WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- It was an ultimatum of sorts by a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Pakistan's new civilian government: Either the government gets serious about flushing out al-Qaida and Taliban fighters from their safe havens in Pakistan's tribal border areas, or aid to Pakistan's military will have to be reassessed.

Pakistan cannot reduce -- let alone end -- the Taliban's cross-border raids into Afghanistan without sending its regular army back into action. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, say Pakistan's military commanders, and the T-shirt read, "Don't come back and stop taking American orders."

The Bush administration, in its remaining six months, should not expect a presently rudderless government in Pakistan to help out in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It has troubles enough on the home front, where a 400-strong Taliban force laid siege to a police station in Hangu in the North-West Frontier province -- in Pakistan proper. Taliban rockets also smashed into the army's Armored Corps Center between Islamabad and its twin city of Rawalpindi.

Some 100,000 troops -- mostly Punjabis who are loath to kill tribal kinsmen -- were assigned to the seven FATA agencies under U.S. pressure. They lost 1,400 soldiers killed and three times that number wounded. Some Pakistani units were ambushed and surrendered without firing a shot. Why should they kill their fellow countrymen, they asked their officers.

Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., in a breakfast talk to the Asia Society, said if the army can't stamp out cross-border flows of "militants, weapons and other illicit trade," then the Frontier Corps of militarized local tribesmen under Pakistani army officers will have to do the job. The Bush administration recently notified Congress it planned to use $74.5 million for a Security Development Plan to train and equip the Frontier Corps to conduct counterinsurgency activities within FATA and the North-West Frontier province and put an end to the Taliban's incursions into Afghanistan.