Cheney Makes Surprise Visit to Pakistan

[Neo]

Cheney Makes Surprise Visit to Pakistan

Pakistan: Cheney Worried About al-Qaida
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
4:27 AM PST, February 26, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Vice President Dick Cheney warned Monday that al-Qaida is "regrouping" in Pakistan's remote border region and sought President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's help in a stiffened push against Taliban and al-Qaida militants, Musharraf's office said.

Cheney's unannounced stopover en route to Afghanistan came as British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett also held talks with Musharraf and expressed concern about suspected militant safe havens near the Afghan frontier.

"Cheney expressed U.S. apprehensions of regrouping of al-Qaida in the tribal areas and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat," according to a faxed statement from the presidential office.

"He expressed serious U.S. concerns on the intelligence being picked up of an impending Taliban and al-Qaida 'spring offensive' against allied forces in Afghanistan," the statement said.

Cheney made no public comment after the talks in Musharraf's office in Islamabad.

The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, reported Monday that President Bush has decided to send a tough message to Musharraf, warning him that the Democrat-controlled Congress may cut off funding to Pakistan unless it gets more aggressive in hunting down al-Qaida and Taliban operatives in its country.

The Times report did not mention Cheney's visit to Pakistan and it was not known if the vice president conveyed such a message to Musharraf.

But unnamed senior administration officials told the newspaper that Bush decided to take a tougher line with Pakistan after concluding that Musharraf is failing to follow through on commitments to maintain the hunt for militants that he made during a September visit to Washington.

The U.S. and Britain have praised on Pakistan for its role in arresting al-Qaida suspects who hid in Pakistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks triggered the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

But they are pressing Pakistan to do more to disrupt Pakistan-based Taliban expected to step up raids into Afghanistan in the coming months and to trap Taliban and al-Qaida leaders suspected of hiding in the border region.

Musharraf complains that Pakistan is being scapegoated for failures inside Afghanistan and contends that it has received no evidence that militants leaders such as Osama bin Laden or the Taliban's Mullah Omar are on Pakistani soil.

During more than two hours of talks Monday, Musharraf told Cheney that Pakistan "has done the maximum in the fight against terrorism" and that "joint efforts were needed for achieving the desired objectives," his office said.

Musharraf also defended a September peace agreement with militants in the North Waziristan tribal region. Critics say the deal effectively ceded the area to militants and some U.S. military officials say it was followed by a rise in attacks in Afghanistan.

The agreement, under which tribal leaders are supposed to curb militant activities, "is the way forward," Musharraf said, arguing that tribesmen are best turned against the militants with economic aid and political measures.

http://article.wn.com/view/2007/02/26/Cheney_Makes_Surprise_Visit_to_Pakistan_98/

 

[A.Rahman]

Send him & taliban on friendly quail hunting trip.

 

[TexasJohn]

Send him & taliban on friendly quail hunting trip.

He will probably miss and shoot one of his own dudes!!

 

[Goodperson]

Best is to wait for official statement from Musharaf.

 

[HAIDER]

Musharraf, those days a designated armed mailman for Iran and Afgan taliban..stability in afgansitan is required before attack on Iran.

 

[kidwaibhai]

Musharraf, those days a designated armed mailman for Iran and Afgan taliban..stability in afgansitan is required before attack on Iran.

what do you mean by mailman. there will never be stability in afganistan only thing they want to do is make afghanistan more stable. :wall:

 

[pilot_dude]

If one wants stability in afghanistan one must start kissing some serious afghan arse...no other way of making afghanistan stable. Gonna need a million workers for thus cause working for a million years to get whats needed.

 

[Janbaz]

Send him & taliban on friendly quail hunting trip.

To promote brotherly love...............

 

[Neo]

Send him & taliban on friendly quail hunting trip.

Good one!

 

[Neo]

February 27, 2007
Tough message’ report denied by White House

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Feb 26: The White House on Monday refused to describe the message Vice-President Dick Cheney brought with him to Pakistan as `tough’ but also refused to answer questions about the possibility that the new Democrat-controlled Congress could cut US aid to Islamabad if it failed to curb militant activities in tribal areas.

“I'll let others characterise. We have not been saying it's a tough message,” said White House Press Secretary Tony Snow when asked to define the message Mr Cheney conveyed to President Musharraf at a meeting in Islamabad earlier Monday.

“What we're saying is ... the vice-president is meeting with President Musharraf because we do understand the importance of making even greater progress against Al Qaeda, against the Taliban,” he said.

The White House press secretary said he was also not going to “talk about the tone, tenor or precise content” of what the vice-president had to say to President Musharraf.

“When you engage in conversations with sovereign heads of state in situations like that, you do it on a confidential basis, knowing that you're going to be able to have the benefit of full honesty, and at the same time you're going to be more constructive in working together,” he said.

When another reporter asked if President Bush was satisfied with President Musharraf’s efforts in the war on terror, Mr Snow said: “I think the appropriate question is, is he doing what he can? Is he committed to winning? And the answer is yes.”

He then added: As long as you have terrorists at large in the world, the president's not going to be satisfied and I dare say that President Musharraf is not satisfied.”

Mr Snow was also asked if the US military was prepared to take direct action in Pakistan’s tribal territory against Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents, to which he said: “I would let military officials answer a question like that.”

http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/27/top2.htm

 

[Neo]

Cheney visit an attempt to pressure Pakistan
But analysts say U.S. has little leverage over Musharraf
Laura King, Los Angeles Times

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

(02-27) 04:00 PST Islamabad, Pakistan -- Vice President Dick Cheney's unannounced visit to the Pakistani capital Monday is the latest and most visible signal of renewed U.S. pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to crack down on Islamic militants in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

But complex domestic considerations in Pakistan, and a keen awareness on Musharraf's part that the Bush administration sees no palatable alternative to his leadership, diminish the prospect of any dramatic Pakistani move against the militants, diplomats and analysts say.

"There is only so far that he is prepared to go," said Rahul Roy-Chaudhury of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a leading British think tank on security matters. "Some of this is dictated by the (Pakistani) military's view of things, and some by the fact that this is not politically popular in large parts of Pakistan. ... He's not willing to go beyond a certain limit."

In his unannounced stopover, Cheney became the highest-ranking U.S. official of late to press Musharraf to rein in what American officials characterize as a volatile mix of homegrown Pakistani militant groups, Taliban strategists and al Qaeda elements, all operating with an increasing degree of freedom in the tribal zones along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The issue has been central to U.S.-Pakistan relations since the Sept. 11 attacks, but seldom has the Bush administration been as blunt or as public in its pressure on Musharraf, a key ally in the region. The stepped-up pressure also comes as Congress threatens to cut aid to Pakistan unless it sees more concrete results in combatting militants' cross-border infiltration to Afghanistan.

Neither Cheney nor Musharraf spoke publicly before or after their meeting at the presidential palace, which lasted more than two hours. They appeared before the cameras for a handshake only.

In a written statement, however, the Pakistani leader's office acknowledged that Musharraf had come under at least indirect criticism from the vice president. Cheney "expressed U.S. apprehensions of (the) regrouping of al Qaeda in the tribal areas and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat," the statement said.

Cheney was accompanied by Steve Kappes, the deputy CIA director, whose presence underscored U.S. concern over intelligence assessments that indicate a deteriorating situation in the tribal areas.

For his part, Musharraf hewed to what has become his government's scripted reply to such concerns: that Pakistan already is doing all it can, and that the burden of confronting the Taliban and its allies must be shared by other parties, including the Afghan government and NATO.

The Pakistani leader told Cheney that the international community is "collectively responsible for defeating the scourge of terrorism," adding that "Pakistan has done the maximum," the government statement said.

And in a protest against any move to cut aid to his government, the fifth-largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, Musharraf decried "proposed discriminatory legislation regarding U.S. aid to Pakistan," according to the Pakistani statement.

Several Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there is a gap between Western expectations and what Musharraf is in a position to accomplish.

Pakistan has been enduring a spate of suicide bombings that began after a government air raid aimed at Islamic militants in the tribal areas late last year. Some analysts suggest that the Pakistani leader risks being blamed if such raids trigger a backlash in Pakistani towns and cities.

"If he goes back to a more robust military intervention, the view here will be that he is toeing the American line," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general. "I think it will give rise to a lot of spillover effect, in terms of violence and suicide bombings, against both hard and soft targets."

And Musharraf is unlikely to let his own domestic political agenda be dictated by Washington, Roy-Chaudhury said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/27/MNG82OBGNP1.DTL&feed=rss.news

 

[Janbaz]

Leverage yeah, the president is under Uncle Sam, like a Governer General preaching American beliefs and doctrines and oh yeah, values.

 

[Neo]

Who should ‘do more’?

IT is amazing that it is the US that should tell Pakistan to ‘do more’ in the war on terror. If Washington had not been guilty of what can be called a virtual abandonment of Afghanistan and opened a new front in Iraq, things to the west of Pakistan and in the tribal belt itself would have been vastly different. There is now a “surge” in American troops in Iraq, and having already ploughed 300 billion dollars into that country, the Bush administration has asked for a similar amount for a war that most observers consider unwinnable. If the US had spent a fraction of that amount on Afghanistan and made serious efforts to win the Afghan people over, the allies would not be bracing themselves today for a spring offensive by the Taliban. These are the obvious thoughts that come to one’s mind when one finds Mr Dick Cheney making a sudden appearance in Islamabad on the heels of press reports that Washington was going to “talk tough” to President Pervez Musharraf and warn Islamabad of an aid cut if it did not “do more”. The White House later denied the press reports, though the denial itself was nebulous, lacked substance and equivocated in a manner that only tended to confirm the reports.

A pattern now seems to have emerged: the administration leaks reports to sections of the American media about the “tough talk” and America’s unhappiness with Pakistan’s purported unwillingness to do all it could to crush the Taliban and check the cross-border movement which is supposed to be only in one direction. This is followed the next day by a White House or State Department cliché-ridden denial, which also contains a bit of plaudits for Islamabad’s role in the war on terror. President Musharraf’s meeting with the US vice-president on Monday was not followed by a joint press conference, and it was only an official handout that let the world know what had happened during the meeting. However, the American press said that Pakistan had “lashed out” and made

it clear that it “does not accept dictation from any side or any source”. President Musharraf also said, according to the handout, that the international community was collectively responsible for the war on terror. The truth of this assertion must be seen in the context of the president’s earlier remark that guarding the Durand Line was not Pakistan’s sole responsibility.

What the Americans fail to realise is that the war on terror is in Pakistan’s own interest. It is not that Pakistan is a front-line state because it borders Afghanistan; it is a front-line state because, if unchecked, the wave of religious obscurantism could overwhelm Pakistan and tear apart the very fabric of civil society. Zille Huma was not an American; she was a Pakistani killed by a fanatic who believed that women could not be “rulers” and must wear the hijab. It is insane obscurantism of this kind that is Pakistan’s problem, in addition to the militants who continue to move across the Durand Line. Irrespective of what the allies on the other side of the border do, Pakistan must

not waver. It has to fight the war on two fronts: the Afghanistan-based Taliban and the obscurantist elements within the country. Those who want Pakistan to ‘do more’ should have an appraising look at their own performance.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/28/ed.htm

 

[Neo]

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Grudging acknowledgment of Pakistan’s role in ‘war on terror’

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: President Pervez Musharraf’s government has received grudging acknowledgment of what it has done in the ‘war against terrorism’ by a newspaper, which is chronically critical of Pakistan and its policies.

The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial on Wednesday that while Islamabad needed to hear the kind of “stiff” message Dick Cheney reportedly delivered to Gen Musharraf, “there’s no need to accuse Pakistani intelligence of tipping off the Taliban about Mr Cheney’s whereabouts to see a connection between decisions in Islamabad and terrorism in Bagram.” The editorial added, “This is not to say the Musharraf government has done nothing in the fight against terror. Hundreds of Pakistani soldiers have died fighting Taliban elements, and Pakistani cooperation was essential in the killing or capture of such Al Qaeda ringleaders as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. General Musharraf has twice been the target of Islamist assassination attempts. But his government has been suspected of cutting deals of convenience with Islamist political groups, and it has formed alliances with pro-Taliban forces in Pakistan’s parliament, in a common front against secular democrats who might come to power if the General allowed a truly free election.”

The newspaper took the view that the Waziristan deal signed by Pakistan with tribal leaders in September last year had allowed the Taliban to operate unfettered in the province in exchange for a promise not to launch raids into Afghanistan. The number of raids has since more than doubled, say Afghan and US military sources. One immediate result is that Congressional Democrats, including House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos, are floating measures to curb US arms sales to Pakistan, an echo of the Pressler Amendment that took effect when the first Bush administration decertified Pakistan as a non-nuclear state.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Nobody should want to reprise that chapter of US-Pakistan relations, which did nothing to stop Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions (or, later, its support for the Taliban) while denying the US the diplomatic leverage it previously had with Pakistan governments. But sanctions will only become more likely if the American public sees Pakistan as an enabler of the Taliban in its campaign to destabilise the Karzai government in Kabul and kill Americans, including the vice president. Policing its long and mountainous border with Afghanistan has exacted a high price in Pakistani lives and treasure. Failing to police it may exact a higher one.”
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\01\story_1-3-2007_pg7_23