Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Bloomberg.com
May 30, 2008 By Ken Fireman, Bloomberg News
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Pakistan's new civilian leaders need time to “get their feet on the ground” before they can be expected to move aggressively against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in their border area.
While Gates said Pakistani military forces were still communicating with NATO troops in Afghanistan, he acknowledged that the Pakistanis had at least temporarily halted their own operations against insurgents.
“Pakistan is in a transition,” Gates said at a news conference on a U.S. Air Force base on the Pacific island of Guam. “I think until they get their feet on the ground and get a full appreciation of the nature of the threats that they face and their approach to it, I think we just have to give them a little time.”
Gates was reacting to comments by the outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army General Dan McNeill, who pressed Pakistan to clamp down on insurgents using the northwestern tribal region as a staging area to attack U.S., Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces across the border. Pakistan's civilian government, which was elected in February, last month began truce talks with militants in the region.
Pakistan-based extremists have escalated attacks on American troops in eastern Afghanistan in the past year, McNeill said yesterday.
“What you're seeing right now is the effects of no pressure on these extremists and insurgents on the other side of the border,” McNeill told reporters in Brussels via a videoconference from Kabul.
Gates is on a six-day trip to Asia that will take him to Singapore, Thailand and South Korea. Tomorrow he will speak at a regional security conference in Singapore and meet with officials from China, Japan, the Philippines, France and the U.K.
Gates said the main theme of his trip will be to affirm “that the United States is not distracted by our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from our long-term interests here in Asia and the cultivation and strengthening of our relationships with allies, partners and others here in the region.”
Before departing for Singapore, Gates was given a tour of U.S. military installations on Guam, which will be expanded over the next six years to accommodate the planned transfer of 8,000 Marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa.
The program will cost at least $11.7 billion, said Brigadier General Dan Owens, the commander of Andersen Air Force Base.
Most of the contracts for the program have yet to be awarded, in part because environmental impact studies and other planning issues are still in progress, Owens said.
May 30, 2008 By Ken Fireman, Bloomberg News
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Pakistan's new civilian leaders need time to “get their feet on the ground” before they can be expected to move aggressively against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in their border area.
While Gates said Pakistani military forces were still communicating with NATO troops in Afghanistan, he acknowledged that the Pakistanis had at least temporarily halted their own operations against insurgents.
“Pakistan is in a transition,” Gates said at a news conference on a U.S. Air Force base on the Pacific island of Guam. “I think until they get their feet on the ground and get a full appreciation of the nature of the threats that they face and their approach to it, I think we just have to give them a little time.”
Gates was reacting to comments by the outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army General Dan McNeill, who pressed Pakistan to clamp down on insurgents using the northwestern tribal region as a staging area to attack U.S., Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces across the border. Pakistan's civilian government, which was elected in February, last month began truce talks with militants in the region.
Pakistan-based extremists have escalated attacks on American troops in eastern Afghanistan in the past year, McNeill said yesterday.
“What you're seeing right now is the effects of no pressure on these extremists and insurgents on the other side of the border,” McNeill told reporters in Brussels via a videoconference from Kabul.
Gates is on a six-day trip to Asia that will take him to Singapore, Thailand and South Korea. Tomorrow he will speak at a regional security conference in Singapore and meet with officials from China, Japan, the Philippines, France and the U.K.
Gates said the main theme of his trip will be to affirm “that the United States is not distracted by our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from our long-term interests here in Asia and the cultivation and strengthening of our relationships with allies, partners and others here in the region.”
Before departing for Singapore, Gates was given a tour of U.S. military installations on Guam, which will be expanded over the next six years to accommodate the planned transfer of 8,000 Marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa.
The program will cost at least $11.7 billion, said Brigadier General Dan Owens, the commander of Andersen Air Force Base.
Most of the contracts for the program have yet to be awarded, in part because environmental impact studies and other planning issues are still in progress, Owens said.