GAO: Comprehensive plan needed to fight terrorism in Pakistan

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday said the U.S. has “not met its national security goals to destroy the terrorist threat and close the safe haven” in Pakistan’s tribal region and called for the development of a comprehensive plan to do so.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) seized on the report, saying that it “confirms what we have long warned: the Bush administration’s limitless commitment of our limited resources to the war in Iraq has compromised our focus in the region that is home to al Qaeda and where Osama bin Laden is believed to be at large six and a half years after the 9/11 attacks.”

{mosads}GAO found that the U.S. largely relies on Pakistan’s military to address U.S. security goals. The report stated that more than half of the $10.5 billion that the U.S. has given Pakistan from 2002 through 2007 has been used to fund Pakistan’s military actions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and regions bordering Afghanistan.

GAO noted that the State Department reported last year that Pakistan was making “significant” progress in the region.

“However, we found broad agreement, as documented in the unclassified 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), State and embassy documents, as well as among Defense, State, and other officials, including those operating in Pakistan, that al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA,” GAO said.

Reid said that the U.S. “must refocus on hunting down a resurgent al Qaeda, securing a troubled Afghanistan and rebuilding the strength of our military.”

GAO recommends that the administration develop “a comprehensive plan using all elements of national power to combat the terrorist threat and close their safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA region.”