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.

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