candidate.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me interrupt. I am not talking about endorsing any candidate. I am not talking about endorsing any candidate; I am talking about making real the statement that we want

free and fair elections. I am saying we want to call upon the government to make sure that any individual who wants to participate—of course we should not go anywhere near endorsing any

candidate in any election in Pakistan, but it seems to me, wouldn’t

you agree, that to have a free and fair election, every individual or

certainly party leader who wants to participate in the election

should be allowed to be present in Pakistan and fully participate?

Mr. BOUCHER. There are three different leaders of political parties in Pakistan who are outside the country, three major

leaders——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right.

Mr. BOUCHER [continuing]. Who are outside the country, and

each has different circumstances, different judicial circumstances

and other things. They are out for different reasons, they face different things if they go back. Ms. Bhutto talks about going back,

talks about facing justice. Whether she does that or not depends to

some extent on what she decides and how it works out with the

government. But, you know, an individual’s circumstances I guess

we think have to be addressed by the individual and the government.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If I could just, Mr. Chairman, one question

with respect to the situation in Afghanistan. I wrote a letter to the

Secretary of State with respect to the situation there.

Mr. BOUCHER. I have seen it.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I think we all agree on this issue, which is we

want to make sure that, as we aggressively go after Al Qaeda and

aggressively go after the Taliban, we do everything possible to limit

civilian casualties, non-combatant casualties. After all, part of the

mission is to make sure we win the hearts and minds of the people

in Afghanistan. A concern that has been raised is that, partly as

a result of the fact that there are, according to some assessments,

not enough United States and Allied forces, ground forces, in Afghanistan, we have relied more on air power, which is less discriminating in terms of the targets, and that overall—and Karzai,

himself, the president of Pakistan [sic], has said that he thinks

that the level of civilian casualties has not been justifiable.

If you could just address this issue, because clearly we want to

do everything we can to root out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but it

is clearly counter-productive if, in the process of trying to do that,

we lose the support of the local population, because that makes it

more difficult to accomplish our mission.

53

Mr. BOUCHER. Absolutely, sir. I think we all understand how

very important this is.

I was just at the Rule of Law Conference for Afghanistan that

was held in Rome last week, and President Karzai I think put it

well. He said, you know, we are all there to protect the innocents

of Afghanistan, and it is the innocent people of Afghanistan that

deserve our protection and can’t be made casualties of the fighting.

We know we are fighting an enemy that puts civilians in harm’s

way. We have had cases where they have, you know, kept people

locked up inside compounds where they were operating from. We

have had cases, you know, frequently where they take refuge in civilian compounds and areas, knowing that if we go after them

there will be some civilian casualties, and then they publicize it.

So it is a difficult enemy, an enemy that often goes out to kill

civilians and kill school kids, kill school teachers, kill policemen.

Recognizing how difficult it is for our military people, I think we

and our military all understand how critical it is to success and the

bigger mission that they do everything that they can to minimize

civilian casualties. So each one of these incidents is taken very seriously. Each one of these incidents is looked at very carefully. We

do have strict rules of engagement that we are always trying to improve, and we need to do better. I think we are trying very hard

to do that.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I realize and understand fully the tactical

challenge here, given the enemy that is being faced and the fact

that they have been unscrupulous and, as you say, have killed civilians on the other side in brazen sort of terrorist type activities.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. No doubt about it. But, as you say, in order

to accomplish the larger mission, we need to make sure we go after

them without in any way enlarging or expanding their political

support.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. As Karzai has said, it has been at least his

feeling, as he publicly stated, that we can do better.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So I think we just need to make sure that

we——

Mr. BOUCHER. I should address the other half of your question,

air power versus civilian versus military forces. I am probably not

the best qualified to try to address that. What I do know is that

there is still a shortfall in the NATO force requirements, and we

work very hard to try to get people to meet that force shortfall, and

then there is the question of flexibility of the forces. Our feeling is

that, you know, whatever commanders decide they need, they need

to have the tools available. And we have pushed very hard on all

countries to give the NATO commanders the flexibility and the capability to do the job in the best way possible with the minimum,

absolute minimum, of civilian casualties.

So our feeling is that having that additional flexibility and capability would give the commanders more tools to use, and perhaps

make it a little easier for them to avoid these casualties.

54

But I want to say that whatever they have as tools, whatever

they can use, they make a very serious effort and continuing effort

to improve this in order to avoid civilian casualties.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. But do you believe that the fact

that we haven’t hit the full troop levels that we think that we need,

that we are somewhat short, has resulted in a somewhat over-reliance on air power that would not otherwise be used?

Mr. BOUCHER. I have seen it said, but I am not qualified to

judge.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Ambassador, does it at all trouble the State Department and

the administration that Julaluddin Hakini continues to be free, despite the Musharraf administration and their military telling us

they know where he is, and despite some pretty prevalent rumors

that he may also be providing bin Laden protection as his guest up

under the culture situation? I mean, why is it that we don’t press

harder for more definitive action to be taken against Mr. Hakini?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think he is one of a number of facilitators of the

Taliban on the Pakistani side that are part of the problem and that

do need to be taken out of the picture, arrested, eliminated, whatever. And, you know, there are a number of areas where we have

seen support for the Taliban from people and groups on the Pakistani side. The Quetta Shura around Baluchistan was one of the

major problems that we had earlier this year, and we have gone

after—Pakistanis have helped us go after a number of those people.

There is a Hakani network. There are other facilitators. And

yes——

Mr. TIERNEY. I mean, it is as simple as turning on the TV and

watching Frontline, where they are interviewing members of the

Musharraf regime saying, Yes, we know where Mr. Hakani is, and

we know who he is. And when they are asked point blank why

don’t you just go in and get him, no answer. I mean, how is it that

we are not pressing for something as simple as that to be done?

Everybody understands the role this individual is playing and understands the need to do it.

Mr. BOUCHER. I think we all do understand the role that he is

playing and is one of the targets that needs to be gotten.

Mr. TIERNEY. But not the inability to do it because they tried and

failed, but the unwillingness to try to do it I should think would

somehow color what has otherwise been by you pretty rosy picture

of the cooperation of the Musharraf government.

Mr. BOUCHER. We have talked about things that have been done

and things that remain to be done. This is one of the things that

remains to be done.

Mr. TIERNEY. I say so.

You know, I am going to leave that issue and go to another, but

a quote that one of our witnesses at our most recent hearing had

is, ‘‘The choice that Pakistan faces is not between the military and

the Mullahs, as is generally believed in the west, including the

United States; it is between genuine democracy and a mullah military alliance that is responsible for the religious extremism that

poses a threat to Pakistani, regional, and international security.’’

55

That was a sentiment that I found to be prevalent through all segments of the Pakistani society—people testifying here, people that

we have met here in Washington, and the myriad of people from

different occupations, as well as different political parties—that we

met there.

I would hope that this administration at least has some recognition that is a fairly prevalent feeling amongst Pakistanis, and if we

want to start being friends with the Pakistani people, as opposed

to one individual who took over a coup in 1999, that we have to

somehow reflect in our policy and our decisions that we understand

that is their feeling, and maybe press harder in some areas.

Let me just cover some other areas quickly so I can let you go

on this. I appreciate the time you are spending.

What is our strategy with respect to the FATA area, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas? You know, who is going to be our

development partner up there? To whom are we going to give this

substantial amount of money that you have mentioned? Is it going

to be to local, non-government officials, to tribal leaders, to international NGO’s? It is a considerable amount of money. How do we

make sure that it is accounted for and that it goes to the purposes

for which we intend?

Mr. BOUCHER. If I can comment on the Mullah military question?

Mr. TIERNEY. Absolutely. Sure.

Mr. BOUCHER. That certainly is a prevalent view, and it has, I

think, been a clear view in the past that, you know, the Mullah—

if you look at Pakistani history and the history of some of the military regimes, you see an alliance at various moments with some of

the more extremist religious elements. That was accentuated particularly during the anti-Soviet fight. I mean, that was the core:

the mullahs, the military, and the Mujah Hadin fighting the Soviets. So all the contributions that we and others made helped solidify that kind of alliance.

But I think, you know, times change, things change, and circumstances change over time. I find it hard to say there is a military Mullah alliance in Pakistan on the day that the military has

just completed an operation against an extremist mosque.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess the point there being it took them several

months to get to that point. The people that make the statement

rather recently——

Mr. BOUCHER. It took them 20 or 30 years to get to that point,

but——

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, this particular government, but for

Musharraf it took several months——

Mr. BOUCHER [continuing]. Particularly they have been dealing

with it in the last 8 or 9 months.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. From the time this started to do it.

Again, going back to Mr. Hakani and example after example of

sort of an allowance for things to fester and to buildup without action being taken until absolutely forced to take it. And then yes,

some people are going to be upset, but the point is, you know, but

for their fear for that and what some people perceived as that alliance, things would have been done a lot sooner and would continue

at a lot higher level on that.

But to the other point——

56

Mr. BOUCHER. Let me answer your question——

Mr. TIERNEY. Please.

Mr. BOUCHER [continuing]. On the tribal area funding. One of

the key elements I think of the plan that was developed, the tribal

area development strategy, was to build the institutions that can

do things and handle funding and to build a tribal area development organization that can reliably use money, build the schools,

build the vocational training centers, put in the roads, whatever

needs to be done under that plan. They can do it reliably, effectively, get results, provide the information, make sure it was done

the right way and money was not wasted.

And so a lot of the effort at the beginning of the program is, in

fact, to build those institutions and capabilities there.

We also run——

Mr. TIERNEY. Can I just interrupt? Where do you think that

stands right now? I mean, do you think you have completed that?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think it is just starting, basically. We are just

getting started on a lot of this stuff.

We already have some pretty effective counter-narcotics programs in the area where we build roads, we provide training, do

a lot of different things with counter-narcotics money in the tribal

areas, and in some places we are able to do that, some not so well,

but we use contractors to do things there. We are able to check up

and make sure it gets done.

We have an AID program to build 65 schools in the tribal areas,

and we use contractors there who do the work, but we are able to

check and make sure it gets done properly.

Mr. TIERNEY. I don’t know if you had something else to say. I

just wanted to make sure we covered that point. Are you completed

on that?

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

The money that we spend in Pakistan, broken down a little bit

into different categories, and I am interested in your comments on

some of the accountability. The budgetary support aspect, $200 million: how do we account for that?

Mr. BOUCHER. A couple of different ways. I mean, account for it,

we know where the money goes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, originally.

Mr. BOUCHER. The question is——

Mr. TIERNEY. You deliver a check and you know who you deliver

the check to. After that, where does it go?

Mr. BOUCHER. How do we know what gets done with it?

Mr. TIERNEY. Right.

Mr. BOUCHER. A couple of things. First, the first purpose of the

money and providing it as budgetary support is so that they can

take care of budget and fiscal policy in a way that strengthens the

economy. It is macro economic reform money. So the first purpose

is to check whether it is achieving macro economic goals in terms

of budget deficit and a variety of other sort of indicators of macro

economic stability, because that is why we give them money

through their budget.

Second purpose is we sit down, we have a series of meetings

every year called the Shared Objectives Exercise, and we sit down

57

with them and we define how our money shall be used. So of that

$200 million, for example, we define that, I think it is $56.25 million will be used on education. Another chunk gets used, $50 million, for earthquake recovery. Another chunk gets used for health.

So we define with them together.

Then we set indicators that are not just how our money will be

used, but what they are going to do in that sector, because the goal

of our money is really to leverage their budget and make it possible

for them to spend more and better on education. So even though directly our money, of that amount $56.25 million may go into education this year, we are looking at indicators

that say are they increasing education as a percentage of GDP, are

they increasing the number of girls in school, are they increasing

the number of kids in school. So are they meeting those overall targets for these different sectors? And that is the second way we account for the money.

Mr. TIERNEY. So it is an output sort of a measure as opposed to

identifying dollar for dollar where it actually gets spent?

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes. Are we catalyzing, accelerating the work in

sectors that are important to us.

Mr. TIERNEY. We are told by some of the witnesses that were

here that the education budget of Pakistan is hovering somewhere

around 2 percent of the gross domestic product, and that still

falls—UNESCO’s benchmark usually would recommend somewhere

about 4 percent. Are they moving and trending in the right direction here?

Mr. BOUCHER. They are. They spent $1.3 billion on education dol- lars in 2003. That was almost doubled to $2.4 billion in 2006, and

they plan to continue to double education and health expenditures

as a percentage of gross domestic product by 2015. What we are

trying to do is support that effort.

Mr. TIERNEY. I am a little bit troubled with the way that we are

accounting for this, only because we never seem to be able to nail

down exactly that the money has been spent where we hope it is.

We have those shared objectives, and then sort of if things look like

they are tending somewhere then we are satisfied, but we never

get to see whether all of the $200 million goes where we want it

to go. I would hope that we think of a better way to do that at

some point, which is one of the reasons why we sort of went in

when we did that bill and took a little more money for education.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Because we really feel strongly that education gets

more attention.

How many USAID personnel that are focused on education are

currently on the ground in Pakistan?

Mr. BOUCHER. I have to check on that. I don’t know the number.

Mr. TIERNEY. I say that because off the record we heard one.

That would be a little troubling. I would think they would need a

larger presence, you know, in order to do something really meaningful on that and to make those numbers move in the direction

in which we want them to move and to send a message clearly that

we expect more to happen there.

Mr. BOUCHER. One of the reasons we do some of this ourselves

and some of it through the budget is because when we put the

58

money into their budget and they are expanding education sector,

it can do things like pay salaries for teachers, hire and train more

teachers, buy books, providing lunch to kids in school—I mean,

things that aren’t really projects that we would carry out. They are

things that they can do as part of their education programs, and

expand, you know, use Federal money to expand the availability of

books and better curricula to the provinces and things like that. So

the money goes to almost slightly different purposes than what we

would spend directly ourselves in projects.

Mr. TIERNEY. And it seems we have to do a little bit better job

on tracking where that is going to. Right now the indications we

have are that, you know, we are still a long, long way to go in

terms of teachers. We hear about the ghost schools——

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. And the opportunity there, and that is,

I think, key to our long-range issue of how we are going to deal

with it.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Not just in Pakistan, but a whole host of different

countries.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. What are we doing about providing good alternative education that doesn’t push them back toward the sort of extremist Madrassas situation.

Mr. BOUCHER. I learned a long time ago in Africa, when I was

responsible for cold storage of vaccines in an AID project, you not

only ask do you have a refrigerator, you ask do you have electricity.

Mr. BOUCHER. Exactly.

Mr. TIERNEY. When I was up in the tribal areas, you know, looking at some of these schools that we built with AID money, the

question is: is the school done? Are there teachers? Are there

books? And the answers are yes. We are careful about a lot of that.

And I agree with you that some of these specifics of, you know,

are they really expanding the availability of education as they

spend more money, are important to track, as well.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, on our recent visit up in the Peshawar area

and leading into the tribal areas there, we weren’t convinced that

you are very far along in putting this infrastructure together that

you are going to need to really effectively spend the President’s

proposed program, so it may be that we need to take another trip

out there before that all comes to fruition to see how that is going

or whatever. I think the idea is good.

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. I think the idea is excellent. The question is: is it

going to be executable? We would like to work with you at least

on that part.

Can you give us a little run-down of what precautions the administration is taking to ensure that the military support money is actually going to the types of military equipment and purposes that

effectively fight international terrorism, as opposed to some other

purposes—for instance, Orion submarines and F–22 bombers and

things like that actively look like they are shoring up against India

than fighting international terrorism?

59

Mr. BOUCHER. I think, sir, we do try to do both. I mean, we try

to help Pakistan with legitimate defensive needs, with its ability to

patrol in the Arabian Sea in part of NATO missions out there, to

provide maritime security in that area. So we do try to help them

with their sort of basic defensive needs, and that is a chunk of our

money. That is pretty much what the $300 million for foreign military financing goes to is a lot of those kind of things.

But also some of that money and other things that we do—buy

night vision goggles, body armor, you know, equipment for troops

that are in the war on terror. And then in addition, then you have

the money that is the reimbursement for the expenses on the war

on terror, and the Pentagon is in charge of getting receipts and

making sure they know how that money is being spent in the right

places.

Mr. TIERNEY. I think there is a whole host of people here in the

Congress that think those numbers, you know, ought to be swayed

a little bit differently. There ought to be more toward international

terrorism action and less toward the general part of it, which they

already have their military designed and set up to do. But we will

look at that as the budget comes through.

Have you had the opportunity to talk to General McNeil in terms

of what he sees going on, in terms of communicating what happens

in his eyes at the cross-border movement between the Taliban from

the Pakistani side to the Afghani side?

Mr. BOUCHER. Sure.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you have regular meetings with him on that?

Mr. BOUCHER. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. And other intelligence officials, what they talk

about in terms of them giving actual intelligence to the Pakistani

side and the cooperation or lack of cooperation that they get back

as a response to that?

Mr. BOUCHER. Sure.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. I am a little surprised that you are still as

positive about what is being done, because I have had conversations in depth on a regular basis with those people, and I don’t get

a very pleasant position——

Mr. BOUCHER. I have talked to General McNeil. I think the

Dutch general, General van Loon, was just in Washington. I don’t

know if you saw him. He has been the general for Regional Command South, and, you know, he was saying there are things going

on on the Pakistani side that are helpful, that are important to us.

That is all I am saying.

I also know there is a regular flow of people across, that the ability to take refuge in Pakistan and regroup and organize has been

a serious danger to our troops.

Mr. TIERNEY. And serious questions about people getting information or intelligence and have it not be acted upon, that then obviously puts our people in jeopardy. That is not an irregular situation; it is a fairly common occurrence, at least what is reported to

us.

Mr. BOUCHER. It is something that happens, and it is an occurrence, and nothing ever quite happens as fast or effectively as we

might like. But that doesn’t mean abandon the effort. That means

you continue to make it better.

60

Mr. TIERNEY. Just some comments on the judicial situation that

is going on over there. How do you see that evolving and winding

up?

Mr. BOUCHER. We have said that everybody needs to respect the

decisions of the judicial process. There is a judicial process in Pakistan to handle these matters, and in the end everybody needs to

respect that and let those decisions be made in a judicial manner.

In the meantime, there are a lot of demonstrations. A lot of people

I met the last time I was in Pakistan were out demonstrating and,

you know, political parties are rallying. Part is just a reflection of

the fact this is a very political year in Pakistan.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do we have any diplomatic comments to make to

President Musharraf when he sacked Chief Justice Chaudhry?

Mr. BOUCHER. We asked a lot of questions. Again, it is going to

be up to the Pakistani judicial system to decide if—a referral, it is

called, referred charges to another judicial body—if the referral

was warranted. I think we are going to have to respect that process

ourselves.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, are we being firm and clear in our conversation with the Musharraf government that we expect them to also

respect the process?

Mr. BOUCHER. We have been very clear that everybody should do

that, including the government, and that is what the government

has pledged to do.

Mr. TIERNEY. You made some comments in the Pakistani Times,

I think it was last month, where you were talking about your belief

that the media in Pakistan is free, so I thought that I would like

to ask you about what you say about the recent reports about the

government’s detention of reporters, control of television coverage,

and what appeared to many of us to be forms of intimidation that

were initially started and pulled back eventually. How do you account for that?

Mr. BOUCHER. We have said it was a bad idea and we are glad

that it was pulled back, and we think our comments probably had

something to do with the fact that it was pulled back.

Mr. TIERNEY. And, last—I think it is last—A.Q. Khan. There was

a little bit of discussion there. Now we are led to believe that he

is under so-called house arrest, allowed to brunch and have tea

with friends and family. Is that accurate? And what is your confidence level that the Pakistani nuclear secrets and materials are

safe at this point? And what more ought Congress be doing to ensure their continued safety, if they are?

Mr. BOUCHER. I think we are confident that the Khan network

is out of business, that we have been able to get at it in a lot of

parts of the world, that he is no longer operating kind of black

marketing that he was doing in the past. I think we are confident

that Pakistan has good control over its nuclear materials. It is

something we keep a close eye on.

Mr. TIERNEY. Are we making efforts to get in and question Mr.

Khan, because I am sure that we must feel that he has significant

information about other sales that he made prior to his detention,

and that would be fairly useful to our efforts at nonproliferation.

Mr. BOUCHER. We are always interested in getting

information——

61

Mr. TIERNEY. Are we getting any cooperation——

Mr. BOUCHER [continuing]. From him and about his network.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. From Mr. Musharraf?

Mr. BOUCHER. We have gotten good cooperation in terms of the

flow of information to us and to the IAEA and to others around the

world.

Mr. TIERNEY. From questioning of Mr. Khan or from other

sources?

Mr. BOUCHER. From Pakistanis and their questioning of Mr.

Khan.

Mr. TIERNEY. But we have not been allowed access to him at this

point?

Mr. BOUCHER. No.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Ambassador, I want to thank you for all of the

time that you have given us this morning.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. And for your candor and your answers and for your

objectivity, I guess, although I might argue that, again, I would

like to see some more subjectivity into it. But I appreciate it very

much. Thank you for coming.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, sir.

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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