Republican US presidential candidate questions Pakistan aid

Gingrich questions American aid to Pakistan following the killing of Osama bin Laden in the country.

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Friday called for more oil drilling in the United States and questioned American aid to Pakistan as he took his young campaign to his home state of Georgia.

Gingrich, who was speaker of the US House of Representatives during the 1990s, declared himself a candidate in the 2012 presidential election on Wednesday in what many analysts say will be an uphill battle to win the presidency.

In a speech to members of the Georgia Republican Party, Gingrich said the United States needs to reassess the billions of dollars in aid it gives Pakistan following the killing of Osama bin Laden there by US special forces in a daring May 2 raid.

Authorities now are trying to piece together how the al Qaeda leader came to live in the northern Pakistan garrison town of Abbottabad for apparently years before his death.

"When I learned that after paying $20 billion since 9/11, they had been housing him in Pakistan, I kind of forgot what the world 'ally' meant," Gingrich said. "There is a point when you have to say to people around the world, 'How stupid do you think we are?'"

Gingrich also derided President Barack Obama's energy policy, arguing that opening up more US drilling areas could help bring gas prices down.

Gingrich, 67, is a conservative known for budget battles with President Bill Clinton after he led the "Republican revolution" in 1994 elections. Gingrich has laid out a pro-business economic agenda as the centerpiece of his campaign, pledging to shrink the size of government and cut taxes to help the ailing US economy.