Congress did not approve Biden-Lugar bill’ for Pakistan

NEW YORK: A landmark US bill that recognised the role of Pakistan as US ally and the frontline state in combating terrorism and provided for $15 billion in economic assistance to Pakistan over the next 10 years beginning 2009, is legally dead even before it was debated and voted by either chamber of the US bicameral legislature. 

The bill S-3263, popularly known as ‘Biden-Lugar bill’ or “Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act 2008” was introduced in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by its then chairman Sen. Joseph Biden and Sen. Richard Lugar and the Senate Committee had approved the bill unanimously; but it died before it could be tabled before the Senate for debate and vote. 

An official of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmed to The News that “Bill S-3263 is dead as it was not debated and approved by the 110 US Congress that completed its term by the end of 2008.” When Sen. Joe Biden, (D) as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and its ranking member Sen. Richard Lugar (R) presented this bill before the committee and got it unanimously approved in July 2008, Pakistan’s government was jubilant to portray it as symbol of US support to Pakistan’s return to Democracy.

While supporting the bill in July 2008, Senator Joe Biden conceded “For far too long, our policy towards Pakistan has been in desperate need of a serious overhaul,” He also agreed that “The US-Pakistan relationship has been largely transactional: the exchange of aid for services. That transaction isn’t working.

From the American perspective, we’ve spent billions of dollars and have gotten far too little to show for it. From the Pakistani perspective, America is an unreliable ally that will abandon Pakistan the moment it’s convenient to do so, and whose support to date has merely bolstered unrepresentative rulers, both in and out of uniform. 

We need to change this arrangement into the type of normal, functional relationship we enjoy with all of our other military allies and friendly nations. Sen. Lugar and I have worked closely to formulate a bold new strategy for Pakistan. Our bill represents a genuine sea-change - one which will set the US-Pakistan policy on a safer and more successful course.”

This bill proposed economic assistance to Pakistan worth $1.5 billion per year.