Obama: U.S. expects "accountability" from Pakistan

U.S. President Barack Obama participates in an ''Open for Questions'' town hall on the economy in the East Room at the White House in Washington, March 26, 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will give Pakistan the tools in needs to defeat al Qaeda, but it expects accountability in return, President Barack Obama said in an interview about his new Afghan strategy aired on Sunday.

On CBS's "Face the Nation" program, Obama also said if the United States had al Qaeda leaders in its sights in Pakistan, it would go after them after consulting Pakistani authorities.

The president's comments came in an interview conducted on Friday, the day he announced a new war strategy for Afghanistan that called for the elimination of al Qaeda militants he said were plotting attacks on the United States from the rugged region along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

The plan called for another 4,000 U.S. troops to help train the Afghan army, in addition to the 17,000 combat troops he ordered to Afghanistan ahead of elections in August. Spending on the conflict is expected to rise 60 percent from the current $2 billion per month, officials said.

"What we want to do is to refocus attention on al-Qaeda," Obama told CBS. "We are going to root out their networks, their bases. We are going to make sure that they cannot attack U.S. citizens, U.S. soil, U.S. interests and our allies' interests around the world."

To do that, Obama said, the United States had to ensure al Qaeda could not find a base in Afghanistan or Pakistan from which they could organize their attacks. He said Washington also needed to convince average Pakistanis that the struggle with extremists was not just a U.S. war.

"One of the concerns that we've had building up over the last several years is a notion, I think, among the average Pakistani, that this is somehow America's war and they are not invested," Obama said.

"What we want to do is say to the Pakistani people -- you are our friends, you are our allies. We are going to give you the tools to defeat al Qaeda and to root out these safe havens, but we also expect some accountability," he said.

He also said the United States would go after so-called "high-value" targets in Pakistan after consulting with Pakistani authorities, but the main thrust of his policy would be to help Pakistan defeat extremism.

"Our plan does not change the recognition of Pakistan as a sovereign government," Obama said. "We need to work with them and through them to deal with al Qaeda. But we have to hold them much more accountable."

The president said the situation in Afghanistan had been deteriorating in recent years, "and unless we get a handle on it now, we're going to be in trouble."