Gates: Pakistan key to Afghanistan success

WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- Efforts to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban depends on successfully ridding Pakistan of the militants, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

"For all of Pakistan's history, India has been the existential threat," Gates said while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the fiscal 2010 defense budget request. "I think actually it was only with the Taliban's going too far and moving their operations into Buner, just 60 miles or so from Islamabad, that for the first time they really got the attention of the Pakistani government."

Actions recently by the Pakistani government and its army indicate the officials understand the militants' threat to the government and are prepared to act, Gates said.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, also spoke before the committee about Pakistan. While recognizing Pakistanis increasingly support their government's efforts to deter the Taliban, Mullen expressed reservations about the operation's sustainability.

"My biggest question about these operations is (the government's) ability to sustain them over time," he said. "Right now I'm encouraged by what's happened, but I certainly withhold any judgment about where it goes, because of the lack ... of historic sustainment."

Gates said success in Afghanistan also relies on shifting the country's agriculture away from the poppy crop that supplies drug traffickers and finances criminal and terrorist activities.