United States Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, told Rediff.com that he appreciated India's concerns over the massive American military largesse for Pakistan, considering the reports that such aid has often been diverted for a potential military confrontation with India.

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In an interaction following his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on 'The Way Forward in Afghanistan,' Levin said these reports were closely monitored.

"We take those reports seriously and we raise them with the Pakistanis, and that we try to prevent any diversion of that support. That's what we do," he said.

'We feel that even though the US is giving arms to Pakistan to fight terrorism, our practical experience is it is always being misused,' Antony had said. 'They are diverting a portion of aid against India,' he added.

Levin has always expressed scepticism over the billions of dollars poured into Pakistan to push Islamabad to act more aggressively against the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan's Northwestern Frontier Province.

When the Kerry-Lugar bill to provide $7.5 billion (about Rs 35,250 crore/Rs 352.50 billion) to Pakistan over five years -- supported by US President Barack Obama -- was being debated last year, Levin had said, 'We've got ambivalent evidence as to whether or not they (Pakistan) are committed to that goal (of aggressively fighting the Afghan Taliban).'

He believed Islamabad is going after the Pakistani Taliban -- which is a threat to it -- instead of the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan, Levin felt, continued to sponsor and support the latter through its spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, to have a hold on Afghanistan and for strategic depth against India.

Asked if he brings up these issues during his visits to Islamabad and his meetings with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and General Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistani army chief, Levin said, "Their reaction always is that they are over-extended; that they are going after everybody, but that they are not doing it all at once. But we've heard that for a long time and that's the problem."

He had dismissed the Pakistani leaders's claims to visiting US lawmakers that 'they put a squeeze in North Waziristan,' saying, "That doesn't mean anything specific is going to happen inside North Waziristan. When they say squeeze, what they mean is that they are squeezing South Waziristan and some of those folks are going into North Waziristan."

"That's what they call squeezing," he added. "Pushing people into North Waziristan is not my definition of squeezing."

Asked if the Obama administration was taking India seriously as a player in resolving the imbroglio in war-ravaged Afghanistan, the Senator said, "India is being taken seriously. The fact that the President is visiting India next month will prove that."