The Bush administration was scrambling to pick up the pieces of its shattered Pakistan policy after the trouncing that the party of President Bush's ally, President Pervez Musharraf, received.
The United States would still like to see opposition leaders find a way to work with Musharraf in a power-sharing deal, administration officials said, but that notion appears increasingly unlikely. The White House was reaching out to victorious opposition parties, while trying hard "not to look like we're jumping on anybody's bandwagon," a senior official said.
Improved security in Iraq will give the U.S. military flexibility to do more in Afghanistan in coming months, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. But even as Gates hinted at possible further troop cuts in Iraq, he said a go-slow approach is justified by several circumstances, including slow progress on the political front. "Our military commanders do not yet believe our gains are necessarily enduring," he said. Gates said sectarian tensions have the potential to undo recent security progress.
WASHINGTON - President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow U.S. Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, senior American officials said.
The classified orders mark a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, and after months of a high-level stalemate about how to confront the militants' increasingly secure base in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
U.S. officials say they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks such as the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border but they will not ask for its permission.
