May 13 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke defended requests for further aid to Pakistan and more troops for Afghanistan yesterday as senators took issue with the Obama administration’s plan to defeat extremists.

“We do have a comprehensive strategy” and “we do have benchmarks,” Holbrooke told Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who said he was skeptical of expanding funding for Pakistan’s military.

“I’m reticent to continuously vote” for more money “without knowing that there is a strategic plan,” Menendez said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing where concerns were expressed that billions of dollars have been wasted in an unsuccessful fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. “I get no sense of reassurance from what I’ve heard.”

The Obama administration is seeking money to help Pakistan fend off a Taliban insurgency and to support the war effort in neighboring Afghanistan. The U.S. is increasing forces in Afghanistan and on May 11 replaced the top American commander in the country.

Pakistan’s military dropped troops by helicopter yesterday into a Taliban stronghold in the contested Swat Valley. The security forces are battling about 4,000 Taliban fighters and have killed 751 since the operation began, according to a military tally.

Menendez cited a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released three months ago that concluded the Bush administration “had not met its national security goals” to destroy terrorist safe havens in Pakistan.

Guide for Changes

Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat who is special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said senators shouldn’t “penalize this administration for the mismanagement” of the previous one.

Holbrooke said he was using the GAO report as a guide in determining how better to spend future funds to combat poverty, support democracy and help upgrade the Frontier Corps that guards Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan.

Menendez’s skepticism was echoed by Republican Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and James Risch of Idaho.

“I have to tell you that there’s a lot of moving parts, from my perspective,” Corker told Holbrooke. ‘And I do not think that we have coherently laid out to this body what our strategy is overall.”

Risch said he would “love to see an end game” in Afghanistan given the money being committed to the war effort.

War Funds

A House panel last week approved a $94.2 billion war funding bill, including $400 million for counterinsurgency aid to the Pakistani military, $1.9 billion in State Department and foreign operations assistance to Pakistan and $1.52 billion in State Department funding for Afghanistan.

Lawmakers voting on the bill expressed skepticism about Obama’s plans to step up the fight in Afghanistan and added provisions requiring the administration to submit a progress report on the effort by next year.

Presidents Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan were in Washington last week for meetings with President Barack Obama in a summit intended to build trust among the three allies.

The visiting presidents also faced pointed questions from lawmakers about their willingness and capability to fight extremists and corruption.

Holbrooke described the decision to replace General David McKiernan with Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal as “a very important command change” in Afghanistan.

“The focus here is simply on getting fresh thinking, fresh eyes” on this conflict, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on May 11. McChrystal’s background is in planning and overseeing the most sensitive of U.S. special operations forces.

Spillover Concern

Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, raised concerns at yesterday’s hearing about whether adding 17,000 more combat troops within a year to Afghanistan, as President Barack Obama has pledged to do, will push insurgents across the border into Pakistan and exacerbate instability there.

“Are you sure that the troop buildup in Afghanistan will not be counterproductive vis-a-vis Pakistan?” Feingold asked.

“No,” Holbrooke replied. “I am only sure that we are aware of the problem, that we are working intensely with the Pakistani Army, that they are aware of it, that the lesson of 2001-2002,” when Taliban and al-Qaeda militants sought safe havens in Pakistan, “has been absorbed.”

Holbrooke said the threat of militants spilling across the border underscores the need for Pakistan to move more of its forces from its eastern border with India to its western border with Afghanistan and to upgrade the training and equipment for their Frontier Corps.

International aid efforts also are being carried out for Afghanistan. The World Bank said yesterday it has approved a $120 million development grant for community projects in the country.

To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Washington at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 13, 2009 00:02 EDT