US distrust of Pak grows despite CIA-ISI pact

From L K Sharma DH News Service Washington, Oct 10

An annoyed President George Bush said he did not know who told Pakistani president Gen Pervez Musharraf that the US military operation in Afghanistan will be short. Washington was not amused by Gen Musharraf setting the time-table for the US operation and claiming that he has got "definite assurances that this operation will be short". President Bush said: "I don't know who told the Pakistani president that, generally, you know, we don't talk about military plans." Even the previous administration had got into the habit of not talking to Islamabad about its plans in Afghanistan. When Mr Bill Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes which flew over Pakistan, Islamabad was informed only at the last minute. Even then, the information was leaked out to Osama bin Laden.

It is suspected that bin Laden could make a last-minute escape because he was tipped off by Pakistan's intelligence service. The question about Gen Musharraf's claim figured in various official briefings and was put to Mr Bush himself. His spokesman had said earlier that to his knowledge, no such assurance had been given to Pakistan. Mr Bush's sharp reply to his counterpart was seen as "the first sign of strain in the delicate relationship between the two leaders." Mr Bush had displayed his scepticism about the General before Pakistan decided to join the coalition against terrorism.

That public rebuff to a rediscovered ally highlighted the pitfalls of a relationship not based on trust but on coercion. There was no meeting of minds when the Pakistani General surrendered to the US. Gen Musharraf on that day tried to explain to his people that he was ditching the Taliban so that he could settle scores with another enemy later. However, due to the present US need of Pakistan's cooperation, damage limitation by Islamabad on the diplomatic front should not be difficult. None of the two sides would want the ongoing joint covert operation against the Taliban to be disrupted. The CIA and the purged ISI, armed with dollars, are already in Afghanistan trying to split the Taliban.

Gen Musharraf may show even more flexibility to prove his loyalty to the cause of destroying the Taliban. Initially, he said that the US troops would not be allowed to use Pakistani soil for any ground attacks on Afghanistan. But he has been chaging his position every minute. He has already placed his shadowy warriors of the ISI at the disposal of Washington for a joint covert operation with the CIA inside Afghanistan.

This covert operation reported by the Washington Post is designed to entice commanders in the south and east, who are the base of the Taliban. To ensure the success of this operation, the General sacked the chief of the ISI, Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmad. Lt Gen Ahmad was in Washington holding talks a day before the terrorist attacks. Washington finally lost its patience with him when evidence came out about his links with the money transfer from Pakistan to Mohammad Atta, one of the hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks.

Analysts and the administration are banking on the success of this covert operation to secure the defection of some Taliban commanders. Their optimism is based on the history of tribal and group rivalries and the fact that ideologically, they are not as strong as Osama bin Laden's men.

The US reward for bin Laden's head has not worked till now. The belief that the Taliban will collapse because of an internal revolt has also influenced the pace and the nature of the military operation till now. The renewed close interaction between the CIA and the ISI could harm or benefit India, depending on the US policy in the coming months. Even the purged ISI has orders from the General not to help the Taliban. It has no orders to keep away from the mujahideens equipped for operations in Kashmir. In any case, New Delhi now has to operate in an environment in which, more than before, unsavoury characters will be calling the shots. They are instruments of state policy but they can also turn rogues, depending on the circumstances. The neighbourhood will be getting more tough for some time. The circumstances in which the Pakistani General had to do a U-turn have made it difficult for the US-Pakistan relationship to recover its old elan. Washington has made it clear that missions will decide coalitions and thus Pakistan's importance in Washington's eyes will rise and fall in accordance with developments.

The mistrust between Washington and Islamabad will not disappear as more and more evidence about Pakistan acting against the interest of the US emerges. Mr Ahmed Rashid, an authority on the Taliban, reported in the Daily Telegraph that a small group of officers from Pakistan's intelligence services visited Kandhar without permission from the government at the end of last month, reportedly to help the Taliban regime prepare its defences and a strategy against US attacks. The visit by the ISI officers was in defiance of orders by the Pakistan president.

The report says that ISI officers have served as military advisers to the Taliban and several of them have become intensely loyal to the Taliban and its hardline Islamic ideology. The new ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ehansul Haq, is expected to carry out a reshuffle of the ISI and will replace officers who support the Taliban.

But the distrust of Pakistan here persists. Even the sacking of the ISI chief at Washington's bidding is being seen as evidence of the ISI being an "utterly unreliable ally". Of course, the US still wants the ISI to lead its forces into the cave of Osama bin Laden because they know him well through a long and fruitful association.

Author Ken Silverstein highlights many other features in the ISI's "awful resume". The agency has also sponsored heroin smuggling and a variety of militant organisations that have committed acts of terror in the Indian state of Kashmir. More troubling from the practical standpoint, many ISI officers are deeply hostile to the West and make no secret of their friendship with bin Laden. An expert told the author: "If the ISI is going to be our eyes and ears in Afghanistan, I suggest we watch our back."

Of course, Washington and London, more than New Delhi, know about the ISI but Mr Tony Blair, who hit out at al-Qaeda for drug trafficking, discreetly omitted in his House of Commons speech any reference to the ISI. Mr Ahmed Rashid has dealt with the ISI involvement in drug-trafficking in his book on the Taliban.

-- Anonymous, October 11, 2001