Obama adviser for strengthening Zardari

NEW YORK - A key adviser to President-elect Barack Obama's on terrorism has proposed a "subtle and deft touch" approach towards Pakistan, strengthening President Asif Ali Zardari's civilian government "to act as a counterweight to Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus, which still dominates Pakistan's political life".
Winning over the generals, said Bruce Riedel, who retired from CIA after 29 years of service in 2006, could require a tough-love approach: overhauling military aid to Pakistan and cutting sales of the big-ticket weapons the country has used to keep pace with its archrival, India.
Instead, he said in an interview with The New York Times, the United States should be providing equipment like helicopters and night-vision goggles to help Pakistan's military navigate the mountain passes where militants have established their base.
He expressed strong support for several counterterrorism experts, who claim the terrorist network's base in the mountains of Pakistan as America's greatest threat and perhaps biggest problem facing the incoming administration.
President-elect Obama will be sworn-in on January 20.
According to the Times, Riedel speaks angrily about what he calls a "savvy campaign" by Pakistan's government under President Pervez Musharraf to fleece Washington for billions of dollars even as it allowed al-Qaeda to regroup in tribal lands bordering Afghanistan.
"We had a partner that was double-dealing us," he told the newspaper. "Anyone can be snookered and double-dealt. But after six years you have to start to figure it out."
It was Washington's too cozy relationship with Musharraf's military government, he argues, that fuelled the intense hatred for the United States in Pakistan. "Any time in Pakistan where more people blame you than India for the country's problems, you are in deep, deep trouble," he said.
Riedel dispenses counsel to the US administration-in-waiting on some of the thorniest problems it will face from the hunt for al-Qaeda leaders to likelihood of another attack on the American soil, as also on dealing with India and Pakistan, the report said.
Riedel's new book 'The Search for Al-Qaeda', the Times says, jabs at the Bush administration for diverting troops and resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, and for a Byzantine intelligence apparatus that "lacks a sheriff to lead the posse" in the hunt for Qaeda operatives.