Washington : The United States needs to "take a deep breath" before considering ending its military aid to Pakistan, because the last thing America wants is a failed Muslim state with nuclear weapons, former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said.
When asked in an interview with a Fox News whether the US should cut off aid to Pakistan in the wake of the discovery of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Rumsfeld said: "We ought to take a deep breath and recognize it would make us feel good for about five minutes if we cut off aid to Pakistan - and recognize the relationship with that country is complex, it is important - and it is imperfect."
He said that the US should to be "willing to ask the tough questions, to do it in a measured tone of voice, and not react and say cut off all the money, they're bad, they are double dealing."
"The reality is it is a Muslim country with nuclear weapons - the last thing we want is that to be a failed state. It would be a terrible situation if radical Islamists took over that country," he added.
Rumsfeld also said that he had heard no evidence that anyone on any level of the Pakistan government, the military or the intelligence had information about the whereabouts of bin Laden, adding that it is "perfectly possible to hide in plain sight."
"My guess is he had a very tight support network of a very limited number of people, one or two maybe outside, who managed the support for him. And he was successful in staying hidden for a very long time," he said.
"Second, I look at that country and I remember we did cut off all of our military to military relation in the 80s, 90s. They exploded a nuclear weapon, we said that is terrible and let's not talk to them. That doesn't get us far. We ended up with a generation of military people that didn't have generations with U.S. military and Pakistani military. It seems we have to be mature, measured and recognize we live in a world where other countries aren't like us- they are not. And we weren't even like us 50, 100 years ago. We are different. They are different," he added. ANI
