Both parties slam Pakistan as 'black hole' for US aid

By Julian Pecquet - 05/16/12 02:55 PM ET

House members of both parties ripped into the Obama administration's request for $2.4 billion for Pakistan during a hearing Wednesday of the House Foreign Affairs panel on the Middle East and South Asia.

The panel's ranking member, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), called Pakistan a “black hole” where the United States has “sunk” $24 billion over the past decade.

“Our tax dollars go in, our diplomats go in – sometimes, our aid professionals go in – sometimes, our hopes go in, our prayers go in,” Ackerman said. “Nothing good ever comes out.”

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) shared similar impressions while blasting U.S. support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who he said was taking “marching orders” from Pakistan. Rohrabacher, one of Karzai's staunchest critics, was denied a visa to Afghanistan as part of a congressional delegation last month.

“We should cut Pakistan off of every cent because it has been used for evil purposes,” Rohrabacher said, including killing American troops.

The comments come as relations between the United States and Pakistan hit a new low last year after Osama bin Laden was found hiding in plain sight in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and a U.S. air strike mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Administration officials testifying at the hearing suggested cutting off aid would be short-sighted.

“Our current discussions with the Pakistanis on how best to pursue our common interests will take time to resolve, and it's not easy right now to provide satisfying answers to some questions,” Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel Feldman said in written testimony. “But we must not lose sight of the fact that both the United States and Pakistan have both expressed and demonstrated a genuine commitment to getting this relationship on firmer footing, and to working constructively on military, intelligence and economic cooperation.”

Feldman pointed to progress in trade ties between Pakistan and its neighbors India and Afghanistan as signs of progress. And he repeated President Obama's words after the death of bin Laden last May.

“The fact of the matter is, is that we've been able to kill more terrorists on Pakistani soil than just about any place else,” Obama said at the time. “We could not have done that without Pakistani cooperation.”