WASHINGTON: Implicitly heeding New Delhi���s grievance for the first time about its Paksitan policy, the United States has set exacting conditions on military aid that country to ensure the assitance is focused on the war on terror and not diverted for a confrontation against India.

The US move came in amendments attached to the Defence Authorisation Bill of 2010, amid continuing anger and dismay in Islamabad over the so-called Kerry-Lugar Bill. That bill also conditions civilian aid to Pakistan ending its covert sponsorship of terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and reigning in its overbearing military which is seen as the root cause of the country���s instability.

On Thursday night, the US Senate voted 68-29 on measures which aim at ensuring that U.S military resources provided to Pakistan are not squandered or diverted to adversely affect the ''balance of power in the region,'' an oblique reference to New Delhi���s long standing gripe that Pakistan ends up using U.S military aid to wage war against India.

"This provision simply ensures that the American peoples' tax dollars are being used for their intended purpose," Senator Bob Corker, Republican from Tennessee and co-author of the measure along with Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, said. "That fight (against terrorism) is important to our own national security, and we have to ensure that our support for it is not being squandered or diverted,'' Menendez added. Neither mentioned India directly.

Both Senators ignored the hysteria in Pakistan over the Kerry-Lugar bill in pushing for the measures, which was supported by a majority of their colleagues. The US House of Representatives had passed a similar measure earlier on October 8.

Lawmakers were helped in this regard by reported acknowledgement by Pakistan���s former dictator Pervez Musharraf that he had diverted US aid to Pakistan to bulk up against India. The matter was first brought to the notice of Congress and the administration by US government audits, which noted that very little of US military aid was in fact going to the purported war on terrorism.

Pakistan's subsequent whining about the conditions in the Kerry-Lugar Bill has in fact begun to now anger Congress. Earlier this week, Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf was reported to have snapped at visiting Pakistan Senator Syed Zafar Ali Shah when he complained about conditions being attached to US aid to Pakistan.

''I know why are you here... if you don���t like the bill don���t take the money,'' an angry Wolf was quoted by a Pakistan journalist as having told Shah.

Senator John Kerry, co-author of the Kerry-Lugar bill conveyed pretty much the same message more politely during his recent visit to Islamabad, saying Pakistan was not obliged to take accept the money if it did not like the conditions.

The White House too has endorsed the line, and President Obama is expected to sign this legislation too without changes, as he did with the Kerry-Lugar bill.

Broadly, the Indian argument that any US assistance ��� civilian or military ��� is fungible and provided Pakistan the resources to mobilize militarily against India unless otherwise ensured, seems to have found some traction in Washington. The Corker-Menendez amendment also demands scrutiny over Coalition Support Funds, which Pakistan says is largely reimbursement for money it first spends in providing logistical help to U.S in the region.

The proposed restrictions on Pakistan are buried in hundreds of pages of legislative fine print that constitutes the $680.2 billion defence authorisation bill. They include new requirements for registration and end-use monitoring of weapons and mandates that the US administration certifies that the aid serves America���s interests.

But inasmuch as the legislation demands scrutiny, there is also enough wiggle room for the administration to conduct policy on its terms.

For instance, in the matter of end-use restrictions, while the bill enjoins the Secretary of Defence to ���establish and carry out a programme to provide for the registration and end-use monitoring of defence articles and defence services transferred to Afghanistan and Pakistan,��� it also allows him to ���exempt a defence article or defence service from the registration and end-use monitoring requirements if he deems it in the US interest to do so.���