We are posting this for a few reasons. First, because every news outlet in Pakistan is reporting the story of a “Secret US Order” that allowed military raids into Pakistan. Second, former President Musharraf’s stand that neither he, nor anyone in his government, approved these raids. Third, the current government’s regular complaints to the US over the ever increasing drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan going unheard.

The NY Times story, re-produced below, gives the world the details of a 2004 confidential order signed by Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush. According to the news story, this order gave the US military open orders to enter and operate within any country where the US felt al-Qaeda was hiding, including Pakistan and Syria. 

And the American’s wonder why there is so much anti-Americanism in the world today…. I guess when you categorically decided to attack anywhere in the world, kill innocent civilians and destroy people’s homes, people should welcome you with parades and guards of honor… I guess that only happens in Pakistan….

Additionally, this should make us very suspicious of any of the IMF conditions, especially the demand to decrease our military forces by 1/3 and re-vamp, shut down in US terms, our Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). These terms were never acceptable in the past and should not be considered as part of any IMF support package. 

Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON - The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants’ compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission - captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft - in real time in the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center at the agency’s headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

Some of the military missions have been conducted in close coordination with the C.I.A., according to senior American officials, who said that in others, like the Special Operations raid in Syria on Oct. 26 of this year, the military commandos acted in support of C.I.A.-directed operations.

But as many as a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years, often to the dismay of military commanders, senior military officials said. They said senior administration officials had decided in these cases that the missions were too risky, were too diplomatically explosive or relied on insufficient evidence.

More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature. Spokesmen for the White House, the Defense Department and the military declined to comment.

Read more »

In the 9/11 terrorist attacks on twin towers in New York in which about 3000 persons died, no Afghan or Pakistani was involved. All the 19 perpetrators of the crime were Arabs, mostly hailing from Saudi Arabia. Yet the wrath of USA fell on Afghanistan for a bizarre reason that the so-called master mind behind the attacks was Osama bin Laden based in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar kept requesting that proof of his complicity should be furnished to enable him to hand over his guest but none was provided.

Terrorism became a buzzword and the fuming sole super power pounced upon militarily extremely weak and economically impoverished Afghanistan with utmost ferocity and decimated it. The whole world including UNSC supported the ghoulish invasion and its occupation under the hope that it would help in eliminating global terrorism.

Iraq too was pulverised on a cooked up story of WMDs and linkage with Al-Qaeda. Both charges turned out to be totally fabricated. Saddam as well as UN inspectors kept saying till the last that there were no WMDs, but Bush and Blair ignored them as well as world protests and went ahead with the second invasion without UNSC blessing. After destroying the two countries, USA is now bent upon destroying one of its close allies Pakistan which had played a key role in ousting Taliban and in getting Karzai elected. Without Pakistan?s all out military support, it may not have been possible for US-NATO forces to stay in Afghanistan for that long.

In case of Afghanistan and Iraq, both Mullah Omar and Saddam Hussein refused to buckle under US repeated threats followed by troop mobilisation. Instead of submitting to US diktat they opted to fight the aggressor well knowing that they were non-nuclear states and their conventional means were no match to the military prowess of sole super power duly aided by all the advanced nations of the world. In our case, we had nuclear weapons and adequate conventional means to defend our homeland. However, our commando General who never tired of bragging about his boldness, turned into a kitten when he received a phone call from Washington. He hastily threw in his towel and provided US spy agencies and its military forces large-scale facilities to make easy USA task of achieving its long term objectives. He justified his cowardly act of ditching the friendly Taliban and befriending USA on the premise that had he not done so Pakistan for sure would have been destroyed. Read more »

The first-ever ground military attack on Pakistan’s soil by the US-led troops on Sept 3 provoked strong condemnation and outrage in Pakistan. Now the cat is out of the bag. The New York Times said the raids were authorised by President Bush “without the approval of the Pakistani government.” The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen declared on Sept 10 that the US military “will revise its strategy for Afghanistan to include militant safe havens in Pakistan in its areas of concern.” Translated in simple terms, the US attacks are part of a well planned strategy. Gen Pervez Kayani rejected US claims that the “rules of engagement” gave the coalition forces the right to enter Pakistan. He denied that there was “any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border.” Prime Minister Gilani backed Kayani’s statement while President Zardari has so far chosen to keep quiet and talk about Kashmir. If he decides to visit Britain first and not China, as was earlier reported, it may be seen as a capitulation to the US pressure. 

The ground attack had come after a number of airstrikes and artillery attacks which have intensified this year. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi termed the attack as shameful, regrettable and surprising and an “unforgivable incident.” Since Mr Qureshi’s statement, more missile attacks have killed dozens of innocent people near the Afghanistan border. Qureshi said he was surprised at the attack but was the attack really a surprise or the attacks were purely unilateral American acts? A careful review of the developments and reports since January suggests otherwise. 

A New York Times report of Feb 22, 2008 offers some insights into what has been brewing. The paper reported that “American officials reached a quiet understanding with General Musharraf in January [2008] to intensify secret strikes against suspected terrorists.” The paper noted that the new agreements with Pakistan came after a trip to the country on Jan. 9, 2008 by Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Gen Michael Hayden, the CIA director. The American officials met with Mr Musharraf and the army chief, Gen Kayani, and offered a “range of increased covert operations” aimed at thwarting intensifying efforts by Al Qaeda and the Taliban to destabilise the Pakistani government. 

On March 22, 2008, Newsweek confirmed these reports and disclosed that although some news reports said at the time that Musharraf had “rebuffed” US proposals to step up combat operations inside Pakistan, US officials and Pakistani sources, who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive information, said the recent wave of Predator attacks are at least partly the result of understandings the high-level visitors reached with Musharraf and other top Pakistanis, ‘giving the United States virtually unrestricted authority to hit targets in the border areas.’

Alarm in Pakistan about possible American intervention rose after a surprise visit July 12 by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm Mike Mullen, to Islamabad, where he met with the army chief, Gen Kayani; Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani; and President Pervez Musharraf. It was Admiral Mullen’s fourth visit to Pakistan in six months. Days afterward, reports about a build-up of NATO forces on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan added to Pakistani anxiety. 

On Aug 28, Admiral Mullen again met his General Kayani secretly on board a US aircraft-carrier in the Indian Ocean. After the news was broken by The New York Times, Mullen conducted a press briefing and heaped praise on Kayani. 

Mullen said: “… as I’ve come to know him [Gen Kayani], he’s been very clear to me, and not just in saying it, but what his actions are, that his goal — my view — is to do the right thing. He’s an extraordinary individual and his ultimate — his goals are — his principles and goals are to do what’s best for Pakistan. And everything he’s done, our engagement, indicates that’s absolutely the case.” 

However, Admiral Mullen refused to give more information about his meeting saying, “”I’m not prepared to discuss in great detail the specifics of everything that we covered. But I can tell you I came away from the meeting very encouraged that the focus is where it needs to be at the military to military relationship.”

This theme was earlier articulated by Lisa Curtis, an influential analyst and a former CIA official, in a Heritage Foundation (a think tank) paper dated Aug 7. “The army’s full attention should be on the real threat to the country’s future: the advance of Taliban militants along the border with Afghanistan and in some of the settled areas of the Northwest Frontier Province”, she wrote. In an obvious reference to the charges that the US actions could destabilise Pakistan, Curtis stressed that Islamabad must accept that regarding terrorism, ‘a convergence of US interests with those of Kabul and New Delhi does not translate into a wider conspiracy to undermine core Pakistani national security interests.’

The US attaches the top most priority to stop the infiltration of the militants into Afghanistan from Pakistan’s tribal areas and deny them a ’safe haven’ from which to launch attacks. It has been dealing directly with Pakistan’s military leadership under Musharraf and now with the tacit approval of the PPP government which has not shown any serious will to stand up to the US policy of conducting military operations from across the borders. They may now be reaching the point where they could cost it popular support and, consequently, its ability to fight militancy. 

Apparently, while the US is satisfied with the cooperation of Pakistan’s military and political leadership, notwithstanding its reservations about the role of the ISI or elements within it, the Bush administration seems to place a low priority on supporting democracy. It remains to be seen if a Democrat president would follow a substantially different policy.

The attacks came just days before the presidential election and were coincided by a stinging personal attack on Mr Zardari in the conservative The Wall Street Journal on Sept 2. In an article written by a member of the editorial board, the paper alleged that the Pakistani government agreed to stop its air strikes on the Taliban, in exchange for which Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam agreed to throw its support to Mr Zardari. The paper described him as a caricature of everything that’s morally bankrupt with the country’s Westernised elite, and thus an inviting propaganda target for Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “Al Qaeda and the Taliban feed on chaos, and a Zardari presidency will almost certainly provide more of it.”

Whether or not, these views reflect the thinking of the White House and US establishment, Pakistan is likely to face more military strikes and a even greater pressure from Washington, directly and indirectly, overtly and covertly, in both political and economic terms, to aggressively fight the Taliban, and to ‘do more’ sans negotiations with the ‘terrorists’. Hence, the ‘hot pursuits’ and airstrikes are likely to intensify in the coming months despite “strong protests” from Pakistan’s leaders. If allowed to continue, they will further inflame the insurgency and may ultimately lead to a military takeover by destabilizing the civilian government.

The writer is an economist and author of The Gathering Storm in Pakistan: Political Economy of a Security State. Email: ynazar@cyber.net.pk