Here’s what nearly $2 billion in annual U.S. aid to Pakistan purchases: the arrest of informants who tipped the CIA to Osama bin Laden’s Abbotabad hideout. The cancellation of U.S. counterinsurgency training in the tribal areas. An apparent tipoff to terrorists that their compound was about to be raided.

Here’s what it is still buying: retrofitted aircraft that serve as spy planes; surveillance equipment; and assorted spy gear. Even after years of Pakistani intelligence intransigence on terrorism, the U.S. is still bankrolling the Pakistani spy apparatus.

Those are just a few items in the goody bag for the U.S.’ Pakistani frenemies, as revealed by a stroll through a U.S. government contractors’ database. Congress may bridle at the open spigot for Pakistan as the counterterrorism relationship deteriorates. But since the money is still flowing, the contracts keep on coming.

For instance: the Air Force wants maintenance crews to train Pakistanis at a Rawalpindi air base how to service Beechcraft B350 King Air planes. Those are the small aircraft the U.S. has souped up to serve as bays for spy cameras and communications interception, or for cargo delivery. Pakistan bought a few from the U.S. last year. The U.S. Air Force is still looking for pilots to train the Pakistanis how to fly them and use their intelligence equipment. They’ll come in handy the next time Pakistani intelligence wants to tell terrorists they’re being hunted.

Then there’s a more mysterious spying suite the U.S. is handing the Pakistanis. The General Services Administration is testing the market to see who can provide engineering, logistics and software support for a “variety” of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance “technology insertion and support projects“ in Pakistan and other Mideast and South Asian countries. An addendum informs would-be vendors that carrying weapons are a no-no without express approval of the Central Command chief.

Credit to the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus for catching this one: a ground-based surveillance system that “intercepts and locates the sources of enemy communications and then permits continued monitoring of them.” Now the Pakistanis will know exactly whom not to arrest.

If you’d like to paint the F-16s that the U.S. sold to Pakistan, step right up. Same goes for providing them with forklifts. And if you’re going to Pakistan, make sure you pack a bulletproof vest.

Two successive U.S. administrations have been unable to coax more than grudging, intermittent support for counterterrorism from Pakistan’s spy agency. Documents leaked by WikiLeaks point to the U.S. military’s ongoing belief that the Inter-Services Intelligence continues to back Afghan insurgents that kill U.S. troops. And this week, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, accused Pakistani military officers and spies of actively aiding bin Laden.

The appropriations committee in the House decided this week to place conditions on U.S. aid to Pakistan, but they’re not very restrictive: the Obama administration will just have to explain how it intends to spend the cash Congress provides. Don’t expect to stop underwriting Pakistani spycraft anytime soon.

Photo: DVIDS