No Unilateral Strikes, Rice Assures Pakistan

No unilateral strikes, Rice assures Pakistan

http://www.dawn.com/2007/08/07/top6.htm

By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Aug 6: The United States will do everything it can to capture high-value targets in Pakistan, but it will not act independently of Pakistan's government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a US television channel.

Her comments at the CBS’s ‘Face The Nation’ followed a series of statements by other senior US officials saying that the United States would not hesitate to launch direct military strikes at targets inside Pakistan if it had credible information that al Qaeda leaders were hiding there.

Ms Rice, who was speaking before her meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Camp David presidential resort, emphasised that Pakistan was an ally, not an adversary, in the war against terror.

“We have a cooperative arrangement with Pakistan; Pakistan is an ally in the war on terror,” Ms Rice said. “The idea that somehow we have a greater interest in the capture and kill of high-value targets … I think is just not right.”

Ms Rice also noted that the terrorists the US was fighting were also “threatening Pakistan itself.”

She declined to comment on Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s statement that, if elected, he might order unilateral military strikes in Pakistan against al Qaeda.

Ms Rice said that instead of responding to Senator Obama's remarks, she would like to spell out the US policy towards Pakistan.

“Yes, Musharraf has constraints, but we believe that the future with Pakistan is to be very active in that region,” she said. “Of course we are going to go after targets and after extremists, but so are Pakistanis because they have a lot at risk, too.”