Clinton says US wants, expects more counterterror cooperation from Pakistan

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Clinton: US needs more help from Pakistan

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the U.S. expects more cooperation from Pakistan’s government in fighting terror and warned of repercussions if a future successful attack in the United States is linked to Pakistan.

In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” to air this weekend, Clinton said that Pakistan has become far more helpful in battling extremists over the past year but that cooperation could be improved.

She said the Obama administration has made it clear there will be “severe consequences” if an attack on U.S. soil is traced back to Pakistan.

Her comments come as U.S. officials are seeking Pakistan’s help in investigating Saturday’s failed Times Square bombing, which a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan has admitted to. The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, has told investigators he trained in Pakistan’s Waziristan tribal area. Officials are trying to establish whether he had connections to foreign terrorist groups that either funded or helped in the botched bombing.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Pakistan has recently stepped up efforts to root out extremist militants.

“The Pakistanis have been doing so much more than 18 months or two years ago any of us would have expected,” Gates told reporters at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He referred to Pakistani Army offensives, dating to spring 2009, against Taliban extremists in areas near the Afghan border, including in south Waziristan.

Gates said the Obama administration is sticking to its policy of offering to do as much training and other military activity inside Pakistan as the Pakistani government is willing to accept.

“It’s their country,” Gates said. “They remain in the driver’s seat, and they have their foot on the accelerator.”

The topic arose later during a question-and-answer session with Army officers at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.

One officer asked Gates about anti-American sentiment among the religious elite in Pakistan. Gates said extends more broadly to Pakistanis who recall that the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets were driven out in 1989, as well as the U.S. sanctions against Pakistan in the early 1990s.

“If you look at it from the Pakistanis’ standpoint, there is some justification for their concerns,” Gates said. “Their view is that in several successive instances the United States has turned its back on Pakistan. And the biggest question they have is, ‘Once you are done in Afghanistan, are you going home again? Or will we have a long-term relationship?’”

Gates said the U.S. intends to have a long-term relationship with both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the history of the U.S. role in the region is being exploited by the extremists to raise doubts about the Obama administration’s strategic goals and intentions.

“I have to say, regardless of the anti-American sentiment on the part of many Pakistan elite, what the Pakistani army has done in the Northwest Frontier area and south Waziristan … has been tremendously helpful to us,” he said. “They are moving in a direction and they are taking action in places that I will tell you that 18 months or two years ago I would have thought impossible. And they are doing it because it is in their own interest.”

AP National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report from Fort Leavenworth, Kan.