The United States is "ready, willing and able" to conduct joint combat operations with Pakistani troops against insurgents in Pakistan if Islamabad agrees, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.
Gates, speaking at a Pentagon press conference with Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was unaware of any Pakistani request for additional US military assistance but said it was part of an ongoing dialogue.
"First of all, 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," he said. Asked whether joint operations meant US combat troops fighting with Pakistani troops against al Qaeda in the tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan, Gates said, "If the Pakistanis wanted to do that, I think we would."
Gates' comments were the most direct yet by Washington about US willingness to send US combat troops to Pakistan as part of an intensified counter-insurgency effort in the tribal areas, which al Qaeda and the Taliban have turned into safe havens for attacks in Afghanistan and more recently inside Pakistan.
Use of US troops in Pakistan is a highly sensitive issue with the Pakistani military, however. President Pervez Musharraf warned earlier this month that unilateral US action in its territory would be treated as an invasion.
"They clearly have the right to decide whether or not forces from another country are going to operate on their soil," Gates said. "We will continue the dialogue. But we would not do anything without their approval."
Gates said most of the discussion with the Pakistanis so far has involved increased counter-insurgency training rather than joint combat operations. "I mean, you're not talking about significant numbers of US troops for the kinds of things, if you're talking about going after al Qaeda in the border area or something like that," he 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," he said.
Gates said the threat that al Qaeda poses to the Pakistani state was brought home to the Pakistani military relatively recently, in particular by the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. "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," he said. "I expect that that will happen." Admiral William Fallon, the head of the US Central Command, met on Tuesday in Islamabad with General Ashfaq Kiyani, who succeeded Musharraf as head of the armed forces.