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The Obama administration has delayed payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in promised military aid and reimbursement to Pakistan to reflect its displeasure with that country’s lagging security cooperation, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

The decision to withhold the aid follows Pakistan’s cancellation of visas for more than 100 U.S. Special Operations trainers working with the Frontier Corps, along with its refusal to issue new visas for equipment technicians, in the wake of a series of clashes culminating in the May 2 cross-border U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan’s actions “have given us reason to pause,” White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “Until we get through these difficulties, we’ll hold back some of the money that the American taxpayers have committed to give.”

The withheld aid is worth about $800 million, including a payment of $300 million for reimbursement of Pakistani counterinsurgency expenditures against militants. The money, part of what Pakistan says is more than $1 billion currently owed on the account, was approved by the Defense Department several months ago but has not been disbursed.

U.S. equipment approved for Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, which is based in the tribal regions where Taliban and al-Qaeda havens are located, has also been withheld, including “ISR [intelligence and reconnaissance] gear, explosive ordnance disposal support and equipment, small arms and ammunition, and other soldier kit,” said a senior U.S. military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the classified action.

Delivery of additional items to the Pakistani military — night-vision goggles, helicopter spare parts, communications gear and counter-explosive equipment — has also been suspended.

U.S. officials said that in the case of some of the equipment, there was no point in sending it to Pakistan if U.S. trainers and technicians were not there to train local troops in its use. They indicated that the shipments would resume if the visa questions and other issues were resolved.

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Sounds like the carrot approach.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
Sounds like the carrot approach.

or is it the stick?

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Wouldn't the stick be us bombing them?

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
Wouldn't the stick be us bombing them?

no, that would be the spreading of democracy ;p

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Pakistan could pull back troops fighting Islamist militants near the Afghan border if the United States cuts off aid, the defense minister said on Tuesday in an interview with Pakistani media.

The United States Monday said it would hold back $800 million -- a third of nearly $2 billion in security aid to Pakistan -- in a show of displeasure over Pakistan's removal of U.S. military trainers, limits on visas for U.S. personnel and other bilateral irritants.

"If at all things become difficult, we will just get all our forces back," Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said in an interview with the Express 24/7 television to be aired later on Tuesday.

The television aired excerpts of the interview Tuesday.

"If Americans refuse to give us money, then okay," he said. "I think the next step is that the government or the armed forces will be moving from the border areas. We cannot afford to keep military out in the mountains for such a long period."

In Pakistan, the defense minister is relatively powerless. Real defense and military policy is made by the powerful Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, and the head of the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

Monday, the military said it could do without U.S. assistance by depending on its own resources or turning to "all-weather friend" China.

Mukhtar later told Reuters Pakistan wanted the money spent on the maintenance of the army in the tribal areas. "This is what we are demanding," he said. "It is our own money."

The United States provides hundreds of million of dollars a year to reimburse Pakistan for deploying more than 100,000 troops along the Afghan border to combat militant groups.

Other funding covers training and military hardware. The White House announcement puts $300 million in reimbursement and another $500 million in aid in question.

Pakistan is an important ally of the United States but relations between the two uneasy allies have been on the downward spiral since last year when a CIA contractor killed two Pakistanis in January and then U.S. Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad in May without informing Islamabad beforehand.

Islamabad sees the May 2 raid as a breach of its sovereignty and has drastically cut back on the numbers of U.S. troops allowed in the country and has set clear limits on intelligence sharing with the United States.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan on Monday said the $800 million in U.S. aid put on hold could be resumed if Pakistan increased the number of visas for U.S. personnel and reinstated the training missions.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
Pakistan could pull back troops fighting Islamist militants near the Afghan border if the United States cuts off aid, the defense minister said on Tuesday in an interview with Pakistani media.

Might as well pull them back, is not like they're doing much anyway. Wasn't Bin Laden's house right next door to the Pakistani's biggest Officer's Training College, their equivalent of West Point?

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Glad to hear this.  Those folks hate us anyway.  We got Bin Laden already.  Time to make friends with India.  Better yet, do what they want and just get the heck out of that part of the world and let em all rot.

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it's basically a form of extortion.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
it's basically a form of extortion.

We can do it back.  We should counter by offering to use that money to strengthen ties with the Indian military and perhaps do some joint excersizes near the border.  That'll scare the Pakistanis!