The Bush administration is willing to send a small number of U.S. combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities should ask for such help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.
"We remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis and to partner with them to provide additional training, to conduct joint operations, should they desire to do so," Gates told a news conference.
Gates said the Pakistani government has not requested any additional help in the weeks since al-Qaida and affiliated extremists have intensified their fighting inside Pakistan. He stressed that the United States would respect the Pakistanis' judgment on the utility of American military assistance.
"We're not aware of any proposals that the Pakistanis have made to us at this point," he said. "This is clearly an evolving issue. And what we have tried to communicate to the Pakistanis, and essentially what we are saying here is we are prepared to look at a range of cooperation with them in a number of different areas, but at this point it's their nickel, and we await proposals or suggestions from them."
Uncertainty over combat operations
The top American commander in the region, Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, was in Pakistan this week meeting with senior Pakistani officials, including the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Last week Fallon told reporters that Pakistani officials were more willing to seek U.S. assistance.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared at the news conference with Gates, said he did not know whether Fallon had offered or received any new proposals.
Most of the discussion with the Pakistanis thus far has focused on the possibility of U.S. troops being used to train Pakistani forces, Gates said, but he acknowledged that combat operations might be included.
"You're not talking about significant numbers of U.S. troops for the kinds of things if you're talking about going after al-Qaida in the border area or something like that," Gates said. "So, in my way of thinking, we're talking about a very small number of troops, should that happen. And it's clearly a pretty remote area. But, again, the Pakistani government has to be the judge of this."
Mullen said talks with the Pakistanis are progressing, and the U.S. military stands ready to provide training or combat forces.
"If asked to assist, I think we could do a lot," Mullen said.
Al-Qaida still a threat
For several years the focus of U.S. concern about al-Qaida elements in Pakistan was their support for resurgent Taliban militia fighters who have been training in western Pakistan to infiltrate into Afghanistan to foment violence. More recently, al-Qaida in Pakistan has posed more of a threat to the Pakistani government, seeking to destabilize the government of a nuclear-armed Muslim nation.
At his news conference, Gates said the worry about al-Qaida goes beyond its threat to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We are all concerned about the re-establishment of al-Qaida safe havens in the border area," he said. "I think it would be unrealistic to assume that all of the planning that they're doing is focused strictly on Pakistan. So I think that that is a continuing threat to Europe as well as to us."