WASHINGTON, Feb 14: Three senior US senators told a congressional panel here on Thursday that they would be in Pakistan on February 18 and 19 to monitor the elections.

Two of them, Senators John Kerry and Joseph Biden, head powerful congressional committees and are also former presidential candidates. Senator Chuck Hagel is a senior member of the Republican Party.

Senator Kerry said they would stay in Pakistan for two days and then proceed to Afghanistan to review the US-led war against terror.

The US government is not sending an official delegation of observers. Earlier this month, the Washington-based International Republican Institute pulled out because of security concerns.

The European Union is sending about 100 observers. Some observers are also expected from other countries, including a few politicians.

Also, embassies in Islamabad have put together their own teams to observe the election.

But democracy and human rights groups in Washington complain that this may not be enough to monitor 80 million voters in 64,170 polling stations spread out in an area almost twice the size of California, one of the largest American states.

In contrast, during the critical Palestinian elections in 2006, about 900 international observers monitored 980,000 voters at just over 1,000 polling stations in an area the size of Delaware, the smallest American state.

Meanwhile, Senator Biden told a congressional panel that the election in Pakistan was important for the United States as instability there could jeopardise the US-led war against terror.

“Afghanistan’s fate … is linked to Pakistan’s future, and so is American security,” he said. “We’re going to see next week what the elections bring in Pakistan. But no matter what the result, we need to move in Pakistan from Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy.”

The US policy towards Pakistan, he said, should demonstrate to its moderate majority that “we are with them for the long haul with the help to build schools, roads, clinics.”

The United States, he said, should also demand accountability for the billions of dollars and “the blank cheque that we keep writing” for the Pakistan government.

Senator Russell D. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, noted that President Bush’s proposed 2009 foreign budget had increased 8.5 per cent from last year, but it did not improve America’s security.

“The president is still failing to properly allocate resources so we can address our top national security priority and that, of course, is the global threat posed by Al Qaeda and its affiliates,” he said.