Interesting article on US Assistance to the Pakistan Army: “When $10 billion is not enough: Rethinking US strategy towards Pakistan”:http://www.twq.com/07spring/docs/07spring_cohen-chollet.pdf. The picture is taken from the article, and aptly sums up the situation. Over 90% of official US assistance to Pakistan has gone to the Pakistan Army, and more interestingly, the article estimates that besides the official figure over $10 billion of classified US money has also gone to the Pakistan Army! That’s over $20 billion dollars from 9/11 to now – a heck lot of money, most of which has been spent on high tech toys for the army.
Mush often talks about the economic progress the country has made under him, but a good part of that can be attributed to this money – in recent years the army budget hasn’t grown proportionally along with the economy, and this huge influx of money directly to the army partly explains why. With the huge burden of supporting the Pakistan army partly off its back, the economy was able to spread it’s wings a little bit.
A recent article in Dawn “puts the economic issue well”:http://www.dawn.com/2007/03/12/ebr2.htm:
bq. PAKISTAN’s official external debt has not gone down since 1999 although it has received record aid, investments, and remittances flows. It has gone up to $36.9 billion from $33.6 billion in 1999 despite receiving at least $10 billion in economic, military and development aid from the United States, over $6 billion in privatisation proceeds, and a relief of $1.6 billion in loan write-offs by foreign governments during the last seven years.
Finally, people in Pakistan “are also wondering where all this money has gone”:http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=58748.
wow, I wonder where all that money is going!
There would be no record where this money have gone. Its is a great work done with facts espeacially by Yousuf Nazar. nice article!