Shrub: $5.7b to Pakistan and others. Pakistan - nuclear proliferator extraordinaire?
"The major recipients of this assistance will be Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan. If you add the numbers up these countries get a huge chunk of the money," said a senior State Department official.
Several of these countries, which have long been recipients of US aid, have poor records of governance and observance of human rights. They continue to receive aid despite Mr Bush's statement in October setting out a "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East" and condemning previous western support of authoritarian regimes in the region as part of the Cold War....
The additional funds will come as a relief to Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, one of Washington's most important strategic allies, after recent revelations about the country's role in exporting sensitive nuclear technology.
This week, Pakistan officials admitted that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the creator of the country's atom bomb, had assisted Iran, Libya and North Korea in developing nuclear weapons programmes...." |
