The White House vowed Tuesday there would be no 'blank checks' for Pakistan after two top US senators unveiled plans to expand and overhaul civilian aid to the key US ally. "The president has said on numerous occasions there shouldn't be and there won't be blank checks," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"The president supports the building in of accountability measures to ensure that we are making progress and if progress isn't made then we'll readjust our strategy." US President Barack Obama hosts presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan for talks Wednesday aimed at defeating Islamist extremists who threaten both governments.
Democrat John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Republican Richard Lugar, the panel's ranking member, introduced legislation on Monday calling for a tripling of US civilian aid to Pakistan to 1.5 billion dollars per year over the next five years. The new legislation aims to reassure Pakistan's population of 170 million people that the United States stands with them and does not link aid from Washington to whatever governments sits in Islamabad.
It conditions US military help on certification that Pakistan security forces are doing their utmost against al Qaeda and the Taliban from using Pakistan's territory as a base while "not materially interfering" in the country's political or judicial processes. It also calls for "benchmarks for measuring the effectiveness of US assistance" at a time when many in the US Congress are openly skeptical of the effectiveness and desirability of boosting US aid to Islamabad.