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Pakistan's Defense Committee of the Cabinet (DDC) acted immediately, closing NATO's transit routes to Afghanistan and telling Washington to vacate use of its Balochistan Shamsi base in 15 days. It's used for drone strikes.
DDC also will "revisit and undertake a complete review (of all) programs, activities and cooperative arrangements" with Washington, NATO, and its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Military, "diplomatic, political and intelligence" areas will be addressed. In addition, other cooperative US/NATO/ISAF arrangements will be reassessed.
Pakistan's Costly US Alliance
NATO's Afghan war gravely impacted Pakistan. Then President Pervez Musharraf was pressured to join cooperate, or else. During a post-9/11 "60 Minutes" interview, he said Washington threatened to bomb Pakistan without it.
Bush administration Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage delivered the message through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) head, saying cooperate or be "bombed back to the stone age." Ambiguity was avoided for bluntness.
At the time, follow-through was doubtful. Pakistan is nuclear armed, dangerous, and able to strike back hard.
Nonetheless, Musharaff agreed. Secretary of State Colin Powell took full advantage. He demanded use of Pakistan's airspace, closure of its borders with Afghanistan, and use of its territory to launch attacks. In return, Pakistan got billions in mostly military aid.
However, it miscalculated. Early on it estimated spending around $2.7 billion supporting America's Afghan war. Begun on October 7, 2001, ending it by yearend was assumed. Normalcy would follow. Taliban strength would be eliminated. At most, low-intensity conflict would continue with little cross-border effect.
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