Clinton Ends Visit as the Focus of Pakistani Barbs

NewYorkTimes




ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrapped up a three-day visit here, she faced yet another round of skepticism and sharpened questions as Pakistani audiences vented their anger over American policies in the region.

An interview with several women who are prominent Pakistani television anchors, broadcast live, turned into a pointed, sometimes raucous back-and-forth, as her questioners cut each other off and shouted to be heard as they parried with Mrs. Clinton. They criticized American drone strikes in Pakistan, said the military presence was stirring unrest and expressed their doubts about whether the United States had a long-term commitment to Pakistan.

One of the women said that Pakistanis were experiencing “daily 9/11’s,” and an audience member asked Mrs. Clinton whether the drone strikes amounted to acts of terrorism.

Mrs. Clinton was also challenged in a meeting with Pakistani tribal residents who live near the border with Afghanistan, a focal point of the fight with Taliban insurgents.

“Your presence in the region is not good for peace,” one of the men in attendance told Mrs. Clinton, according to The Associated Press, “because it gives rise to frustration and irritation among the people of this region.”

Throughout the three days of her visit here, Mrs. Clinton would not comment on the drone attacks — a classified C.I.A. program — but said that the United States hoped to act as a partner with Pakistan on military and domestic issues.

Mrs. Clinton’s parade of meetings with television, radio and print journalists was an effort to improve public portrayals of the United States in Pakistan’s vibrant, influential, but sometimes rumor-driven press.

But a car bomb struck a market in the border city of Peshawar within hours of her arrival, killing more than 100 people; a United Nations guest house was attacked in Kabul, leaving 11 dead; and Mrs. Clinton has met with unremitting skepticism. All of that has underscored the precarious security situation and highlighted the diplomatic struggles facing the United States as it tries to rout terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and support democracies in both.

A gathering on Thursday at Government College University in Lahore was particularly hostile. Rarely in her travels as secretary of state has Mrs. Clinton encountered an audience so uniformly suspicious and immune to her star power as the polite, but unsmiling, university students who challenged her there.

One after another, they lined up to grill Mrs. Clinton about what they see as the dysfunctional relationship between Pakistan and the United States. They described a litany of slights, betrayals and misunderstandings that add up to a national narrative of grievance, against which she did her best to push back.

Why did the United States abandon Pakistan after the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, they asked. Why did the Bush administration support the previous military government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf? What about reports in the Pakistani news media that American contractors illegally carried weapons in Islamabad? Even her fans have come armed with spears. A young woman, a medical student, thanked Mrs. Clinton for being an inspiration to women, then asked how the United States could justify ordering Predator strikes on targets in Pakistan without sharing intelligence with its military.

Mrs. Clinton said only, “The war that your government and your military are waging right now is an important one for the country.”