By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer1 hour, 26 minutes ago
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."