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Pakistan official: US newspapers are making us 'very angry'
CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Sunday asked Pakistan's foreign minster, Khurshid Kassuri, "Will the Pakistani military go into that tribal area along the border with Afghanistan and crush the Taliban and al Qaeda."The minister's irate response was that the Pakistani military is already there. "Pakistan's commitment cannot be doubted by anybody," he continued, "and that is why some of our people do not like what we read in some of your newspapers ... It really makes us very angry when we are suffering so many casualties." The minister made it clear that he was particularly concerned about stories suggesting the US military might attack the tribal areas itself, since Pakistan cannot tolerate the level of civilian casualties among its own people that the US finds completely acceptable in Iraq. "We do not want something said just for the purpose of having an effect on American public opinion," he said. "The whole purpose of this exercise is to win hearts and minds of the people." "Look at the ratio of casualties between your troops and Iraqi civilians," Kassuri continued. "Do you know what our casualties have been? When five or six hundred of our soldiers have died ... we were able to get hold of about eight or nine hundred fatalities by the militants, which means the ratio is 1 to 1.2. Whereas the ratio in Iraq I do not wish to even mention. ... We cannot afford what is conveniently called collateral damage." After Kassuri indicated that he was offended by by the insulting tone of many US newspaper stories about Pakistan, Blitzer played him a clip of Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend saying, "The president's made perfectly clear, if we had actionable targets anywhere in the world, putting aside whether it was Pakistan or anyplace else, we would pursue those targets." "Is that acceptable to your government, Foreign Minister?" Blitzer asked. "Pakistan's army is one of the most organized armies in the world. ... What we can do, nobody can do better," the foreign minister spat out. However, he continued on a more conciliatory note, "All I would like to ask from you, Wolf, is for the American public to realize that Pakistan has been in the frontline. It has suffered major casualities. And we would like those to be acknowledged." Posted by: John Frum 2007-07-24 |
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