Biden: White House has put the country in a tough spot on Pakistan

THE HILL

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on Sunday criticized the Bush administration’s Pakistan policy after Gen. Pervez Musharraf suspended his country’s constitution and began a crackdown on opposition leaders.

Biden, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said that he got the impression following a briefing with Bush administration officials that the White House does not have “any notion of what they’re going to do right now.” The senator chided the administration for having a Musharraf policy and not a Pakistan policy. This, Biden argues, has left the White House and the country “in a tough spot” and its hands tied “pretty well.”

The Delaware Democrat has repeatedly pointed to the importance of Pakistan to U.S. national security, making the case that instability in Pakistan could lead to an extremist regime seizing power of a country that is in possession of nuclear weapons. “We have a huge stake, a huge stake, in seeing to it that the moderate majority in Pakistan have a political outlet,” Biden said on CBS’ Face the Nation.

However, the senator also said that Musharraf still has a firm grip on his country’s military and therefore its nuclear weapons and delivery systems. “But what I worry about is the total degeneration of that country,” Biden added. “And who knows what will come out of the military as well if this thing gets really out of hand?”

The situation in Pakistan will also have an impact on the U.S. fight against terrorists in that country, Biden asserted. He noted that Musharraf might be more interested in focusing on maintaining control instead of diverting resources and energy on hunting down terrorists in the mountainous region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.