Magnificent Delusions (57 page)

In the case of visas for US officials, Pakistan's military was averse to the presence of large numbers of Americans in Pakistan. The CIA usually notified the ISI of its operatives working in Pakistan, but the ISI suspected that some of the others, coming as aid workers or diplomatic staff, were also spying on Pakistan. They had no answer to the US assertion that they routinely followed and monitored US officials' activities and did not need to deny visas for officials of an allied country. As a result, hundreds of visa applications were kept pending for months. After Clinton raised the matter with Gilani, the embassy in Washington was allowed discretion in expediting the issuance of visas. But soon reports surfaced in Pakistan that I was issuing visas to CIA operatives to spy on Pakistan.

Although we had streamlined the visas process, no visa was issued without following all procedures. The embassy's defense attaché, who
reported to the ISI, handled visa requests from the Pentagon and the CIA. Finally, Pasha personally got involved in clearing CIA visas. He claimed that he only wanted to make sure that the ISI knew each CIA operative in Pakistan so they could protect them. But the noise about American spies and the unfounded allegations against me were just meant to keep down the number of Americans in Pakistan; this was hardly the way allies behaved with one another.

Then, in the middle of 2010, Pakistan suffered the worst floods in its history. Several million people were affected; a vast number lost their homes. Even though the United States sent several helicopters to assist in the relief effort, Holbrooke ensured that the Americans made the largest contribution to the $1.7 billion flood relief effort, and Kerry traveled to the flood-affected areas to show American support, opinion polls conducted after the floods showed little change in Pakistani anti-Americanism.

In October Kayani arrived in Washington as part of Pakistan's delegation for another round of the Strategic Dialog. Jones, who was stepping down as national security adviser, proposed that I bring the foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and Kayani to meet him on his last day at work. This would be an opportunity for Jones's successor, Tom Donilon, to meet the Pakistani team and could also be an occasion for Obama to drop in and deliver in person some key messages to Pakistan's army chief.

The meeting took place on October 20 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Fifteen minutes into the meeting Obama dropped in and stayed for almost half an hour. He began with polite remarks about US interest in “a strong, stable Pakistan” and economic support for Pakistani democracy. But then he repeated what Jones had said a few months earlier, and it sounded more ominous coming directly from the president of United States.

Obama said that his greatest concern related to extremists in Pakistan who target the United States—in Afghanistan and the US homeland. “If a successful attack is launched by people or groups traced to Pakistan,” he said, “my hands would be tied.” He repeated his invitation to Pakistan to work together in preventing that scenario. “I want to deal with this in a way that is respectful for Pakistan's sovereignty,” Obama
continued. “We are mindful of your concerns in your neighborhood and your strategic objectives.”

In a firm tone Obama then delivered his core message: “The US is not interested in Pakistan being vulnerable,” he declared. “It cannot, however, accept that your strategic concerns should include support for murderous groups.” If Pakistan could build trust around this issue, it would “make my job easier in relation to helping Pakistan.” He said that if Pakistan and the United States failed to build trust, “we will be on collision course.” As long as Al-Qaeda and its affiliates operated in Pakistan, this would restrain Pakistan's relations with the United States.

Obama addressed Kayani and said that “your intelligence is wrong” that he should fear the United States. Obama decided to address Pakistani conspiracy theories directly. “You are hearing from the President of the United States that the US wants a strong, stable Pakistan,” he said. “It is not in our interest to have a debilitated Pakistan.”

Qureshi made a long-winded request that Obama should visit Pakistan and that it should equal the length of time he spends visiting India. Kayani voiced agreement with everything that Obama had said. But he then handed Obama a twelve-page paper to explain Pakistan's strategic perspective. Obama went to India in November, skipping Pakistan.

Holbrooke died on December 13 from complications of a torn aorta. I had met him for breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown the day before he fell ill. He expressed frustration with Pakistan's unwillingness to change. “Everyone around the world wonders ‘What does Pakistan's army want?' I wonder if they know themselves,” he remarked. Holbrooke said that he intended to continue working for “as long as I can to make a difference” and advised me to do the same.

Zardari attended the Washington memorial service for Holbrooke. Obama then invited him, accompanied only by me, for a meeting in the Oval Office. During the meeting Obama and Clinton asked Zardari familiar questions about Pakistan's lack of leadership in the war against terror. They also expressed surprise that he had said nothing when a religious fanatic killed his friend Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab. Zardari tried to explain Pakistan's domestic politics. Clinton continued the conversation, but Obama became quiet. As we left the

White House Zardari asked me if I had noticed that Obama had “switched off.”

A few days later US-Pakistan relations began their nosedive with the Raymond Davis affair, in which the US contractor had killed two Pakistanis in Lahore when he thought they were trying to rob him, followed by the American raid in Abbottabad.

I
WAS ON MY WAY
to Islamabad from Washington via London and Dubai on the evening of May 1, 2011, when US Navy SEALS conducted their clandestine operation to kill Osama bin Laden in his fortified compound in Abbottabad. The Americans had kept their plans secret from Pakistan, and no one in our government had any clue about the commando mission. I first learned about bin Laden's death when I turned on my cell phone upon landing at Heathrow Airport in the early morning of May 2. Among the many messages waiting for me was one from the foreign minister, instructing me to turn around immediately and return to Washington.

While I had slept on my flight to London, Mullen had called Kayani and Obama had spoken to Zardari. Although the United States had conducted the operation in complete secrecy and in violation of Pakistani sovereignty, Obama had mentioned Pakistan positively in his speech announcing bin Laden's elimination.

The United Nations had declared the Al-Qaeda leader an international terrorist, and any evidence that Pakistan offered him sanctuary would have been a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1267 and 1373. Mindful of that, Pakistan's initial official response to the event was a statement issued by the Foreign Office describing bin Laden's death as “a major setback to terrorist organizations around the world.” The statement was issued after a meeting among Zardari, Gilani, and Kayani. It also said the US operation “illustrates the resolve of the international community including Pakistan to fight and eliminate terrorism.”

“Al-Qaeda had declared war on Pakistan,” the statement continued. It added that “Scores of Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks resulted in deaths of thousands of innocent Pakistani men, women and children”

and claimed that “Pakistan has played a significant role in efforts to eliminate terrorism.” Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan and the US ability to penetrate Pakistan's air space without our military finding out had embarrassed Pakistan's security. But the Pakistan government, backed by the military, preferred to look upon the incident positively so as to avoid being accused of complicity in protecting the world's most wanted terrorist.

Within a couple of days, however, the position in Islamabad began to shift. The ISI and the military faced criticism within and outside the country for their inability to track down bin Laden in a compound close to the Pakistan Military Academy. Some Pakistani critics wondered aloud whether the United States could repeat the success of their undetected commando operation against Pakistan's nuclear installations or other terrorists, such as Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who were believed to be under Pakistani protection. Opposition politicians called for the dismissal of ISI Chief Pasha, resulting in the ISI turning the tables by focusing on how civilian leaders' collaboration had enabled Americans to violate Pakistan's sovereignty.

On May 3 Pakistan's Foreign Office issued a second statement expressing, “deep concerns and reservations on the manner in which the Government of the United States carried out this operation without prior information or authorization from the Government of Pakistan.” But this statement still recognized “the death of Osama bin Laden” as “an important milestone in the fight against terrorism” and insisted that “the Government of Pakistan and its state institutions have been making serious efforts to bring him to justice.”

However, by then Islamists and hard-liners in the military, who described the operation against bin Laden as a US aggression on Pakistani soil, were swaying Pakistani public opinion. Instead of blaming the military for failing to detect bin Laden's presence as well as the US operation to kill him, the ISI diverted the Pakistani media's attention to fabrications that the elected civilians had helped the CIA create a massive intelligence-gathering network within Pakistan.

Parallel Gallup polls in Pakistan and the United States soon after bin Laden's killing showed the wide gap between the two nations' views. Two-thirds of Pakistanis polled condemned the US military action,
contrasting with Americans' nearly universal approval.
¹⁸
A Pew Poll a month later showed that a majority of Pakistanis thought it was a bad thing that Osama bin Laden had been killed at all.
¹⁹
The Pakistani public was responding to what Pakistan's media told them; the airwaves were clogged with sentiments about how the United States had violated Pakistan's borders and should, therefore, be deemed its enemy. Some media persons spoke of bin Laden as a Muslim hero, and others claimed that he had not been killed in the US operation but rather had died of natural causes earlier. According to this last bizarre theory, the Americans had frozen bin Laden's body, only to use it later to proclaim success at a time that suited the US government.

The Obama administration felt the Pakistan government was doing little to inform Pakistan's people of the importance of bin Laden's elimination. Some US officials saw the ISI's hand behind the orchestration of anti-American protests and hinted that it wanted to avoid scrutiny of its complicity or incompetence in bin Laden's presence in Pakistan. The most benign theory about bin Laden hiding in Pakistan suggested that the ISI had failed to look for him, while ISI-protected Pakistani Jihadi groups offered him sanctuary without telling their contacts within the government.

Soon after the Abbottabad raid, Grossman and CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell traveled to Islamabad to propose actions that Pakistan could take to build confidence in its commitment to fight terrorism. They shared intelligence about a bomb-making factory run by the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. According to the CIA, A1-Qaeda as well as the Taliban and Pakistani Jihadi groups used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) made at this factory. Kayani and Pasha promised that the Pakistan army would send in troops to shut down the illicit factory that was manufacturing the IEDs. A few days later the CIA sent time-stamped photographs showing the facility being dismantled hours before the army's arrival. The dismantling began after a man on a motorcycle went into the factory, thus leading to speculation that he had come to tip off the terrorists about the impending army operation.

The Americans concluded that Pakistan's failure to combat terrorism went beyond its law enforcement agencies' and armed forces' incompetence. They saw the ISI as deeply penetrated by Jihadist sympathizers
and the civilian government as unable to make firm decisions because of fear of public opinion, which was manipulated to prevent closer US-Pakistan cooperation against terrorism.