Clinton details $110M U.S. aid package for Pakistan
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a $110 million aid package for Pakistan Tuesday that will support international efforts to relieve a humanitarian crisis in the Swat valley that's left about 2 million people temporarily homeless.
"Providing this assistance is not only the right thing to do but we believe that it is essential to global security," she said.
U.S. aid is being delivered by the military at Pakistan's request. Included will be 30,000 family relief kits, 5,000 tents, water trucks and meals ready to eat. Locally produced products also will be purchased to help boost Pakistani merchants.
As part of the relief effort, aid groups will send text messages to refugees, many of whom have cellphones, to help them keep in touch and get humanitarian aid.
In addition, Clinton urged Americans to text the word "swat" to the number 20222 on their cellphones and make $5 contributions, something she said State Department employees already have done.
"Just think if a million people in the United States gave at least $5, that's $5 million," she said.
The United States has given more than $3.4 billion to Pakistan since 2002, yet Clinton said the U.S. policy there has been "incoherent" since the 1980s, when the Reagan administration aided insurgents battling the Soviet Union.
She called President Obama's policy — aid combined with honest discussions about the need for Pakistan to battle Taliban insurgents— "different than anything that has been tried before."
The administration has been contemplating for some time how to score diplomatic and public relations points by quickly marshalling aid for the Swat refugees.
Last week during a Senate hearing, Sen. John Kerry, D-Ma, told Richard Holbrooke, the Obama official in charge of Pakistan, "I think the administration has a tremendous opportunity staring it in the face. With these tens of thousands of people being displaced as a consequence of Taliban excess, there is an opportunity actually to provide services, much as we did with the earthquake relief, which had a profound impact on the perception of America."
