Senate Cuts $33 Million in Pakistan Aid Over Bin Laden Linked Convction
by News Editor
US News and World Report/AP – A Senate panel expressed its outrage Thursday over Pakistan’s conviction of a doctor who helped the United States track down Osama bin Laden, cutting aid to Islamabad by $33 million — $1 million for every year of the physician’s 33-year sentence for high treason.
The punitive move came on top of deep reductions the Appropriations Committee already had made to President Barack Obama’s budget request for Pakistan, a reflection of the growing congressional anger over its cooperation in combatting terrorism. The overall foreign aid budget for next year had slashed more than half of the proposed assistance and threatened further reductions if Islamabad failed to open overland supply routes to U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.