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LISA MULLINS: Pakistan is at the center of the Obama administration's strategy against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The administration has called for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional aid to shore up civilian institutions in Pakistan. But as Katy Clark reports, Congress appears reluctant to give Pakistan more funds without guarantees of how that money is spent.

KATY CLARK: The US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told a Congressional committee today that the United States remains committed to supporting Pakistan because America's most vital national security interests are at stake. Still, Holbrooke acknowledged that some have suggested throwing more money and manpower at Pakistan is akin to the failed US effort in Vietnam. While such comparisons are inevitable, Holbrooke said they leave out a vital difference.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army never posed a direct threat to the American homeland. And the people who are in this area either pose and are planning -- pose a direct threat, having committed 9/11, having done Mumbai, having killed Benazir Bhutto, and they have publicly said they're going to do more of the same. That's Al Qaeda, of course, and its allies the Taliban. So we need to be clear that we are talking today about an issue that is of direct importance to our national security.

CLARK: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked Congress for close to $500 million dollars in emergency funds to stabilize Pakistan's economy, strengthen law enforcement and help those who have fled extremist violence inside the country. Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and author of “Descent Into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.” He says any delays in granting that aid would be dangerous given the growing instability in Pakistan.

AHMED RASHID: There'll be enormous disillusionment with the US, and anti-Americanism, which is rampant in the country, anyway, will only increase.

CLARK: Others worry that if the United States doesn't do more to bring stability to Pakistan, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal could fall into the hands of extremists. President Obama said last week that he was confident the US could ensure that Pakistan's nuclear weapons remain secure. But Matthew Bunn doesn't share the President's confidence. Bunn is a nuclear security expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

MATTHEW BUNN: Certainly, Pakistan has taken extensive measures to improve security for its nuclear weapons. Those nuclear weapons are very heavily defended, we believe. But the threats are so huge in Pakistan, and the consequences are so great that even if what you're talking about is a one percent chance, you still have to worry about it and take action to try to reduce the risk.

CLARK: And, Bunn worries, what happens if those actions aren't enough to protect Pakistan's nuclear arsenal?

BUNN: There was an incident a few weeks ago where there was a frontier corps base that was attacked by 600 armed jihadis. So what happens if 600 armed jihadis show up at a nuclear base? Do the guards there fight? Do they run? Do they help?

CLARK: Bunn says that's a very difficult question to answer right now. President Obama's national security advisor, General James Jones, was asked recently if the US would be prepared to intervene unilaterally if it appeared as if the Taliban were about to seize a nuclear weapon from the Pakistani government.

JAMES JONES: That would be the very, very worst-case scenario, and we're going to do everything we can within the construct of our bilateral relations and multilateral relations to make sure that doesn't happen.

CLARK: Meantime, in order to prevent such a worst-case scenario, Pakistan's president will try to make the case for increased US financial commitment to his country. Asif Ali Zardari meets in a rare tri-lateral session with President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Kharzai tomorrow in Washington. For The World, this is Katy Clark.

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