Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - Security Challenges Involving Pakistan and Policy Implications for the Department of Defense

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REP. JOE WILSON (R-SC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you for being here today. I am really very appreciative of Pakistan as a long-time ally of the United States. I'm very appreciative, because two weeks ago I was at the Khyber Pass and saw the truck traffic into Afghanistan at Jalalabad. It's impressive to me to see the commerce that's going on.

I'm also very pleased that soon, if it hasn't already occurred, there will be truck traffic between India and Pakistan for the first time in decades. And as the co-chair of the India Caucus, I really want to see a stable, economically growing and positive Pakistan.

I've had the privilege in my service of seeing some of the good. Now, I visited with the earthquake relief several years (at ?) Moussa Faridabad (ph). It was so inspiring to see the young U.S. Marines. One of them I knew as a Pakistani-American. They were speaking Urdu with the people and providing relief.

But in my last visit, I was there with Congressman Courtney, and I was reading some of the newspapers. And the newspapers -- not to infringe on freedom of speech, but we need to get a message out, because I was appalled that these newspapers that look very modern and progressive contained outright lies about our troops, about the United States, anti-American propaganda.

It was so absurd that there was a column by Fidel Castro. That was just a joke, the thought that a totalitarian dinosaur would be resurrected to write absolute garbage about the American people. And again, not to infringe on freedom of speech, but we really need to get information out.

I've seen it first-hand. My National Guard unit, the 218th, is currently operating 1,600 troops in Afghanistan, training the Afghan police, providing for humanitarian relief -- great stories of helping provide health clinics by opening schools, by providing wells, by helping develop roads, helping develop crops. And all of this is such a positive story.

So Mr. Haqqani, how can we get this message out and counteract Fidel Castro?

MR. HAQQANI: Congressman, when I was a child growing up in Pakistan, I was somebody who used to go to the American library. That's where I learned my English. That's where I learned my major ideas. I came from a poor family. I couldn't afford a very expensive English school, elite school.

I grew up reading the biographies of America's founding fathers. I knew the Declaration of Independence by the time I was 15. And the first time I came to the United States was because I beat the entire American embassy staff at a game of Trivial Pursuit about American history, and the ambassador decided that I was the appropriate person to be sent here under the international visitor program.

The point I'm trying to make is that the U.S. government, despite complaining and feeling that this is not happening, is no longer investing in those kind of programs with the same kind of vehemence as it used to do during the Cold War. For security reasons, the American libraries no longer exist. The United States Information Service was dismantled. So as far as the Pakistani media is concerned, Fidel Castro and his embassy manages to get his speech or his article to the newspaper.

Most of these newspapers in Pakistan, now that there is complete press freedom in Pakistan, there's a lot of diversity. They don't have the resources to find the materials. If we had the means to get more and more ideas and materials out, if more Pakistani journalists had access to all of you, they would be able to get more ideas that are different from the ideas that are being spread there.

Security has become a concern. Most American diplomats don't get out of the embassy compound or outside of Islamabad. They don't go to small towns. The day when Ambassador Schaffer, as an officer of the U.S. embassy, could actually go to a small town and speak to the local school, those days are gone. And so we need to create some kind of mechanism. And this is not just for Pakistan. It would apply to Afghanistan. It would apply to Iraq. It would apply to other Muslim countries as well.

REP. WILSON: Well, I just want to thank all of you all for being here. And as time concludes, we need to get the positive message out of what we're proposing to do and doing in Afghanistan and what we hope to be positive for the people of Pakistan.

Thank you very much. I yield the balance of my time.

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