Smoke rises from vehicles set on fire
by angry protesters after the killing of Pakistan's
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Friday, Dec. 28, 2007

When it comes to America’s relationship with Pakistan, remember one thing: it’s all about the fuel. Many presidential candidates are insisting that the U.S. get tough with Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf. But the reality is that we have almost no leverage. Why? The answer can be seen by looking at the American military’s fuel logistics nightmare in Afghanistan. Without the cooperation of Musharraf’s government, the 24,000 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan would likely run out of fuel within a matter of days.

The U.S. military is now burning about 575,000 gallons of fuel per day in Afghanistan. And about 80 percent of that comes from refineries in Pakistan. Without the support of Musharraf and the Pakistani military, U.S. forces in Afghanistan would have only one fuel supply, coming via a precarious logistics line that extends more than 1,000 miles all the way from refineries in Baku (Azerbaijan) and Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan) to northern Afghanistan.

The fuel from the refinery in Baku is loaded onto rail cars and put on rail barges that then traverse the Caspian Sea. Once in Turkmenistan, the rail cars follow a circuitous route through Uzbekistan before they arrive at the Afghan border, where the fuel is then transferred to trucks.

The long supply lines to the Caspian Sea underscore the importance of the Pakistani fuel. By mid-2006, total fuel storage capacity for forces operating out of the Kabul and Bagram air bases was less than 3 million gallons. Although a contractor for the U.S. military is now building an additional 3 million gallons of storage capacity at Bagram Air Base, if the flow of fuel from Pakistan is completely cut off, American forces could be running on fumes within a fortnight.

Greg Wilcox, a retired Army officer who has written extensively on military tactics and operations, says that should the fuel from Pakistan be cut off, the U.S. would have to try flying fuel into its bases in Afghanistan – which he believes would be “mission impossible.” Wilcox told us that when it comes to Pakistan, “We don’t have any choice. We got kicked out of Uzbekistan so we don’t have any bases there. We can’t survive in that region without Musharraf. We are tied to him whether we like it or not.”