Middle East Digest: January 30, 2008

Bureau of Public Affairs
January 30, 2008

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The Middle East Digest provides text and audio from the Daily Press Briefing. For the full briefings, please visit http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/

From the Daily Briefing of January 30, 2008:

QUESTION: We talked about this a little bit this morning, but this Jones-Pickering study --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: Have you seen it yet?

MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t know that we’ve thumbed through the copy, but these are two very serious individuals, Tom Pickering and General Jones. Anything that they produce and put their name on bears close scrutiny in terms of the policy process. At this point, we haven’t had a chance to assess the full report. We’ll take a look at it, assess it, talk internally about if there are any suggestions or views in there that merit further consideration doesn't discussion. I know that there’s – you asked earlier about this position of a senior American envoy --

QUESTION: (Inaudible) in Washington, not a UN –

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: Right.

MR. MCCORMACK: No, no, I understand. At this point, we have a very extremely capable U.S. ambassador in Kabul. He works very closely with his American counterparts in the military, his counterparts in NATO, as well as others involved in the international effort in Afghanistan.

Now, we have clearly identified the need for a senior civilian envoy that would help coordinate the multitude of international aid efforts and to help coordinate those international aid efforts with military efforts ongoing in Afghanistan, both U.S. military as well as NATO military efforts there. We’ve learned the lessons of counterinsurgency and it’s critically important that you coordinate civilian and military efforts, reconstruction as well as security efforts, in a country. And inasmuch as you have a very significant international presence in Afghanistan, it’s really important to make sure that all of those efforts are internally consistent on the civilian side and also that you have complementarity between the civilian efforts and the military efforts there.

We supported Paddy – Lord Ashdown, Paddy Ashdown, for that role. He decided for his own reasons, which he has stated, not to take the job. That’s unfortunate. He’s a very capable individual. In fact, we thought that he would have been a good pick for that role, that senior civilian envoy role. It’s not to be, so we will work with the UN as well as others in the international system, our partners in Europe as well and Afghanistan, to find a person who can fill that job.

At this point, in terms of senior civilian envoys, I’m not aware of any discussions that we’ve had internally about somebody else to fill that role. If the Secretary and the President think it’s the right thing to do, of course, we’ll talk a little bit more about it. But I’m not aware of any internal discussions we’ve had on that point yet.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) expected to say that stabilizing – the effort to stabilize Afghanistan is faltering. Is that something – do you agree with that?

MR. MCCORMACK: Look, there are real challenges in Afghanistan. We’re in a fight. We’re in a fight in Afghanistan with the Afghans against violent extremists. And there are a lot of different challenges that we have on the military side and on the civilian side, but I can tell you that Afghanistan of today is not the Afghanistan of 2001. Afghanistan of the years 1999 and 2000, 2001, was a failed state. We know what a failed state looks like. It was Afghanistan under the Taliban. The – while Afghanistan of today has a variety of different challenges, it is not Afghanistan of 2001. They’ve made a lot of progress. They have a ways to go. And while it is a sovereign country, it’s a proud country, they need the international community’s assistance. And we’re ready to continue our assistance. It’s important for the future of the Afghan people, it’s important for the region, and it’s important for global security that we succeed both on the security front but also on the front of civilian reconstruction.

QUESTION: One quote actually says or is expected to say that – well, I mean, like everybody, we have it – you know, is a failed state. I think it says that it’s at risk of becoming a failed state. Do you concur with that assessment that it is at risk of becoming a failed state?

MR. MCCORMACK: Look, I haven’t read the report. I don’t know the basis for the conclusion. I’d have no reason to doubt that that’s an accurate description of the report. I haven’t read it, so I don’t – I can’t tell you whether or not that’s an accurate depiction of what is says in the report or the reasons why they might say that. I can only say that it’s an ongoing fight on the military side and on the civilian side, its challenges are on the civilian side.

And there’s nothing to say that if we don’t help the Afghans succeed, that they will not continue to make progress. As a matter of fact, if the international community doesn’t help them, they probably won’t continue to make progress. I think it’s very likely they won’t. But as I said, the Afghanistan of today is not the Afghanistan of 2001.

QUESTION: Can you take just one last one on this? Is it not troubling to you that now six years after the toppling of the Taliban and the injection of, you know, significant numbers of U.S. troops into the country of 29,000 of them will net significant amounts of U.S. economic assistance that a report by two, you know, leading former diplomat, former – you know, retired general should have such a sort of dour view of the American enterprise in Afghanistan six years after it began?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, a couple things. It’s not an American enterprise. It is an Afghan an international enterprise. And I think one of the great overlooked stories of the past several years is the fact that you have NATO involved very deeply in Afghanistan in – Secretary Rice has called it an out-of-area effort when, in fact, that was unimaginable in 2001 that you would have NATO forces on the ground in Afghanistan engaged in a fight. That is really something that is inconceivable just several years ago.

But you have to understand where Afghanistan started here. We’re in the process of helping the Afghans not reconstruct an infrastructure in large part, but construct an infrastructure. We are helping the Afghans create institutions that are recognizable parts of a driving, functioning democracy. And we’re trying to help them overcome decades, if not more of violence and fighting and fractiousness along ethnic and religious lines. So Afghanistan has a ways to go, but they’ve come a long way. And they had a lot of history, a lot of obstacles to overcome. This is not a country that is endowed with an abundance of natural resources. They don’t have oil and they don’t have, you know, the kind of fertile farming ground that you see between the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq. They have a gritty, tough, determined people. They have been blessed with that certainly. But they didn’t – it’s not a country that came along with a lot of those kinds of natural resources.

So they have a lot of challenges. They start off at a plateau where there are a lot of challenges to building up a thriving, democratic state. And just because there are those challenges, doesn’t mean that we’re going to abandon them in midstream. As a matter of fact, all it does is underscore the fact that we need to continue to help them, that we need to rally the support of the international community in helping the Afghan people build a different kind of nation, a different kind of state.

QUESTION: How would you rate NATO contributions at this point? There’s been a lot of talk about --

MR. MCCORMACK: There’s been a lot of talk about that. Well, I’ll let the folks over at DOD talk about what sort of military needs they might have, in terms of NATO contributions. I know Secretary Rice has been deeply involved in, I guess – what’s the right term, lobbying her NATO counterparts to provide forces, to provide training assistance and also to look at what sort of caveats they might have on the use of their forces in Afghanistan. And we’ve seen some change. But I think you can probably take it from the remarks of Secretary Gates as well as others -- Under Secretary Nick Burns here -- that NATO needs to do more. NATO needs to do more.

QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah.

QUESTION: One of the complaints of a lot of NATO officials and officials in NATO countries is that when they signed up to this effort, it wasn’t supposed to be a counterinsurgency that they’re not trained – that a lot of them aren’t trained for that. They didn’t sign up to do that and they don’t want to do that. And it’s perfectly acceptable that the United States still has this counterinsurgency mission in Afghanistan. But it’s overlapping with what they signed up to do, which is really kind of more of the, you know, stability, keeping the peace and nation building.

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, look, individual states are going to have to make their own determinations in the context of NATO of what their forces do and what they don’t do, what they signed up for and what they didn’t sign up for. The fact of the matter is that Afghanistan’s future fate has a direct bearing on global security. And there are violent extremists who are fighting in Afghanistan, fighting along that border area with Pakistan, who want to turn the clock back on the progress that has been made in Afghanistan. They want to turn the clock back on the progress that's been made in Pakistan. We've seen that. And as a baseline, I think there is an understanding in NATO that what happens in Afghanistan does affect their security at home. It does affect the security in that region. It does affect security globally.

We had to learn -- we had to relearn -- our military had to relearn a lot of the lessons of counterinsurgency. And I suspect that there are going to be other states that need to do the same along the way. We appreciate very much the contributions and the sacrifices that our NATO allies have made. They've paid -- they have paid, not only in terms of monetary terms, but they've paid in terms of lives of their citizens and their soldiers and the Afghans appreciate that. Certainly, we appreciate that and we more than anybody else understand the kind of sacrifice it takes to win this kind of fight. But it's a fight that is worth fighting. It is a fight that is worth winning and it's essential that we do.

QUESTION: So you're saying that you appreciate their contribution, but they've kind of made sure of the mission has changed a little bit and they need to readjust.

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, everybody -- they're all going to have to make their own decisions about what it is they contribute. Nobody can make those decisions for them. We can strongly urge them to live up to the commitments of the alliance in this regard, whether that's security or reconstruction efforts. But it's important that everybody understands this is a fight. It's a fight.

QUESTION: Are you implying that they don't quite understand that?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I think they understand that.

QUESTION: You mentioned that this -- the fact of the matter is it's about global security. Is there not a recognition of that?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I think people do understand that it is a matter of global security. Look, these are hard decisions for countries. It's a hard decision to send your citizens and your soldiers into harm's way and a lot of countries have done that. And I think that there is a strong commitment to help the Afghans and help the Afghan Government work.

QUESTION: Change the subject?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, anything else on this? Please, wait a second. Comments on my answers, sorry. (Laughter.) Gosh, it hurts my feelings.

QUESTION: What is the U.S. doing about the incarceration of Dr. Safdar Sarki? He's a U.S. citizen who's been in prison in Pakistan for, I think, about 18 months now. And recently there's reports that he's taken quite ill.

MR. MCCORMACK: I'll get you an answer on that. I don't, off the top of my head, have one for you.

QUESTION: All right.

MR. MCCORMACK: Yes.

QUESTION: Could you please provide the readouts of the meetings this morning by the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation with Mrs. Rice and Under Secretary Burns.

MR. MCCORMACK: The Secretary -- the meeting with Under Secretary Burns, I don't have a readout for you. I don't know what they talked about. I wasn't in that one. But I was in the meeting with the Secretary and the Foreign Minister. They talked a lot about U.S.-Moroccan bilateral relations. It's a strong relationship. I think there's a desire and a will on both sides to strengthen and deepen those relationships. The Secretary and Foreign Minister both noted the importance of the passage of the FTA and how that is one vehicle to strengthen and deepen those ties. They talked a lot about the Maghreb and efforts to reach out across boundaries and previous conflicts among the states of the Maghreb to come together. They talked a little bit about the Western Sahara and the UN's efforts to find a solution to that. Secretary Rice expressed her -- the U.S. Government's strong support for the efforts of the UN to try to find a solution. They talked about -- a little bit about the common counterterrorism fight that we have in the Maghreb and that was about it.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah.

QUESTION: I realize it's a week late, but I wonder if you had a readout --

MR. MCCORMACK: Is it a dollar short?

QUESTION: And a dollar short, probably. But do you have a readout of the Secretary's meeting last week in Davos with President Musharraf? What they discussed? What they came up? Because we didn't really get a full readout.

MR. MCCORMACK: They talked a lot about the internal situation in Pakistan. They talked about -- the Secretary talked to President Musharraf about how he saw the situation in Pakistan and how he saw the election process playing out and politics playing out. She urged President Musharraf to conduct these elections in such a way that the Pakistani people have confidence in the elections, that it's going to be important that candidates have access to media, that they're able to campaign, that they're able to express their views. President Musharraf also talked about the importance of having an atmosphere surrounding the elections that is secure so that people felt as though they could freely express themselves and participate in the elections. And talked a little bit about the U.S.-Pakistan efforts on counterterrorism and that's generally it. I mean, I don't have my notes in front of me, but that's just from memory.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: Sean, looking at your language today and Assistant Secretary Boucher’s language yesterday, it almost sounds as if the U.S. Government has given up on the possibility of Pakistan having a truly free and fair election. You’ve talked about how, you know, this should be an election that the Pakistani people have confidence in, but you didn’t say free and fair. Yesterday, Assistant Secretary Boucher said it should be as free and fair as possible, implying that free and fair really isn’t possible. You know, given the restrictions on the media, given the detention or incarceration of opposition lawyers, given the house arrest of the supreme – some of the supreme court justices who were dismissed from their jobs last November, does the Administration think a free and fair election is actually possible here? And did she, in fact, urge President Musharraf to have a free and fair election?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. I’m not trying to walk away from any of – you know, any of the standards. We want – basically, in – when you have a country that is involved in a process of democratic and political reforms, you want to see each succeeding election get a little bit better in terms of how free, how fair it is, and the level of confidence that the population has in the election that the result reflects the will of the people. You know, Pakistan, as we know, has a – throughout its history has had various irregularities to a greater or lesser extent in their electoral process. We don’t have perfect elections. I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect election.

So yes, we do encourage them to do all of those things that will result in a sum total that the people feel as though that they have confidence in the election that the results of the election reflects their will. There are a lot of different elements that go into that. You talked about some: access to the media; the ability of individuals to campaign, freely express themselves; the population to express themselves in a variety of different ways in a peaceful – in a peaceful manner.

We’ll see. We’ll see how the election comes out. We’re not trying to lower the bar here. But ultimately, you know, we can have our assessment. Various countries around the world can have their assessments of the election. But what finally matters in the context of Pakistan’s political development is that the people have confidence in this election. That confidence will be based on a variety of different factors and we shall see how the election turns out. It’s an important election for Pakistan. They have come through recently a very difficult period in their political history, and it is our hope that the Pakistani Government can get back on that road that we had seen it on previously, one of increasing political and economic reforms and increasing political and economic freedoms.

QUESTION: In her discussions with President Musharraf, did the Secretary point out concern, you know, among lawmakers over democratic progress in Pakistan and that aid should be tied to this? There’s been a lot of noise in Congress over aid and what Pakistan needs to do to get the aid that the U.S. supplies.

MR. MCCORMACK: They had a little bit of a one-on-one session. They kicked some of us out – all the straphangers – after a while, so they had a one-on-one discussion. I don’t know if that – they touched on that topic during that portion of it. I don’t recall – off the top of my head, I don’t recall it coming up during the part of the discussion where various others were present.

QUESTION: Does the U.S. Government have any intention to make U.S. aid to Pakistan conditional on electoral reforms or on the outcome of this – the fairness and freeness with which this election --

MR. MCCORMACK: I’m not aware of any particular review effort to look at what we’re doing right now in – connected to this particular election. I mean, obviously, we’ll see how things unfold and evolve, but I’m not aware of any effort, at least in the Executive Branch, to do that.

QUESTION: Sean, I want to go --

QUESTION: Pakistan?

QUESTION: Yeah – no, go ahead.

QUESTION: Still? This is a different --

QUESTION: This is different, too.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: Just – do you have any reason to believe that the death of the DHS guy was anything other than – or that there was any suspicious circumstances of it?

MR. MCCORMACK: Nothing at this point would change what I said on Monday or what the Embassy said on Monday. It’s a sad event. It’s a tragedy for this man’s family. I’m not aware of anything on our side that would cause us to change our assessment at this point. If anything develops, of course, we will talk about that. But I’m not aware of anything.

QUESTION: But you know of the reports --

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.

QUESTION: -- from Pakistani officials?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah – no, I know what you’re talking about, yeah.

QUESTION: But you don’t – they haven’t – do you know if they – if Pakistani authorities have been in touch with you guys to --

MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t know – I don’t --

QUESTION: -- relay those same --

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, I don’t have any specific knowledge of a particular contact. I would be surprised if there weren’t a lot of contact between our folks in the Embassy and Pakistani officials.

QUESTION: Just to get one thing clear and sort of absolutely* on the record. The fact that Ambassador Khalilzad sat next to Iranian Foreign Minister Motaki over the weekend in Davos, does that, in any way, shape or form signal any kind of a change in U.S. policy toward Iran or contacts with Iranian officials?

MR. MCCORMACK: No.

QUESTION: Thank you.