The Bush administration has had no comprehensive strategy to address the greatest direct threat to the U.S.

More than seven years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda has found a safe haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – a remote, mountainous region along Pakistan’s northwest border.

Our intelligence agencies say that the greatest direct threat to the United States comes from Al Qaeda activities in this destitute region, autonomous and ill-controlled by Pakistan. Yet a recent report from Congress’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Bush Administration has no concrete strategy for dealing with this threat. Instead, we have had seven years of over-reliance on Pakistan’s military; seven years of that military playing a double game, failing to deliver on counter-terrorism and failing to deliver for Pakistan’s citizens; and seven years in which Al Qaeda’s influence in the region has risen while ours has fallen.

It is time for a new and comprehensive approach. Pakistan’s people recently used a democratic election to call for change, and we should be cooperating with them: by working with the new government, not just the military; by dramatically increasing our non-military assistance to Pakistanis and requiring accountability for the military support we provide; and above all by putting together a coherent and comprehensive strategy for what we are trying to do and how we can best accomplish it.

The Most Direct Threat to U.S. Homeland Eminates From the Tribal Region Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Border

Al Qaeda is using the Pakistan tribal areas to put the finishing touches on its plans to attack the United States. A DNI assessment from earlier in 2008 reports troubling findings: “It states that Al Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place, including the identification, training, and positioning of Western operatives for an attack. It stated that Al Qaeda is most likely using the FATA to plot terrorist attacks against political, economic, and infrastructure targets in America designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population…Al-Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the US: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland. While increased security measures at home and abroad have caused al-Qaeda to view the West, especially the US, as a harder target, we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006.” [GAO, 4/17/08 ]

CIA Director Michael Hayden stated that Al Qaeda has reconstituted and the situation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border presents a “clear and present danger.” CIA Director General Michael Hayden commented that the border region represented a “clear and present danger to Afghanistan, to Pakistan and to the West in general, and to the United States in particular.” In addition, General Hayden confirmed that “Al-Qaeda has been able, over the past 18 months or so, to establish a safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed before, and that they are bringing operatives into that region for training.” [Meet the Press, 3/30/08 ]

Insurgent activity originating along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border has unleashed a wave of violence in the region. A recent hearing before the Middle East and South Asia subcommittees of the House Foreign Relations committee cited a report from the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, which found that in Pakistan there were “1,442 terrorist attacks, incidents of political violence and border clashes last year.” This violence, and the ensuing military response, has resulted in the deaths of 3,448 people in 2007. The level of violence in 2007 represents a substantial increase from 2006 levels, and “a U.N. report released in September found that the vast majority of suicide bombers in Afghanistan were recruited and trained in Pakistan.”[House Foreign Affairs Committee, 1/16/08 , Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, 1/07/08 , United Nations, 9/07/07 ]

There Is Still No Comprehensive Plan To Eliminate the Al Qaeda Safe-Haven in the FATA

Despite repeated calls from within the U.S. government for a comprehensive plan to combat Al Qaeda in Pakistan, the Bush administration failed to enact one. “No comprehensive plan for meeting U.S. national security goals in the FATA has been developed, as stipulated by the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (2003), called for by an independent commission (2004), and mandated by congressional legislation (2007).” As a result “The United States has not met its national security goals to destroy the terrorist threat and close the safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA region.” [GAO, 4/17/08 ]

The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan never received a comprehensive strategy from the executive branch for how to thwart Al Qaeda’s operations in Pakistan. “The embassy has lacked a Washington-approved, comprehensive plan that combines the capabilities of Defense, State, USAID, intelligence agencies, and other U.S. departments to combat terrorism in the FATA. According to senior embassy officials in Islamabad, the embassy had not received a comprehensive plan from the CIA, Defense, State, the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), the NSC, the White House, or any other executive department.” This is the case despite the fact that the NCTC is “an organization specifically intended to develop, implement, and monitor multi-department plans to combat terrorism.” [GAO, 4/17/08 ]

The United States has relied too heavily on the Pakistani military to confront Al Qaeda. “Since 2002, the United States has relied principally on the Pakistani military to address its national security goals.” This was due to “the lack of a comprehensive plan to guide embassy efforts and the sense that the Pakistani military was the most capable institution in Pakistan to quickly undertake operations against Al Qaeda immediately after the attacks of 9/11. Senior embassy officials stated that this may have led to an ‘over-reliance’ on the Pakistani military to achieve U.S. national security objectives in Pakistan.” [GAO, 4/17/08 ]

The Administration’s policy has neglected non-military approaches such as support for education and economic opportunity in the FATA. “For example, although the FATA has some of the worst development indicators in Pakistan and is ruled under colonial administrative and legal structures dating from 1901, the United States has devoted little funding to address these issues in the FATA.” In spite of this administrative structure, there are only two non-military programs currently in place: the State Department’s Border Security Program, and USAID development activities. These two programs have only received 4% of the total U.S. assistance package for Pakistan’s tribal areas and northern provinces. The other 96% has gone to reimbursing the Pakistani military. [GAO, 4/17/08 ]

For years the Musharraf government played a double game with the Bush administration ? promising major action but doing little. Stephen P. Cohen, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, says “Administration officials have gloated that they coerced Pakistan into signing on to the ill-named war on terrorism. In return, Islamabad played a double game regarding its participation in this struggle…Its intelligence services supported the Taliban, while only reluctantly going after the Al Qaeda forces embedded in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The failure to round up the Taliban leadership was a matter of state policy: the Pakistan army still regards India as its major threat, and the Taliban are used to counterbalance Indian influence in Afghanistan.” A Salon story confirmed that “U.S. intelligence operatives have known since 2005 that the Pakistan army and the ISI [the Pakistani intelligence agency] have been training and arming insurgents in the Tribal Areas who cross into Afghanistan to kill Afghan, U.S. and coalition forces. ‘Our guys are getting killed because Pakistan has a double policy,’ said an American policy advisor who travels frequently to U.S military and CIA bases near the border.” [Brookings Institution, 11/05/07, Salon, 3/10/08 ]

There is “a moment of strategic opportunity in Pakistan.” The new government is likely to be more motivated to combat terrorism. There is a bipartisan consensus that the U.S. should take advantage of the situation and work closely with the new government. Pakistan expert Steve Coll says we’ve reached a moment of strategic opportunity: “Pakistan's new democratic government should now be motivated to prove its case. Delivering Bin Laden ? which Musharraf's government so conspicuously failed to do ? would be a coup of global proportions for Pakistan's new civilian leaders, and it would bring considerable political and other rewards to Islamabad. It would demonstrate, in the most dramatic way possible, that a democratic government can be as effective a partner in counter-terrorism as the army, if not more so, and by doing this, it would change debate in Washington and Europe about the costs and benefits of investing in democracy in Pakistan.” Lisa Curtis from the Heritage Foundation also stated that “Washington and Islamabad need to develop a strategic approach to the problem. This will involve working together to collect intelligence and target known terrorist hideouts and uprooting terrorism. And modernizing these backward areas also requires economic development and political reform that incorporates these areas into the Pakistani system.” [LA Times, 4/13/08, House Foreign Affairs Committee, 1/16/08 ]

The new government also presents an opportunity for the U.S. to broaden its strategic focus and demand accountability for military assistance. Senator Joseph Biden has implored the Bush administration to take a new approach to Pakistan: “The recent Pakistani elections gave the moderate majority its voice back and gives the United States an opportunity to move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy. To demonstrate to its people that we care about their needs, not just our own, we must triple assistance for schools, roads and clinics, sustain it for a decade, and demand accountability for the military aid we provide.” [NY Times, 3/02/08 ]

To achieve long-term security, the Pakistani tribal regions must be better integrated into the government of Pakistan. The United States can “support efforts by the Pakistani government to consult intensively with the local stakeholders to integrate FATA into the rest of the Pakistan.” As Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, concluded, “Pakistan’s law and order problems arising from tribal and religious militancy can be effectively addressed in the long term only if police and paramilitary forces can more reliably provide justice and border security. All of these administrative reforms require effective political leadership focused on improving the capabilities of Pakistani institutions for effective governance and development of economic opportunity.” [Center for American Progress, 11/06/07 . DNI Annual Threat Assessment, 2/05/08 ]