Trump government stopped aid to Pakistan over ISI-terrorists ties, reveals ex-US NSA
- In Reports
- 12:53 PM, Aug 31, 2024
- Myind Staff
Former US National Security Advisor Lt Gen (retd) H R McMaster has said that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has an "undeniable complicity" with terrorist groups. He also revealed that while serving under President Donald Trump, the White House encountered opposition from the State Department and Pentagon regarding providing security aid to Islamabad.
In his latest book, ‘At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,’ McMaster recalls how, despite Trump’s directive to halt all aid to Pakistan until it stopped sheltering terrorists, then Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was still preparing to send a military aid package to Islamabad, which included $150 million worth of armoured vehicles.
McMaster writes in his book, which will be released this week, that the aid was ultimately halted after his intervention.
“It was difficult to get State and Defence even to comply with Trump’s directives to stop certain activities. I discovered that contrary to the South Asia strategy, which called for the suspension of all aid to Pakistan with a few exceptions, when Mattis visited Islamabad in the coming weeks, the Pentagon was going to deliver a military aid package that included more than USD 150 million worth of armoured vehicles,” he writes.
Upon learning of the Pentagon's plans, McMaster called a meeting with Mattis, CIA deputy director Gina Haspel, and other top officials.
“I started by noting that the president (Trump) had been very clear on multiple occasions to suspend aid to the Pakistanis until they halted support for terrorist organisations that were killing Afghans, Americans, and coalition members in Afghanistan...We had all heard Trump say, 'I do not want any money going to Pakistan',” he says.
McMaster writes that Mattis acknowledged the possibility of Pakistan retaliating in some way, but others, including Ambassador David Hale, who joined via video from Islamabad, did not share those concerns.
“Mattis reluctantly halted that shipment of assistance, but other aid would continue, prompting Trump to tweet on New Year’s Day, 'The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan with little help. No more!',” he writes.
“Pakistan was not changing its behaviour, and almost as an insult, the government released Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, on the eve of Mattis’s visit. Moreover, a recent event in Pakistan involving hostages had exposed the undeniable complicity of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence with the terrorists,” McMaster writes.
He mentions that news reports at the time criticised the president’s tweet as impulsive and lacking a clear policy. However, he points out that stopping aid was a key component of the South Asia strategy that Trump had approved at Camp David in August.
"A lunch that the president hosted with the vice president, Tillerson, Mattis, Kelly, and me on December 14 helped me understand why it was difficult to implement Trump’s guidance on Pakistan or to foster cooperation on contingency plans for North Korea,” says McMaster.
Image source: AFP
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