US aid to Pakistan a shell game

But how is this a landmark achievement, when we have no clue where aid to Pakistan goes?

Kerry has described Pakistan as the world’s greatest security risk and argued that stabilizing the country and stopping Al Qaeda are the main US security concerns. These are common sentiments, which is why last week’s bill also allows for “such sums as necessary’’ for military purposes if Pakistan can demonstrate its cooperation in fighting global terror and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

This week, the Associated Press reported that between 2002 and 2008, only $500 million of $6.6 billion in military aid meant to help Pakistan fight militants was actually spent on its intended purpose. Former president Pervez Musharraf spent the rest on his own pet economic projects and arming his country against India. Such misuse of funds, alleged by current and former Pakistani military and government officials, came as Al Qaeda and the Taliban fortified itself in Pakistan. Despite the fact that Pakistan is the leading recipient of support money to fight terrorism, one general told the AP, “The army got peanuts.’’

This is on top of two analyses over the past year that clearly show that Pakistan is playing a shell game with US aid. The Government Accountability Office found last year that, even though support funds are critical to the effort against terrorism, the Defense Department has not provided enough oversight to be able to say how Pakistan is spending US military aid. From 2004 to 2007, 76 percent of US reimbursements to the Pakistani army - a total of $2.2 billion - were paid without adequate documentation of how the costs were calculated.

So the Pentagon ended up paying for a radar system in an area of Pakistan even though terrorists in that area had no air attack capability. US taxpayers also paid the Pakistani army for road and bunker construction that may or may not have occurred. Even when the Pentagon got tough with Pakistan, questioning $22.3 million for helicopter repairs, that scrutiny came only after $55 million was already gone for helicopter “maintenance’’ that barely happened, if at all.

This summer, Harvard Kennedy School of Government research fellow Azeem Ibrahim published a report further detailing how America underwrites corruption in Pakistan with these unaccounted-for billions of dollars. Ibrahim described Pakistan as a “black hole’’ for US funds, enriching individuals while Pakistani frontier soldiers have been seen standing in the snow in sandals, wearing World War I-era pith helmets, and using barely functional rifles. He noted how Pakistan’s military received $80 million a month even during cease-fires “when troops were in their barracks.’’

For a part of the world deemed so critical to our national security, it is outrageous how these abuses go on and on with no sign of ending. It would be easy to blame the Bush administration and other hawkish Republicans, but we are now eight and a half months into the self-proclaimed “transparency’’ of the Obama administration. Yet Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright still told the AP in its story this week, “We don’t have a mechanism for tracking the money after we have given it to them.’’

Until there is a transparent tracking mechanism, it is meaningless for Kerry to talk about landmark achievements. It makes hollow the claim by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that this fresh $7.5 billion gives Pakistan “the tools, support, and capability it needs to defeat Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.’’ Pakistan should get no more money until it becomes serious about accounting for the aid it receives. All Pakistan has done so far is toy around with our tools.

Derrick Z. Jackson’s e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.