Senate’s Pakistan Aid Bill Coming This Afternoon

My understanding is that around 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. today, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) are going to introduce their bill providing aid to the civilian components of the Pakistani government. Recall that last week, Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy said the bill’s House counterpart is “too inflexible” in terms of providing conditions under which funding would cease — Pakistani support for terrorism, an interruption of democratic rule — and praised the Biden-Lugar bill on Pakistan funding introduced to no effect last year. The Biden-Lugar bill is the template for Kerry-Lugar, so it’ll be interesting to see how the Senate and House bills align or diverge.