39 “American Red Cross Supports Pakistan’s Response to Worst Flooding in 80 Years,” American Red Cross, August 4, 2010, http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.1a019a978f4
21296e81ec89e43181aa0/?vgnextoid=c02a25d459d3a210VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD.
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States focused on diverting more than $500 million in previously unspent aid
(pre-KLB funds) to pay for urgent relief and recovery operations.40
Pakistan’s own messy politics and bureaucracy also got in the way of speedy
aid delivery. With good reason, Pakistani officials were more enthusiastic about
U.S. funds than about the cumbersome planning, auditing, and accounting
procedures that came with them. In addition, a long-anticipated constitutional
amendment by the new government in Islamabad placed greater administrative
authority in the hands of provincial governments. This shift complicated certain
types of cooperation with Washington. For instance, U.S. officials working on
health issues lacked appropriate Pakistani counterparts for nearly eight months
after the closure of the federal health ministry and before provincial govern-
ments picked up their duties.41 Provincial governments, which now had juris-
diction over water and sanitation, had to finalize their own regulations before
entering into agreements with USAID.42
Politics aside, Pakistan was also a dangerous, difficult place for Americans
to deliver aid. Without a U.S. military presence in Pakistan, U.S. officials were
constrained by limited numbers of armored cars and security officers, and
contractors in Pakistan had to provide their own security or depend upon local
law enforcement. The threat of attacks, harassment, and kidnappings was quite
real. Al-Qaeda’s 2011 kidnapping of sixty-three-year-old Warren Weinstein,
an American aid contractor who had worked in Lahore for four years, showed
that even experienced veterans were at risk.43 Pakistani suspicions of American
motivations also slowed the process of obtaining visas for U.S. aid officials and
contractors. For many Pakistanis, the Raymond Davis affair only strengthened
earlier suspicions that American aid officials in Pakistan might in fact be spies.
All told, KLB’s first year was a difficult one. USAID disbursed only
$179.5 million out of the first $1.5 billion authorized by the KLB legisla-
tion. To be fair, in late September 2010, USAID signed an agreement with the
Pakistani government that would eventually support an additional $831 mil-
lion in civilian programs.44 But that would take more time, and to most
40 Jane Perlez, “U.S. Aid Plan for Pakistan Is Foundering,” New York Times, May 1, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/02pakistan.html.
41 “Quarterly Progress and Oversight Report on the Civilian Assistance Program in Pakistan as of December 31, 2010,” U.S. Agency for International Development, February 7, 2011, http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2011/pr110207.html.
42 The 18th amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan was signed into law on April 19, 2010.
See I. A. Rehman, “What the Provinces Gain,” Dawn, April 15, 2010, http://www.dawn.com/
wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/i-e-rehman-what-the-provinces-gain-540.
43 Ben Arnoldy, “Al Qaeda Claims Kidnapping of American Warren Weinstein,” Christian Science Monitor, December 1, 2011, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2011/
1201/Al-Qaeda-claims-kidnapping-of-American-Warren-Weinstein.
44 USAID reports that it disbursed a total of $676 million in Pakistan for fiscal year 2010. Only $179.5 million of that total was from KLB authorized appropriations. The remainder of the $676 million was money left over from prior year U.S. commitments. Of the rest of the KLB
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No Exit from Pakistan
Pakistani ears it sounded like Washington’s delivery had fallen well short of its
promise.
Normally, it is a mistake to judge an aid program on the basis of how
much money is spent and how quickly. It is far better to focus on outcomes
than inputs. Yet in nearly every discussion with Pakistanis from 2010 to 2012,
talk of KLB invariably turned to America’s unmet pledges. By over-promising
and at least appearing to under-deliver, Washington compounded the public
relations nightmare of KLB’s initial rollout.
In early 2011, just as efforts to spend KLB money (largely by funding Pak-
istani government programs) started to pick up steam, the U.S.-Pakistan rela-
tionship took a nosedive for completely unrelated reasons, starting with the
Raymond Davis affair. The grandiose ambition of the early Obama adminis-
tration to transform relations with Pakistan’s civilians appeared to have died
with its most active proponent, Richard Holbrooke.45
Holbrooke had positioned himself within the administration as a proponent
of intensified diplomacy and cooperation with Pakistan. The loss of such a
political heavyweight would have been difficult under any circumstances; it was
doubly so in a situation beset by crises and increasingly hostage to U.S. policies
that gave little weight to trying to build cooperation between Washington and
Islamabad. More and more, rather than asking how U.S.-Pakistan relations
might be made more effective, the bottom line question in Washington became
“How can we keep relations with the Pakistanis on track long enough to avoid
ruining our counter-terror agenda and our plans for Afghanistan?”
Even Pakistani supporters of cooperation with the United States had trouble
explaining the specific benefits of KLB assistance. In February 2012, during
her first public speech on the job as Pakistan’s newly appointed ambassador to
the United States, Sherry Rehman reflected a persistent confusion in Pakistan
about what had and had not been delivered in the way of U.S. assistance to that
country. As she explained, “there are divergent views on what’s come through
to Pakistan and what’s been sent out from here [Washington].” She concluded,
“So the question is asked [by Pakistanis]: what is our biggest ally doing for us
while we stand on the frontlines? Ouch.”46
money appropriated for FY 2010, the vast majority was not obligated until late September 2010, when the GAO reports that “USAID signed a bilateral assistance agreement with the government of Pakistan for up to $831 million.” The remaining $171.2 million was neither obligated nor disbursed by the time the GAO report was released. See “Pakistan Assistance Strategy,” GAO-11–310R, Government Accountability Office, February 17, 2011, p. 6, http://
www.gao.gov/new.items/d11310r.pdf.
45 These ambitious plans were articulated soon after Obama took office. See “Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, March 27, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-a-New-Strategy-for-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan/.
46 Event Transcript, “A Conversation with the New Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Ambassador Sherry Rehman,” United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, February 16, 2012.
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drone wars
In many ways, the Obama White House never appears to have cared much
about the aid program for Pakistan, per se.47 If aid provided a useful political
tool to manage relations with Islamabad, fine; but the real action was in fighting
terrorism, in preventing another major attack on the United States. President
Obama held fast to the goal he outlined in March 2009 after his first review
of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat
al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either
country in the future.”48 For this job, as then-CIA Director Leon Panetta put
it in May 2009, unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, were “the only game in
town.”49
In the spring of 2001, I visited Palmdale, California, near Edwards Air Force
Base. On my tour was the famous “Skunk Works” facility that gave birth
to the U-2 spy plane. Those high-flying surveillance aircraft flew Cold War
missions across Soviet territory. Even in 2012, thirty-two U-2s armed with a
suite of technological upgrades remained in active use by the U.S. military.50 On
another tour stop, a retired Air Force pilot led us through the nearby Northrop
Grumman facility. He offered an enthusiastic presentation about the company’s
contributions to the future of American airpower, but things got a little tense
when someone asked about a white, awkwardly shaped, windowless plane on
display. Our guide explained that it was a Global Hawk drone, capable of
flying at high altitude over vast distances and taking high-resolution images
very much like the U-2. He then went on an extended tirade about how these
unmanned aircraft would never be as good as “real” planes.
What a difference a decade made. Just before September 11, 2001, the
entire U.S. military had fewer than 200 drones. By the end of 2011, that
number had grown to 7,000, accounting for over 30 percent of all Defense
Department aircraft.51 Only a very tiny percentage of those are the large,
ungainly sort I first saw in Palmdale. Most are much smaller. They have several
major advantages over piloted aircraft, including an ability to hover for many
hours without fatigue and to crash without risking human death or capture.
Newer models can now do much more than watch from above; they now
hunt to kill. Controlled from even thousands of miles away, the Predator
47 Author conversation with former White House official, January 19, 2012.
48 “Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Office of the Press Secretary, White House, March 27, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the press office/
Remarks-by-the-President-on-a-New-Strategy-for-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan/.
49 Mary Louise Kelly, “Officials: Bin Laden Running Out of Space to Hide,” National Public Radio, June 5, 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104938490.
50 “U-2 High-Altitude Reconnaissance Aircraft, United States of America,” http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/u2/.
51 Peter Finn, “The Do-It-Yourself Origins of the Drone,” Washington Post, December 24, 2011, pp. A1, A9; Jeremiah Gertler, “U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems,” Congressional Research Service, January 3, 2012, p. 9.
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No Exit from Pakistan
and its newer cousin, the Reaper, can rain Hellfire precision-guided missiles
down on their targets.52 From 2004, when the first armed Predators flew over
Pakistan’s tribal areas, until late 2011, they have attacked hundreds of targets
and are estimated to have killed roughly 2,000 militants.53 In some parts of
the FATA, tribesmen grew accustomed to the unnerving buzz of drones flying
overhead.54
Drones are evolving quickly. Fifty years after the U-2, the Skunk Works
facility introduced the Sentinel drone. Like the U-2, the Sentinel is built to
spy over enemy territory. The Sentinel is stealthy, meaning that its shape and
materials make it exceedingly difficult to detect by air defense systems. Sentinels
are believed to have flown undetected over the Pakistani compound of Osama
bin Laden both before and during the May 2011 raid. In the famous photograph
that depicts President Obama and his team in the White House situation room
staring in rapt attention, they may have been watching a Sentinel’s live video
feed.55
Earlier eras had their revolutionary military innovations, often tied to new
technologies like gunpowder, the rifle, tanks, or aircraft carriers.56 Now, drones
and other robotic technologies are altering the conduct of war in fundamental
has already transformed America’s counterterror campaign. It has allowed
American forces to track and kill terrorists in some of the most remote, hostile
corners of the earth at financial and human costs that pale in comparison to full-
scale military invasions or bombing campaigns. Not surprisingly, Washington
is growing its drone arsenal quickly. In 2011, the Congressional Budget Office
estimated that the U.S. military plans to spend over $36 billion through 2020
52 For a behind-the-scenes depiction of the drone pilots, see Tara McKelvey, “Inside the Killing Machine,” Newsweek, February 13, 2011.
53 “The Year of the Drone,” New America Foundation, http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/
drones.
54 Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai, “Killings Spark CIA Fears in Pakistan,” Daily Beast, February 17, 2011, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/17/afghanistan-the-mystery-of-the-drone-attacks.html.
55 Greg Miller, “CIA Flew Stealth Drones into Pakistan to Monitor Bin Laden House,” Washington Post, May 17, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-flew-stealth-drones-into-pakistan-to-monitor-bin-laden-house/2011/05/13/AF5dW55G_story.html.
56 On revolutions in military affairs, see Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
57 See P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2009).
58 On the various dilemmas raised by drones, see Micah Zenko, “Reforming U.S. Drone Strike Policies,” Council on Foreign Relations Special Report No. 65, January 2013; Jane Mayer,
“The Predator War,” The New Yorker, October 26, 2009; Scott Wilson, “Drones Cast a Pall of Fear,” Washington Post, December 4, 2011, pp. A1, A22–3; Peter Finn, “A Possible Future for Drones: Automated Killings,” Washington Post, September 19, 2011, pp. A1, A10.
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Great Expectations to Greater Frustrations
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to buy over 700 new medium and large drones.59 This does not include plans
for thousands of mini-drones or anything that the CIA might have in the works.
From Oddity to Commonplace
Washington’s use of drones in Pakistan from 2004 to 2012 reflected the broader
shift of unmanned platforms in the American arsenal from oddity to common-
place. Only weeks before 9/11, the CIA rejected a proposal that it should
deploy armed Predator drones against bin Laden in Afghanistan.60 That posi-
tion was hastily reversed when President Bush ordered far more aggressive
counterterror operations in the aftermath of 9/11.61 Over the next ten years,
the drone became the single most effective counterterror weapon in Wash-
ington’s arsenal. In 2010, drones pounded Pakistan’s Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA) at a rate of one strike every three days.62 From 9/11 to
early 2010, drones had killed more than half of the twenty most-wanted al-
Qaeda suspects.63 By 2012, drones were an open secret; President Obama even
discussed using them in Pakistan’s FATA during an online “town hall” meeting
sponsored by YouTube and Google. The president defended the use of drones,
arguing that they have not caused “a huge number of civilian casualties,” and
that “for the most part, they have been very precise precision strikes against
al-Qaeda and their affiliates.”64
In addition to the president’s comments, the White House counterterror
chief, John Brennan, offered a more comprehensive defense of drones almost
exactly a year after bin Laden’s death.65 Brennan’s argument was based on
legal, ethical, and strategic grounds. He argued that a range of consider-
ations influenced U.S. targeting decisions, including the “broader strategic
59 “Policy Options for Unmanned Aircraft Systems,” Congressional Budget Office, June 2011, p. vii.
60 Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 344–6.
61 Brian Glyn Williams, “The CIA’s Covert Predator Drone War in Pakistan, 2004–2010: The History of an Assassination Campaign,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 33 (2010), p. 873.