US to review Pak aid package, says Rice
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule is seen as a stunning setback for Washington’s battle to stabilize its foremost ally in the “war on terror.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was going to “review aid” to nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has received about 10 billion dollars in US military assistance since the September 11 attacks of 2001.
“But we do have concerns, continuing counter-terrorism concerns, and we have to be able to protect American citizens by continuing to fight against terrorists,” Rice added, however, while on a trip to Jerusalem Sunday. “We have a significant counter-terrorism effort in Pakistan and so we have to review this whole situation,” she said, after the Defense Department ruled out any immediate cut to US military aid to Pakistan.
Musharraf’s state of emergency declared Saturday, which amounted to a “second coup” according to opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, came despite weeks of US pressure including personal interventions from Rice. “Musharraf Leaves White House in Lurch,” the New York Times declared. The Washington Post said: “As Crisis Deepens, White House Endures Diminished Power to Influence Events.”
Senator Joseph Biden, a long-shot Democratic hopeful in the 2008 White House race, said the Bush administration was paying the price for cozying up to Musharraf at the expense of democracy in Pakistan. “We have a huge stake, a huge stake, in seeing to it that the moderate majority in Pakistan have a political outlet,” Biden, the chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee, said on CBS television. “This administration doesn’t have a policy. It has a Musharraf policy, but it doesn’t have a policy relative to Pakistan and how it has affected everything else in the region,” he said.
Bhutto and her top opposition rival, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, have both said repeatedly that the United States risks undermining its own interests by staying too close to Musharraf. On the other hand, analysts say, neither Bhutto nor Sharif overly popular in Washington given the allegations of rampant corruption that marred their terms in office in the 1990s. Biden said the democratic alternatives to Musharraf had to be preferable to the situation faced now by Pakistan and the United States. “What we have now is the prospect that you’ll see the ... significant moderate middle there deciding that their only resource is to make connections with the more radical elements to try to take down Musharraf,” he said.
“God only knows what happens then. I mean, this is a real mess. It’s a lack of a policy for the last five years.” Rice, the White House and Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell all expressed US disappointment, as Pakistani police rounded up hundreds of opponents and the government warned it could delay key elections for a year. But Morrell said Saturday: “At this point, the declaration does not impact on our military support for Pakistan’s efforts in the war on terror.