Texas Republican Rep. Ted Poe has proposed a bill that would take away Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally, or MNNA. The move comes amid multiple reports the Trump administration will press Islamabad to crack down on Pakistan-based militants like the Haqqani network, which launched attacks in Afghanistan.

“Pakistan must be held accountable for the American blood on its hands,” Poe said while introducing the bill on Thursday. “For years, Pakistan has acted as a Benedict Arnold ally of the United States. From harboring Osama bin Laden to backing the Taliban, Pakistan has stubbornly refused to go after, in any meaningful way, terrorists that actively seek to harm opposing ideologies.”

Poe said the U.S. must make a clean break with Pakistan or at least stop providing it with sophisticated weaponry and treating it like a close ally.

Poe chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee, and he has offered similar legislation several times over several years. This bill, co-sponsored with Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn., is more likely to make a statement than to become reality, and it faces a long legislative road if the administration doesn’t beat it to the punch.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has hinted the U.S. strategy review for Afghanistan due in mid-July will include a shift on Pakistan. He told Congress last week the strategy would be included in “a regional approach.”

But Pakistan’s embassy in Washington warned against “scapegoating” to explain the stalemate in Afghanistan, pointing instead to Afghanistan’s own troubled internal dynamics.

“Singling out Pakistan and pinning the entire blame on Pakistan for the situation in Afghanistan is neither fair nor accurate, nor is it borne out by the ground realities,” said Abid Saeed, press minister at the embassy, told Reuters. 

In 2004, President George W. Bush granted Pakistan MNNA status in an effort to get Pakistan to help the United States fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

That status makes it eligible for priority delivery of defense material, an expedited arms sale process and a U.S. loan guarantee program that backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports. It can also stockpile U.S. military hardware, participate in defense research and development programs and be sold more sophisticated weaponry.

Pakistan has since become one of the leading recipients of U.S. foreign assistance, as Congress appropriated more than $18 billion in aid between 2002 and 2015, including $7.6 billion in security-related aid.

According to data compiled by the Center for International Policy, Congress was notified in 2014 of more than $600 million in major arms sales to Pakistan, including $200 million in Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles and GRC43M cutters worth $350 million. In 2015, there was nearly $1 billion in U.S. sales to Pakistan, including Viper attack helicopters and Hellfire missiles. The U.S. subsidized some of this under foreign military financing funds.

The powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., was instrumental in blocking U.S. subsidies for the $700 million sale of eight F-16 Block 52 fighter jets to Pakistan in 2016. He also fended off efforts to scuttle the sale completely.

Corker, on Wednesday, declined to comment on the idea of changing Pakistan’s status but said he hoped the Trump administration would take a tougher stand toward Pakistan over its alleged support of the Haqqani network.

“We have spent billion and billions and billions of tax-payer dollars toward their country, and I’m certainly unsatisfied,” Corker said. “The No. 1 threat to American soldiers is the Haqqani network, and Pakistan allows it to have safe haven in their country.” 

Email:   jgould@defensenews.com         
Twitter:   @reporterjoe     

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein signed a memo on March 8 formally authorizing the flight demonstration, service spokeswoman Ann Stefanek confirmed in an email to Defense News. The memo explains that the Air Force plans to conduct a variety of experiments meant to help the service make future force structure and modernization decisions, with the light attack aircraft demo as the first campaign.

A formal invite to industry is expected within weeks or perhaps even days. The Air Force’s strategic development planning and experimentation office, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, will lead the effort.

The service has not reached consensus on potential OA-X requirements, only that entries must be low-cost and ready for production. Therefore, Textron is proposing multiple options with different layers of capability.

If the service opts for an inexpensive turboprop type of aircraft, Beechcraft’s AT-6 could be a good fit, said Grant. The aircraft is based on the T-6A used by the Air Force for basic pilot training and modified for the light attack mission. The AT-6 features seven hard points for general-purpose, laser-guided and inertially aided weapons. It also boasts low operating costs and can be flown for less than $1,000 per hour.

“When it comes to a turboprop, we believe that it is a very viable candidate,” Grant said.

In that category, the AT-6 could come up against Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano, which the U.S. government has purchased for the Afghan air force. But while commonality with allies could be a selling point for the A-29, the idea of buying a Brazilian plane could rankle the “America First” Trump administration.

If the service is willing to pay more for added capability, the Scorpion jet offers greater performance and more flexibility than a turboprop plane, said Bill Harris, Textron AirLand’s vice president of Scorpion sales.

Textron designed the Scorpion with modularity in mind, allowing it to quickly adapt different sensors and weapons in its internal payload bay or the six hard points located on the wings, which can collectively carry 6,200 pounds of ordnance.

The jet’s ability to fire precision-guided munitions while maintaining low levels of noise could make it a better choice for urban close-air support than loud, less advanced turboprop planes, Harris said.

“These confusing, urban-type battlefield engagements where the target has very short dwell time and it’s hard to dig out where the target might be [located], so you’re working with ground forces as well as other aircraft,” he said. “I think the Scorpion has some capabilities with the sensors that it can carry to tackle that kind of a mission that may be a little more difficult for an AT-6.”

The Scorpion hasn’t found a launch customer, and Textron AirLand is currently in the throes of manufacturing the third production-conforming jet. Depending on the size of the order and the modifications, Harris estimated unit prices could clock in at $20 million to $30 million a copy, with an operating cost of about $3,000 per flight hour.