Magnificent Delusions (54 page)

In dealing with terrorism Pakistan could follow Colombia's model. There, with American backing, President Álvaro Uribe and his political allies confronted the lawlessness the drug cartels created. Pakistan could likewise shed the tag of a failing state by dealing with the problem and restoring the writ of the state. Instead of using public opinion as an excuse
to refuse action, Pakistan's leaders could build public opinion in favor of their new national agenda.

Bhutto and Zardari were intrigued by the idea of a new relationship with the United States that would be strategic rather than tactical, based, as it had been in the past, on asking for aid. They agreed with the concept of a self-confident Pakistan, free of the burdens of past blunders. Eliminating terrorism would be a future civilian government's first priority. Pakistan would work closely with the United States for this purpose. In return we would seek US assistance, but it would be directed toward standing on our own rather than being dependent on another. Within a few years Pakistan would be pursuing trade instead of depending on aid.

After Bhutto's assassination and the subsequent elections the PPP-led coalition government proceeded to implement this vision. But without Bhutto, mobilizing public opinion for a major shift in Pakistan's orientation proved difficult. Within weeks of taking office the government became mired in domestic controversies, gaining a reputation for ineptitude and corruption. The military and the ISI refused to fully subordinate themselves to the civilians. On issues that mattered to the Americans, the civilians were simply unable to deliver.

Gilani and Zardari asked for American patience, often citing their domestic compulsions. They believed that their responsibility for Pakistani policies relating to terrorism and nuclear proliferation started after they came to power, and thus, they should not be blamed for difficulties they had inherited. They often blamed the United States for its past support for Zia and Musharraf, to whom they attributed many of Pakistan's current troubles. Consequently, the United States often found civilian officials repeating explanations and excuses they had heard before instead of discussing solutions for long-standing problems.

When the civilian government first came into office the Bush administration offered it full US support. Soon after his election as prime minister, Gilani met Bush on the sidelines of a conference at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm-el-Shaikh. Gilani emphasized his commitment to fighting terrorism because “I have lost my own great leader, Benazir Bhutto” to extremists. Bush was visibly moved. Gilani was invited to Washington, where Bush reiterated his support.

Within days of Zardari's election as president Bush met him in New York on the occasion of the UN General Assembly session. Zardari was concerned about Pakistan's economy, which had been jolted by the year of anti-Musharraf protests. Foreign exchange reserves had dipped to precarious levels. But the US economy was going through its own crisis. In a meeting with the editors of the
Wall Street Journal
, Zardari had proposed that the United States infuse $100 billion into the Pakistan economy as aid, investments, and bank deposits; instead, officials in the Bush administration helped Pakistan secure $7.6 billion from the IMF.

In the final few months of the Bush administration most of its officials felt obligated toward Pakistan. They had supported Musharraf and had been disappointed. They now wanted civilian rule to succeed. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley created a regular monitoring system so that both sides could review their specific commitments. Zardari had asked my predecessor, Major General Mahmud Durrani, to serve in the newly created post of national security adviser on the Pakistani side. Durrani and Hadley conferred regularly to translate promises into actions.

At one point soon after the formation of the Gilani government Pakistan found itself unable to meet the payment schedule for upgrading the F-16 fighter jets from the Reagan-Zia era. The Bush administration helped out by shifting $230 million in aid to Pakistan from counterterrorism programs to upgrading the aging F-16 fleet. Our air force claimed that it would use the planes to bomb terrorists. One congressional critic derided the argument, however, stating, “Using F-l6s this way is like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.”
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Everyone knew that the F-16s were part of Pakistan's arsenal against India. Representative Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat who headed the House appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, demanded a demonstration of “how these F-16s would be used to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in order to get Congressional support.”
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But the mood in Washington was to help the new civilian government, which did not want to delay upgrading Pakistan's old F-16s. As the request for reallocating funds from counterterrorism programs to pay for the F-16s came through the newly elected civilians, as a favor to Pakistan's newly elected leaders, Congress did not press its objections.

The United States had been flying drones over the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan for several years, and during Musharraf's last year the US drone campaign had been presented in Pakistan as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. Still, the CIA and ISI communicated regularly on the subject of drones. The ISI did not like Pakistani civilian officials finding out anything about their dealings with the United States about armed Predator drones, but the US government wanted the civilian leadership to remain in the picture.

At one point CIA Deputy Director Steve Kappes complained that the “coordination process with Pakistan” in the use of drones was getting lengthier. “Sometimes we do not get the decision up to four days,” he said, implying that the ISI had signed off on drone strikes much faster in the past. Kappes also lamented that Pakistanis had a different threat perception than did the United States and did not consider the war against terrorism as their war. “But Al-Qaeda is equally focused on Pakistan,” he insisted. Zardari and Gilani initially asked that the United States should provide Pakistan its own drones so that the program could be described to sovereignty-conscious Pakistanis as a joint program, but the ISI and the army leadership preferred things the way they were. The generals only wanted more say in who the US drones targeted. Under Musharraf Pakistan had distinguished between “good” and “bad” Taliban; those with ties to the ISI enjoyed protection, whereas the ones trying to operate independently or attacking Pakistan's security forces were targeted for elimination. By protesting against the drones publicly while privately negotiating over whom the drones might target, the ISI sought to manipulate a delicate balance among various Taliban factions.

In the summer of 2008 Chairman Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen traveled to Pakistan with Kappes to demand action against several specific groups, including the Haqqani network, responsible for killing US troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan agreed to act sequentially against the various groups the Americans identified, beginning with the easier targets first. But Durrani conveyed the ISI's denial of the existence of the Taliban's main decision-making body, the Quetta Shura. The United States was certain about its intelligence and was not impressed by Pakistani denials.

Pakistan did promise to close down a Madrassa run by the Afghan Haqqanis, but it cited “limitations of capacity” in response to all other requests for action, asking for more equipment and assistance before its forces could act in the tribal areas along the Afghan border. Moreover, the Pakistan army put in its own request for US drones to target Baitullah Mehsud, whose Pakistani Taliban group threatened the Pakistan military directly. At this point the United States had a list of “High Value Targets” marked for assassination by drones, primarily consisting of Al-Qaeda leaders and Afghan Taliban commanders. Conspiracy theorists claimed that the United States did not eliminate Mehsud because eliminating threats to Pakistan were not a US priority. However, US officials added Pakistani Taliban to their list of targets after the ISI's request, and a Hellfire missile fired from an American Predator subsequently killed Mehsud. But his death silenced the conspiracy theories only temporarily; soon other stories of alleged American perfidy were in circulation in Islamabad.

Pakistan's security establishment's unwillingness to speak openly about allowing drone operations was matched by America's own secrecy about the entire program. But the CIA-ISI cooperation in the matter was an open secret in Washington, and US media reported on the arrangement in some detail.
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Over the years the drones became a major issue in the rhetoric surrounding the relationship. The United States insisted that their strikes only targeted terrorists with precision. Meanwhile, the ISI kept quiet about some strikes, possibly the ones they approved, while encouraging protests about others that killed some of their Jihadi allies. The civilians were seldom briefed in detail about the ISI-CIA relationship and had little say in its conduct, though reports in the Pakistani media continually accused the elected leaders of bending over backward to fulfill an American agenda. Thus, the army and the ISI retained control over the relationship with the United States while also keeping anti-Americanism alive as a means of fending off US demands that they considered against their regional policies.

In October Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha became director-general of the ISI. Pasha was short in physical stature, pleasant in demeanor, and had a tendency to wear his patriotic fervor on his sleeve. He was close to Kayani, the army chief, who had assured Mullen about
Pasha's professionalism and his commitment to eliminate terrorists. But Pasha's tenure as head of the controversial organization began with a bang. On November 26, the American Thanksgiving Day holiday, twelve coordinated terrorist attacks in the Indian financial capital, Mumbai, killed 166 people and left more than 300 injured.

The terrorists took over several hotels and a Jewish Community Center. They used firearms and hand grenades, took hostages, and did not stop until all but one of them had died three days later. Communications between the terrorists and their handlers were recorded. Indian commandos arrested the last remaining gunman, Ajmal Kasab. Americans were among the dead.

The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a group with close ties to the ISI, had executed the attack. Pakistan, however, initially denied any connection to the attack. Instead of trying to identify and punish terrorists, Pakistan focused on refuting reports of Pakistani complicity. When Kasab revealed during interrogation that he was from Pakistan, the ISI's media wing swung into action to deny journalists access to his village.

The Mumbai attacks lost Pakistan the Bush administration's sympathy for good. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte excluded all officials from a meeting with Durrani to address the national security adviser and me in private. Although Negroponte was known as a friend of Pakistan, on this occasion his language reflected a degree of agitation, whih was something unusual for a diplomat of Negroponte's experience. “Why do we sense a degree of guilt in Pakistan's conduct?” he asked deliberately.

Negroponte wondered why Pakistan refused access to the LeT planners it had arrested. Was it concerned that they might speak of their relations with the ISI? “It is time for Pakistan to come clean,” he said. “The past can go away only by moving forward.” Durrani said that Pakistan's courts would determine the legality of requests for access, drawing a sharp rebuke from Negroponte. “We know about Pakistan's courts,” he said, adding, “They order the hanging of elected prime ministers when the army asks them and don't look at legal niceties.” Durrani spoke of the Pakistani government's “political compulsions.” The United States, he said, must give elected leaders “time and space” to
fulfill their promises. Over the next three and a half years as ambassador I heard visiting Pakistani officials make the same request repeatedly.

If Negroponte's tone in his meeting with Durrani was agitated, the tone of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on this occasion was downright angry. She began with the words: “I will not sugarcoat anything I say to you today,” and then went on to prove that right. She addressed Durrani and me to say, “We have no doubt about the commitment of President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani, or the two of you to opposing terrorism, but there is a serious problem with Pakistan.”

She said that there was “clear evidence” in relation to the Mumbai attacks. She acknowledged that there was no direct link between the attackers and the Pakistan government, but “when people have been trained and intelligence operatives have relations with people who have been trained for such attacks then there is a connection.” She suggested that Pakistan stop asking for proof and stop claiming that there is no proof. “This does not serve you,” Rice emphasized. “What you think and what the whole world thinks are two different things.”

According to Rice, Pakistan had all the information it needed to shut terrorist operations down forever. After all, ISI knew who it had trained and equipped for terrorism. “I realize that there could be instability if you go after the Jihadis groups,” she observed, “but you will be consumed if you do not.” It seemed that she felt the need to convey her strongly held views before she ended her tenure. She had been diplomatic with Pakistani officials for eight years, but now she wanted to get it out.

Rice said that “Focusing your energies on an Indian threat that does not exist is a colossal mistake.” Pakistan had to “make a strategic decision that association with terrorists has to come to an end.” According to her, Pakistan could not “keep these people as an option” because “keeping contacts with various Jihadi groups is not acceptable.” She said the United States and Britain would help if Pakistan lacked the capacity to take on the terrorists.