WASHINGTON, May 4: Senator Hillary Clinton on Sunday opposed cutting off US aid to Pakistan to force the country to fight terrorists hiding inside its territory.
In an interview to Fox News, Mrs Clinton disagreed with the suggestion that the best way to do deal with Pakistan is to cut off aid.
“We now have a new government there. We have got to make it clear to the new government in Pakistan that we will stand with them, we will support democracy,” she said. “We have not put all our eggs into Musharraf’s basket.”
The interviewer, Bill O’Reilly, disagreed with Mrs Clinton, calling it a diplomatic approach which may or may not work.
Mrs Clinton, however, noted that it’s in Pakistan’s self-interest to fight the terrorists and they are not doing so just to please the Americans.
Mrs Clinton is among the three candidates who are likely to win the 2008 presidential elections in the United States and if elected she will get the chance to put her views into practice. In the Democratic camp, Mrs Clinton appears to be the most vocal supporter of Pakistan, openly praising the country’s role in the fight against terrorists.
But like all other senior US politicians and officials, Mrs Clinton also seems convinced that Al Qaeda has built a safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal region.
“It’s in Pakistan,” said Mrs Clinton when asked if she knew where the primary haven for the Taliban was.
When asked to name a place, she said: “Well, it’s along the border. And there are a couple of different places. It’s not just one place.”
“But there’s a command and control. Do you know where it is?” the interviewer asked.
“Well, where do you say it is?” she asked.
“It’s in Quetta, OK? That’s where it is,” said Mr O’Reilly, a journalist known for his anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan views.
“But that’s not the only place,” she said.
“No but its command and control. The Pakistani government even under Musharraf knew that,” Mr O’Reilly insisted.
“Now Quetta’s not up in the mountains. You can go and drive right through it tomorrow. The Pakistani government knows it, allows the Taliban openly, openly to operate out of Quetta, to go across the border to kill our guys and other Nato forces, and to come back,” he said.
Mrs Clinton, however, disagreed with his theory. “Well, first of all, Bill, I think there may be a concentration of Taliban in Quetta. But because they are primarily Pashtuns, they are all through that area,” she said.
Mr O’Reilly, however, insisted that the so-called “big guys” of the Taliban and Al Qaeda were in Quetta.
“Well, the big guys move,” said Mrs Clinton. She then blamed the Bush administration for failing to tackle this problem.
“If you had more troops committed so that we could prevent the infiltration and their being able to carry out their missions inside Afghanistan,” she said.
“If we were able to make a stronger case to the newly elected government in Pakistan that their livelihoods and lives depended upon us working together to take out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, we didn’t make that argument.”
She noted that the Bush administration supported Musharraf “through thick and through thin” but he failed to deliver. “I’ve met with Musharraf over and over again. He said all the right things. You just never got the follow-through,” she added.
Mrs Clinton said that the United States should have been supporting the pro-democracy movement in Pakistan.
“They just had an election where the religious party lost. Why? Because the Pakistani people do not want to have this creeping terrorism and extremism,” she added.
Mrs Clinton, however, agreed with the suggestion that unless the Pakistani government takes action against the Taliban inside Pakistan, the situation will never improve no matter how many American troops were sent there.
“I agree with that, but what is the best way to persuade them to do that?” she asked.
When the interviewer suggested that the best way to persuade Pakistan to fight terrorism would be to cut off aid, she disagreed.
She noted that the military in Pakistan does have the potential to wipe the militants. “But they’ve got to do it for reasons that are their interest, not ours,” she added. “And we haven’t made the case to them that we should have.”