US cuts aid to Pakistan: Six key questions

The Obama administration has announced that it is suspending, and in some cases ending, millions of dollars in aid to the Pakistani military. The decision comes after substantial debate about whether that money is being used in the way that the US intended – a question raised in the wake of the American military raid that ended with Osama bin Laden's death.

How much US money is in Pakistan?

Muhammed Muheisen/AP/File
Woman with children walk in a slum alley on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, on June 2.

The US has provided $20.7 billion to Pakistan since 2002. A little more than two-thirds of that went to military use, the remainder to civilian.

The biggest ticket item, at $8.9 billion, is something called “Coalition Support Funds.” These are reimbursements for Pakistan’s military assistance in the war on terror.

The second largest chunk, $4.8 billion, falls under “Economic Support Funds.” Most of this has gone to shore up the government’s budget, either as revenue or to pay off debt to the US.

Much less is spent on seemingly major US priorities: The Frontier Corps, the Pakistani force doing most of the fighting, has received $100 million. Antiterrorism and nuclear nonproliferation efforts: $90 million.

“One of the things we should be doing is training the police, but we’re not doing it.... Pakistanis are not letting us. They want the Army to do everything,” says C. Christine Fair, assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington.

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