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US sleuths in India to discuss 'dangerous' Pak
WASHINGTON: You know something big and spooky is cooking when the three top intelligence honchos in the United States visit India much before any cabinet official in the new administration.
The visit this week to New Delhi of Leon Panetta, the Obama administration’s new CIA Director, marks a significant uptick in cooperation between US and India aimed at containing a collapsing Pakistan, with its dangerous mix of exporting terrorism and nuclear proliferation, according to sources.
The two sides are also discussing India’s role in Afghanistan, where the Obama administration is struggling to find the right balance between a military surge and a civilian swell to be detailed in the Af-Pak policy review due shortly.
Panetta’s visit to New Delhi was his first to a foreign country, and it followed trips to the region by the FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this month and National Intelligence Director John Michel McConnell in December.
In each case, the interlocutors have also visited Islamabad, amid a growing concern in Washington about what officials and analysts now regard as the ''most dangerous country in the world.'' Some experts have suggested US should be looking at Pak-Af policy rather than Af-Pak, since Pakistan is seen to be more dangerous to the US and the rest of the world.
The Mumbai attacks, the Pakistani agencies’ role in it, the failure of the military establishment in Pakistan to cap terrorism, and fears similar attacks in the west, has driven US agencies to engage intensely with its Indian counterparts RAW and IB. The Indian experience in Afghanistan is also of great interest to Washington.
So great is the worry in Washington about Pakistan, and so intent is the Obama administration in seeking India’s help to contain the fallout from what one analyst called its ''toxic asset,'' that it has called up from retirement a senior diplomat and a former intelligence analyst familiar with the region to serve in New Delhi as a stand-in envoy till the formal appointment of an ambassador.
Peter Burleigh accompanied Leon Panetta to New Delhi with good reason. As a young officer posted in New Delhi in 1973-1975, he was widely seen in the Indian establishment at that time (particularly by the Left) as a CIA agent, at a time when Indian fears about the infamous ''foreign hand'' was at its peak.
He subsequently returned to the region to Sri Lanka as an ambassador and later served as the US representative at U.N before his retirement in late 1990s. Most recently, he has served as a distinguished professor in residence at the University of Miami. Sources in Washington confirmed Burleigh’s intelligence background.
Burleigh, who is now 67, has been tipped for ambassadorial postings since his retirement (once to the Philippines) but he has powerful opponents in the Senate who are said to block his nomination.
Consequently, the Obama administration has now sent him to New Delhi to head the US mission there as a stop-gap measure pending the selection of a new ambassador to India, following the return of David Mulford. The process of selecting a new envoy could take several months because of the exhaustive vetting process.
Appointing Burleigh as the Charge d’Affairs through executive orders circumvents the nomination process. “I don’t think the administration wants to rush through anything on the India envoy front considering the number of recent screw-ups,” a former administration official who discussed the Burleigh appointment on background said.
Other sources in Washington said Burleigh was a ''known entity'' who was required in New Delhi at a very critical time in the region. He is said to speak Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Sinhalese, and Nepali and coordinate with other US missions in a region full of unstable countries surrounding India. They did not think his intelligence background in the 1970s was a problem now when the two sides are essentially ''on the same side.''
India evidently lost much of its suspicion and distaste for the CIA in the early 1990s with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet Union. The US too sees India now as a stabilizing power in a very troubled neighborhood where not just Pakistan, but also Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are all unstable.
In 1993, the Clinton administration appointed as ambassador to India Frank Wisner, whose father Frank Wisner Sr was one of the founding members of the OSS, which evolved into the CIA.
Since then, several former CIA analysts have served on the political and diplomatic side of the India beat, both in Washington and New Delhi, reclaiming some of the agency’s lost credibility in Indian eyes. Most famously, Bruce Riedel a former CIA analyst who is now entrusted with the Af-Pak review, made a call that held Pakistan responsible for the Kargil episode.
In January 2002, then home minister L.K.Advani visited the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a milestone that resulted in more open and intense cooperation between the two sides and the formal burial of the dreaded ''foreign hand,'' notwithstanding the residual fears among the Indian Left.
US sleuths in India to discuss 'dangerous' Pak - India - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: You know something big and spooky is cooking when the three top intelligence honchos in the United States visit India much before any cabinet official in the new administration.
The visit this week to New Delhi of Leon Panetta, the Obama administration’s new CIA Director, marks a significant uptick in cooperation between US and India aimed at containing a collapsing Pakistan, with its dangerous mix of exporting terrorism and nuclear proliferation, according to sources.
The two sides are also discussing India’s role in Afghanistan, where the Obama administration is struggling to find the right balance between a military surge and a civilian swell to be detailed in the Af-Pak policy review due shortly.
Panetta’s visit to New Delhi was his first to a foreign country, and it followed trips to the region by the FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this month and National Intelligence Director John Michel McConnell in December.
In each case, the interlocutors have also visited Islamabad, amid a growing concern in Washington about what officials and analysts now regard as the ''most dangerous country in the world.'' Some experts have suggested US should be looking at Pak-Af policy rather than Af-Pak, since Pakistan is seen to be more dangerous to the US and the rest of the world.
The Mumbai attacks, the Pakistani agencies’ role in it, the failure of the military establishment in Pakistan to cap terrorism, and fears similar attacks in the west, has driven US agencies to engage intensely with its Indian counterparts RAW and IB. The Indian experience in Afghanistan is also of great interest to Washington.
So great is the worry in Washington about Pakistan, and so intent is the Obama administration in seeking India’s help to contain the fallout from what one analyst called its ''toxic asset,'' that it has called up from retirement a senior diplomat and a former intelligence analyst familiar with the region to serve in New Delhi as a stand-in envoy till the formal appointment of an ambassador.
Peter Burleigh accompanied Leon Panetta to New Delhi with good reason. As a young officer posted in New Delhi in 1973-1975, he was widely seen in the Indian establishment at that time (particularly by the Left) as a CIA agent, at a time when Indian fears about the infamous ''foreign hand'' was at its peak.
He subsequently returned to the region to Sri Lanka as an ambassador and later served as the US representative at U.N before his retirement in late 1990s. Most recently, he has served as a distinguished professor in residence at the University of Miami. Sources in Washington confirmed Burleigh’s intelligence background.
Burleigh, who is now 67, has been tipped for ambassadorial postings since his retirement (once to the Philippines) but he has powerful opponents in the Senate who are said to block his nomination.
Consequently, the Obama administration has now sent him to New Delhi to head the US mission there as a stop-gap measure pending the selection of a new ambassador to India, following the return of David Mulford. The process of selecting a new envoy could take several months because of the exhaustive vetting process.
Appointing Burleigh as the Charge d’Affairs through executive orders circumvents the nomination process. “I don’t think the administration wants to rush through anything on the India envoy front considering the number of recent screw-ups,” a former administration official who discussed the Burleigh appointment on background said.
Other sources in Washington said Burleigh was a ''known entity'' who was required in New Delhi at a very critical time in the region. He is said to speak Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Sinhalese, and Nepali and coordinate with other US missions in a region full of unstable countries surrounding India. They did not think his intelligence background in the 1970s was a problem now when the two sides are essentially ''on the same side.''
India evidently lost much of its suspicion and distaste for the CIA in the early 1990s with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet Union. The US too sees India now as a stabilizing power in a very troubled neighborhood where not just Pakistan, but also Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are all unstable.
In 1993, the Clinton administration appointed as ambassador to India Frank Wisner, whose father Frank Wisner Sr was one of the founding members of the OSS, which evolved into the CIA.
Since then, several former CIA analysts have served on the political and diplomatic side of the India beat, both in Washington and New Delhi, reclaiming some of the agency’s lost credibility in Indian eyes. Most famously, Bruce Riedel a former CIA analyst who is now entrusted with the Af-Pak review, made a call that held Pakistan responsible for the Kargil episode.
In January 2002, then home minister L.K.Advani visited the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a milestone that resulted in more open and intense cooperation between the two sides and the formal burial of the dreaded ''foreign hand,'' notwithstanding the residual fears among the Indian Left.
US sleuths in India to discuss 'dangerous' Pak - India - The Times of India
