When would the five-year, $3 billion US assistance package for Pakistan actually commence? Well, if one went by the elaboration of various aspects of the agreements reached at Camp David on June 24, between President Bush and President Musharraf, it seems highly unlikely that the disbursement from the package would start any time in the immediate future.

The elaboration was done by a senior Bush administration official on the same evening that the President met at Camp David. According to him the package has to be approved by the US Congress first to be included in its annual budget.

The American budgetary year starts from October and ends in September. Since there are only three months left for the commencement of the next year’s US budget, there is a very slim chance of the administration succeeding in getting the Congress to approve the package before October 2003.

In fact, there are many details of the package still to be negotiated between the officials of the donor and the recipient before its design is completed. The size of the package ($3 billion) and its division between economic and defence assistance was suggested by the donor leaving the details of the content of each of this two sub-packages to be decided by the recipient in consultation with the officials of the donor.

The finalization of the entire package, therefore, is likely to take at least about three months. F-16 or other offensive weapon systems have already been excluded from the defence package by the donor. At best we will be able to upgrade the existing fleet of 32 F-16s. But then the representatives of all the three branches of defence forces will have to sit around the table and discuss who needs what and how urgently to arrive at a shopping list which would improve our overall conventional defensive capabilities vis-a-vis India.

Similarly, we have to decide first what we want to do with the $1.5 billion of economic assistance which would be disbursed to us over five years at the rate $300 million a year. Federal Finance Minister has already expressed his desire to use two-third of this amount to repay the principal of the remaining debt which we owe to the US so that we escape a debt servicing burden of at least about $2 billion over the remaining repayment period.

It is not yet clear whether the entire amount of $3 billion is being donated to Pakistan as grants or would they carry any interest, if so how much and what would be the repayment period. It is only after getting these details that we would be able to know how best to profit from this assistance. If the scales tip in favour of repayment of old debt,we would be left with only about $500 million from the $1.5 billion of economic assistance over the five years. On the other hand, if we do not repay the debt then what exactly would we like to do with the $300 million a year that we would be getting over the five years?

These are the questions which we need to answer before we finalize the content of the package. All this is likely to take at least about three months which will take us to the latter part of the current calender year.

Next year is the election year in the US. President Bush would be engaged in the cutting deals with various politically powerful lobbies in Washington to ensure his return to the White House a second time. The Indian and Israeli lobbies would be working against Pakistan. In the intense process of give and take the administration would perhaps find it difficult to get the Pakistan package through the Congress in the election year. It was perhaps in order to neutralize the Israeli lobby that the President Bush must have advised President Musharraf to get Tel Aviv recognized before the Pakistan package went to Congress. And it is perhaps in this context that the Pakistani President has started making the ‘right’ kind noises of about Israel.

Still, one does not see the Pakistani package going to Congress in the election year. So, it is logical to assume that unless something very dramatic happens between now and next year, the most likely time frame for the US administration to take the Pakistani package to Congress would be sometime early 2005, and soon after the inauguration of Bush in his second term ( if he wins). This would mean that the package would actually become part of the US budget in October 2005.

But then, before the US Congress approves the package for inclusion in the 2005 budget, the US administration will have to establish beyond all doubts in Congressional hearings that Pakistan has remained in the intervening two years steadfast on its commitment to fight the Al-Qaida and Taliban, has not exported nuclear technology to North Korea and made ‘smart’ progress on democracy.

President Musharraf is not likely to find it difficult to deliver effectively on the first two of the three conditions which neither the US nor Pakistan officially describe as conditions.

The senior Bush administration official, however, explained the matter as follows: “We are going forward with a major bilateral assistance programme that is predicated on the assumption that in Pakistan we have a partner that is moving against terrorism, moving against proliferation, and committed towards moving towards democracy.”

The last of the three conditions, that is the commitment of Pakistan to move towards democracy too would also be put to test before the Congress approves the package in 2005. It is not known what bench marks are going to be used for this test. But then, since he himself has been saying that he does not like one man occupying two offices (the COAS and the president) and since he himself has been talking about giving up his uniform within three years, it is possible to assume that President Musharraf has assured President Bush that by 2005 he would take off his uniform and get himself elected properly.

So, one way of looking at the package could be that the it has been linked to Musharraf’s promise of giving up his uniform in two years’ time. President Bush has perhaps told President Gen. Musharraf that ‘Okay Mr President come back after two years without the uniform and we will give you the money!’

The people of Pakistan, therefore, should be grateful to the US president first because he has refused to sell offensive weapons to Pakistan at a time when Washington is helping Islamabad to come to some kind of a peaceful settlement with India on Kashmir and secondly, because the US has predicated a generous assistance package to Pakistan on the country’s return to democracy.

The size of package under discussion is certainly smaller than the two similar packages which Musharraf’s predecessor General Ziaul Haq obtained under similar circumstances. The first package which Zia got was to the tune of $3.2 billion and the next one had amounted to $4.2 billion. The last one was stopped abruptly when the US found in September 1990 that we have started producing weapon grade N-fuel.

The nuclear proliferation law being applied to stop the US aid is popularly called the Pressler amendment. It is still on the law books of the US. There is another law which bans US aid to countries under military dictatorship. And in 1998 further sanctions were imposed on Pakistan after we had tested our nuclear bombs. Since then, the US Congress has been granting Pakistan one-year waivers to allow assistance to flow into Pakistan.

In order for the Congress to pass a five-year package instead of giving Islamabad every year, short 12- month waivers, we will have to do something more by 2005 than what we have already done on the matter of military rule, nuclear non- proliferation and terrorism ( which also includes cross-border infiltration). It is, therefore, logical to assume that we are not going to get anything out of the new package before we meet the bench marks linked to these conditions.