Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: pantano no.3 : US willing to send troops to Pakistan

US willing to send troops to Pakistan
Pentagon Chief Says US Would Send Combat Troops to Pakistan if Asked
ROBERT BURNS
AP News
Jan 24, 2008 19:39 EST
The Bush administration is willing to send a small number of U.S. combat
troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani
authorities ask for such help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said
Thursday.
"We remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis and to partner
with them to provide additional training, to conduct joint operations,
should they desire to do so," Gates told a news conference.
Gates said the Pakistani government has not requested any additional
assistance in the weeks since al-Qaida and affiliated extremists have
intensified their fighting inside Pakistan. And he stressed that the
United States would respect the Pakistanis' judgment on the utility of
American military assistance.
"We're not aware of any proposals that the Pakistanis have made to us at
this point," he said. "This is clearly an evolving issue. And what we have
tried to communicate to the Pakistanis and essentially what we are saying
here is we are prepared to look at a range of cooperation with them in a
number of different areas, but at this point it's their nickel, and we
await proposals or suggestions from them."
Gates made his remarks not as an announcement but in response to questions
from reporters at a regularly scheduled news conference in which he also
declined to say whether U.S. combat troops have previously crossed the
border from Afghanistan into Pakistan to conduct combat operations.
The question of a U.S. troop presence in Pakistan is highly sensitive,
although at times senior U.S. officials have acknowledged various
arrangements. In an Associated Press interview in January 2002, for
example, Gen. Tommy Franks, who headed the U.S. Central Command at the
time, disclosed a deal with Pakistan allowing U.S. troops in Afghanistan
to cross the border in pursuit of fugitive extremist leaders.
Gates said Pakistani authorities were understandably taking their time in
deciding whether to request more military assistance from the United
States. He noted the assassination in Dec. 27 of former prime minister and
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and subsequent fears of increased unrest.
"I think that the emergence of this fairly considerable security challenge
in Pakistan has really been brought home to the Pakistani government
relatively recently and particularly with the tragic assassination of Mrs.
Bhutto," Gates said. "So I think it's not particularly surprising that
they have not fully thought through exactly how they intend to proceed and
their strategy going forward."
The United States has about 28,000 troops in neighboring Afghanistan, and
Gates earlier this month ordered another 3,200 to go this spring to train
Afghan forces and to help fight Taliban insurgents.
U.S. intelligence believes al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is on the
Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan.
The top American commander in the region, Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, was
in Pakistan earlier this week meeting with senior Pakistani officials,
including the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Last week Fallon told
reporters that Pakistani officials were more willing to seek U.S.
assistance.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared at
the news conference with Gates, said he did not know whether Fallon had
offered or received any new proposals.
Most of the discussion with the Pakistanis thus far has focused on the
possibility of U.S. troops being used to train Pakistani forces, Gates
said, but he acknowledged that combat operations might also be included.
"You're not talking about significant numbers of U.S. troops for the kinds
of things if you're talking about going after al-Qaida in the border area
or something like that," Gates said. "So, in my way of thinking, we're
talking about a very small number of troops, should that happen. And it's
clearly a pretty remote area. But, again, the Pakistani government has to
be the judge of this."
Asked more specifically what he meant by a "very small number" of U.S.
troops, Gates declined to comment.
Mullen said talks with the Pakistanis are progressing and that the U.S.
military stands ready to provide training or combat forces.
"If asked to assist, I think we could do a lot," Mullen said.
For several years the focus of U.S. concern about al-Qaida elements in
Pakistan was their support for Taliban extremists who have received
training in western Pakistan and then infiltrated into Afghanistan to
foment violence. More recently, al-Qaida in Pakistan has posed more of a
threat to the Pakistani government, seeking to destabilize the government
of a nuclear-armed Muslim nation.
At his news conference, Gates said the concern about al-Qaida goes beyond
its threat to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We are all concerned about the reestablishment of al-Qaida safe havens in
the border area," he said. "I think it would be unrealistic to assume that
all of the planning that they're doing is focused strictly on Pakistan. So
I think that that is a continuing threat to Europe as well as to us."
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