Clinton Raises Alarms About Spiraling Security in Pakistan

h/t Ro -- it's on Fox, too, Ro. So that lends it the little more cred you were looking for.

Fox News:

Clinton Raises Alarms About Spiraling Security in Pakistan
In back-to-back days of testimony on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raises concern that government-backed law enforcement is losing the northwest region of Pakistan.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is raising alarms that the Pakistani government is losing control of its country and ceding ground to Taliban extremists, as she presses lawmakers to approve fresh funding for the region.

In back-to-back days of testimony on Capitol Hill, Clinton raised concern that government-backed law enforcement was losing the northwest region of the country.

"We have to try to strengthen civilian law enforcement" in those tribal areas, she told a House appropriations subcommittee Thursday, after calling the nuclear state a "mortal threat" to the security of the world a day before. "(The administration is) deeply concerned by the increasing insurgency that is destabilizing Pakistan."

Clinton had harsh words Wednesday for the country that is supposed to be the United States' key ally in the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

"I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists. But look at why this is happening," she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "If you talk to people in Pakistan, especially in the ungoverned territories, which are increasing in number, they don't believe the state has a judiciary system that works."

The comments came after Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari approved Islamic Sharia law in the northwestern Swat valley, which has been overtaken by Taliban forces.

President Obama has invited Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to the White House in early May, and Clinton made clear that the U.S. government expects Zardari in particular to take a much harder line against extremists.

"It's corrupt, it doesn't extend its power into the countryside," she said of the Pakistani government. "So the government of Pakistan, however it is constituted, which is, of course, their business, not ours, must begin to deliver government services."

Reuters reported Thursday that Pakistan had sent paramilitary troops to the Buner district, near the capital of Islamabad, practically taken over by the Taliban.

At the same time, Clinton defended the call for diplomacy with Iran. She said Thursday that past policies with Iran have not served to deter the country's nuclear program.

And she also expressed some hope for Pakistan.

"We're not interested in putting money into doing what hasn't worked. And we've seen the situation deteriorate over the last eight years in -- in Pakistan. And even before it's been a very difficult country for us to get our arms around and figure out what our ongoing relationship would be like," she said Wednesday.

"But we are convinced that the democratically elected government in Pakistan shares our goals with respect to the terrorist threat. We just have to figure out how we can best support them and actually getting results."

Tweet