All items
- Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2008 (S. 3263)
- Background Basics | Nov 20, 2008
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The United States has provided Pakistan with at least $11 million in aid since 2001. As a result of continued problems in the region, U.S. officials have begun to examine ways to provide aid to Pakistan more effectively. One bipartisan effort, the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2008, introduced in the Senate this past summer aims to set a framework for revamping not only development assistance but also the nature of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
Introduced
- Keeping Focus on Long-Term Objectives
- Setting the Record Straight | Nov 20, 2008
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“[W]hile we do need to have a cooperative approach that involves many of our friends and allies in meeting with the Pakistanis, … as we work out with them a rough division of labor, the U.S., I believe, ought to be taking the lead in addressing the issues in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. And given the difficulty of doing so, I suspect that we will not have a great deal of difficulty in convincing them to allow us to take the lead there. But as we all know, there is a real tension between our short-term tactical aims in trying to capture or kill terrorists across the border and militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and our longer- term counterinsurgency pacification goals. We very much need to be focusing on the end state. What is it that we want this area to look like? ... In that context we need to have a common agenda with the Pakistani government and very much to include the military on counterinsurgency in that area. There needs to be, therefore, a focus on combining military efforts with economic, development and political development in those areas.”
—Robert L. Grenier, managing director and chairman for Global Security Consulting, Kroll, event, “Partnership for Progress: Advancing a New Strategy for Prosperity and Stability in Pakistan and the Region,” Center for American Progress, November 17, 2008 - Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and ‘Other Means’
- Analysis | Nov 18, 2008
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Since 2003, the United States, al Qaeda, and Iran have implemented programs to influence Iraqi politics and society. Of the three, Iran has the most at stake in Iraq and is the most integrated in Iraqi society. Iran’s goals for Iraq directly impact its fundamental and enduring strategic interests: preventing chaos on its border, limiting U.S. power projection capability in the region, ensuring Iraq does not threaten its political or cultural integrity, and building a platform for projecting influence across
- In Iraq’s Diyala Province, U.S. Forces Anticipate Exit
- Analysis | Nov 18, 2008
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The United States is actively transferring ownership of Iraq’s troubled Diyala Province, using a tough-love approach to force Iraq to take on greater control ahead of any deal that would put limits on the U.S. military next year. From handing over irrigation projects to cutting funding in favor of a more cumbersome Iraqi payment system, the strategy amounts to the de facto first steps of withdrawal. …
“The training wheels are off,” says Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the U.S. Army
- Oil for Soil: Toward a Grand Bargain on Iraq and the Kurds
- Analysis | Nov 18, 2008
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Despite some progress, Iraq’s legislative agenda, promoted by the United States in order to capitalize on recent security gains, is bogged down. The main culprit is a dispute over territories claimed by the Kurds as historically belonging to Kurdistan—territories that contain as much as 13 percent of Iraq’s proven oil reserves. This conflict reflects a deep schism between Arabs and Kurds that began with the creation of modern Iraq after World War I. … In its ethnically-driven intensity, ability to
- Iraqi and American Critics of Security Pact Speak Up
- News | Nov 18, 2008
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Iraqi and American critics of a security agreement governing U.S. troops in Iraq voiced their objections on Monday, a day after the Iraqi cabinet approved the pact and sent it to Parliament for ratification.
In Iraq, opposition has created an unlikely association between the followers of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who rejected the agreement out of hand, and some Sunni politicians, including ones who support the deal but are trying to wrest concessions from the Iraqi government.
- Iraqi Government Starts Paying Sunni Fighters
- News | Nov 18, 2008
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Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government is making good on promises to pay thousands of U.S.-backed Sunni fighters in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Sunday, despite some government unease over the alliance. …
The U.S. military managed and paid the volunteers to help provide security in neighborhoods, towns and villages, but handed over control of the groups to the Iraqi government last month.
- Premier of Iraq Is Quietly Firing Fraud Monitors
- News | Nov 18, 2008
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The government of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing Iraqi oversight officials, who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the U.S. occupation administration, which had hoped to bring Western standards of accountability to the notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy here.
The dismissals, which were confirmed by senior Iraqi and U.S. government officials on Sunday and Monday, have come as estimates of official Iraqi corruption have soared.
- Iran Judiciary Chief Lauds U.S.-Iraqi Security Pact
- News | Nov 18, 2008
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Iran took a surprisingly positive stance Monday on the Iraq-U.S. security pact after months of harshly denouncing the deal, which would keep American troops in Iraq for three more years. Some hard-liners continued to lash out at the agreement, but comments in the state media and from one of the clerical state’s most powerful figures signaled Tehran may be taking the view that no matter what it dislikes in the deal, it will eventually mean the departure of the Americans.
- Iraq’s Budget Execution Challenges
- Heard on the Street | Nov 18, 2008
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Joseph A. Christoff, director of International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office, interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, October 28, 2008:
“Iraq does not have the kind of expertise it needs in good procurement, budgeting, and contracting issues. Secondly, there’s been brain-drain in the technocrats that were once part of the Iraqi government, that are now, many of them, refugees in neighboring countries. And finally, I think some would contend that because the United States has spent