US intelligence services are drawing up a secret watch-list of 25 countries in which instability might lead to US intervention, according to officials in charge of a new office set up to co-ordinate planning for nation-building and conflict prevention.
The list will be composed and revised every six months by the National Intelligence Council, which collates intelligence for strategic planning, according to Carlos Pascual, head of the newly formed office of reconstruction and stabilisation.
The new State Department office amounts to recognition by the Bush administration that it needs to get better at nation-building, a concept it once scorned as social work disguised as foreign policy, following its failures in Iraq.
But advisers say its small budget $17m requested from Congress this year and $124m in fiscal 2006 reflects a lack of commitment. They say the administration remains divided about the merits of nation-building and the international institutions that do it.
Mr Pascual told a conference last week on reconstructing and stabilising war-torn states that the NIC would identify countries of “greatest instability and risk” to clarify priorities and allocate resources. The watch-list was classified, according to a spokesperson. However, another official gave the example of Nepal, saying it was the subject of a study on fragile states by USAid, the government aid agency. USAid declined to comment.
Although Mr Pascual, a former ambassador, will lead the co-ordination between civilian agencies and the Pentagon, officials stressed the new office did not mean the US was bent on nation-building through military action.
Mr Pascual said conflict prevention and postwar reconstruction had become a “mainstream foreign-policy challenge” because of the dangers of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
* Says Pakistan should get $100 million for security * Indian paper says US may impose sanctions on India over pipeline
NEW DELHI: Pakistani armed forces may be given a contract for the security of the 760-kilometre stretch of the Iran-India gas pipeline transiting through Pakistan for an annual fee of $100 million, Online quoted a senior government official as saying on Sunday.
The fee would be in addition to the transit fee Islamabad would earn for allowing the $4.16 billion pipeline to pass through its territory. At the meeting of the task force on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline in Tehran from May 2 to 4, Iran had proposed, “the entire security of the pipeline be handed over to the Pakistan armed forces for a fee of $100 million per year,” the official said. In the same meeting, Tehran rejected India’s demand for a delivered price of $2.25 per million British thermal units (mBtu) for the gas to be imported through the 2,600-km line.
“The Iranians told us that even if they assumed the well-head price of gas to be zero, the cost of gas at the Indian border would be over $2 per mBtu. Pipeline cost, transit fee to Pakistan and cost of security may alone total the price India is willing to pay,” Online quoted the official as saying.
Iran wanted a price equivalent to the price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) it is selling to New Delhi through a separate contract. India is buying 7.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG from 2010, the revised price of which would be close to $4 per mBtu. Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar is likely to discuss transit issues including the route, transit fee and security of the pipeline when he visits Islamabad next month.
Meanwhile, in a letter to India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the US Government has warned that it will impose the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (also known as Kennedy D’Amato Act) on India in case it goes ahead with the pipeline, The Pioneer said on Sunday. The act, passed by the US Congress in 1996, triggers sanctions on companies that make new investments in Iran of more than $40m and significantly contribute to Iran’s ability to develop its oil and gas resources.
Though this can be a measure to restrict India’s entry in Iran for pipeline building, Petroleum Ministry officials were hopeful that the US would consider India’s energy needs and not impose the sanctions, The Pioneer said.
The US President can impose sanctions by disallowing US financial institutions from providing loans or credits to a sanctioned nation. The sanctions can also be imposed on financial institutions by denying them the right to serve as an agent of US Government repository of its funds or as dealer of its debt instruments.
If India is put under sanctions, it will be denied permission to participate in US Government procurement contracts, be restricted from exporting its goods to any US company and denied export-import bank assistance. agencies
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