Clinton Says He Will Try to Help Pakistan

President Clinton, praising Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for helping the United States combat terrorism and drug trafficking, said Tuesday that he will ask Congress to soften the law banning U.S. aid and arms sales to Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons program.

“I intend to ask Congress to show some flexibility . . . so that we can have some economic and military cooperation,” Clinton said after almost three hours of talks with Bhutto at the White House.

His statement marked a significant tactical shift in U.S. policy, which has been aimed at persuading both Pakistan and neighboring India to renounce nuclear weapons.

A 1985 law known as the Pressler Amendment has banned U.S. aid and arms sales to Pakistan unless the President certifies that Islamabad does not have a nuclear weapons program. But Pakistan ignored the ban and built components for several nuclear bombs during the 1980s. And in 1990--after years of threats--the George Bush Administration began enforcing the ban.

Bhutto has rejected U.S. requests for a verifiable cap on Pakistan’s weapons development, arguing that it would leave her country at a disadvantage with India, which exploded a nuclear device in 1974 and is building long-range missiles that could carry atomic warheads.

One impact of the law has been to block delivery of planes and military hardware to Pakistan. On Tuesday, in an important gesture to Bhutto, Clinton said that he wants to find a way to reimburse Pakistan for the $1.2 billion it paid for the F-16 fighter jets and other military equipment impounded under the embargo in 1990.

Pakistan already had paid for the planes, but the aircraft were never delivered. According to U.S. officials, Bhutto was warned in the spring of 1990 that if Pakistan kept developing nuclear weapons, it could forfeit both its hardware and money. But her government went ahead on the mistaken assumption that Washington would waive the sanctions because of the two nations’ previously close relationship.

“I don’t think it’s right for us to keep the money and the equipment,” Clinton said, calling the situation a “Catch-22.” But he noted that the planes’ manufacturer, General Dynamics, has spent the money it received from the sale. (Indeed, General Dynamics sold its F-16 division in 1993 to Lockheed, which then merged with Martin Marietta Corp. to form Lockheed Martin.)

In effect, Clinton has decided that the ban--which applies to Pakistan but not India because India has not bought quantities of U.S. arms--has not worked and that he has a better chance of nudging Pakistan to stop its nuclear program if he can offer Bhutto aid and cooperation on a range of other issues.

“The real question is, what is the best way to pursue non-proliferation?” Clinton said in a joint news conference with Bhutto on Tuesday. “This Administration has an aggressive, consistent, unbroken record of leading the world in non-proliferation . . . but we ought to do it in a way that is most likely to achieve the desired results.”

A White House official said that Clinton plans to ask Congress for authorization to reopen several “low-level” programs with Pakistan, including counterterrorism aid and federal insurance for U.S. investments there. “We aren’t talking about big-ticket items,” the official said.

The Administration is also willing to ask Congress for a resumption of military aid and arms sales to Pakistan, the official said, but only if Pakistan takes significant steps toward nuclear disarmament.

In recent years, Congress has been increasingly divided over whether the ban on aid and arms sales should be maintained.

Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), who wrote the 1985 embargo law, said Pakistan is merely seeking to build more nuclear weapons.

“We should not reward Pakistan with aid that would expand its nuclear offensive capability, as the Clinton Administration proposes to do,” Pressler said.

But Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said he is sympathetic to Pakistan’s pleas for flexibility.

On the issue of the F-16s, aides said that the only way out of the problem may be to sell the planes to another country and give the proceeds to Pakistan. But because the planes are already 5 years old, they will not fetch the full price.

Meanwhile, Clinton told Bhutto that he will see if the United States can pick up some of the estimated $1.4-million annual storage and maintenance costs for the 28 planes.

Bhutto, who had said that she hoped to get either the planes or the $1.2 billion back, pronounced herself quite happy with the results.

“We are deeply encouraged by the understanding that President Clinton has shown of the Pakistan situation,” she said. “I welcome the Clinton Administration’s decision to work with Congress to revise the Pressler Amendment.”

Clinton also pointed out that Pakistan has cooperated closely with the United States in efforts to fight terrorism and narcotics trafficking, despite the arms embargo.

“We’re dealing with a country that just extradited a suspected terrorist in the World Trade Center bombing, a country that has taken dramatic moves in improving its efforts against narcotics, that has just extradited two traffickers to the United States, a country that has cooperated with us in peacekeeping in Somalia, in Haiti and other places,” he said.