Report: US sent $2 bn to Pak, no account of how it was spent

Islamabad also billed Washington $200 million for an air defense radar system that may not have met a US condition: that reimbursement cover combat or logistical costs supporting US military operations against terrorism beyond what a country would spend on its own needs.

“It seems as though the Pakistani military went on a spending spree with American taxpayers’ wallets and no one bothered to investigate the charges,” said Senator Tom Harkin (Democrat, Iowa), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“How hard would it have been to confirm that a road we paid $15 million for was ever built? It is appalling that the Defence Department did not send any embassy officials working in Pakistan to verify these enormous costs.” Washington should “stop pouring money into a black hole”, Harkin said.

Pakistan is the largest recipient of Coalition Support Funds as part of a counterterrorism effort the Bush administration launched in 2001 after the terrorist attacks against New York and Washington. Pakistan has received more than $5.5 billion of the nearly $7 billion distributed to 27 countries over the past six years.

“Apparently, the Bush administration cares so little about the hunt for Osama bin Laden that it is barely paying attention to how the Pakistani military is carrying out the fight,” Senator Robert Menendez (Democrat, New Jersey), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

“It’s dangerous to treat the battle against al-Qaeda so casually, and it’s unfair to American taxpayers to be so careless with billions of their dollars.”