Hulk
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2009
- Messages
- 7,582
- Reaction score
- -18
- Country
- Location
DAWN.COM | Front Page | Pak urged to acknowledge role in drone strikes
WSHINGTON: A senior US senator urged Pakistan on Wednesday to publicly acknowledge its role in drone attacks but other experts said they did not see either Washington or Islamabad owning up the air strikes.
In a conference call with reporters from Dubai, Senator Carl Levin scolded Pakistans leaders for privately supporting US drone strikes while publicly denouncing them. What troubles me is the public attack on these drone attacks, he said.
While at the same time theyve privately obviously not told us that we must stop, chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee said.
Further stressing the point, he claimed that Pakistani leaders not only understand and acquiesce, but in many cases privately support the drone attacks. The minimum the United States should expect from Pakistan is a silence on their part rather than a public attack on us.
Such criticism creates real problems for us in terms of the Pakistani public and helps create some real animosity towards us a sense of revenge, the implication that were violating Pakistans sovereignty, he said.Senator Levin said he believed it was wrong to put all the blame on the US and Ive told them that to their face.
He reminded Pakistani leaders that unmanned aerial vehicles had been extremely successful at knocking off a significant number of Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.
In an earlier congressional hearing, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers that Pakistan not only approved the drone attacks, it had an arrangement that allowed Islamabad to receive data collected by the aircraft.
In terms of support and information, they have asked for that, and where theyve asked for that, weve supported them, the admiral told a Senate panel.
WSHINGTON: A senior US senator urged Pakistan on Wednesday to publicly acknowledge its role in drone attacks but other experts said they did not see either Washington or Islamabad owning up the air strikes.
In a conference call with reporters from Dubai, Senator Carl Levin scolded Pakistans leaders for privately supporting US drone strikes while publicly denouncing them. What troubles me is the public attack on these drone attacks, he said.
While at the same time theyve privately obviously not told us that we must stop, chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee said.
Further stressing the point, he claimed that Pakistani leaders not only understand and acquiesce, but in many cases privately support the drone attacks. The minimum the United States should expect from Pakistan is a silence on their part rather than a public attack on us.
Such criticism creates real problems for us in terms of the Pakistani public and helps create some real animosity towards us a sense of revenge, the implication that were violating Pakistans sovereignty, he said.Senator Levin said he believed it was wrong to put all the blame on the US and Ive told them that to their face.
He reminded Pakistani leaders that unmanned aerial vehicles had been extremely successful at knocking off a significant number of Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.
In an earlier congressional hearing, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers that Pakistan not only approved the drone attacks, it had an arrangement that allowed Islamabad to receive data collected by the aircraft.
In terms of support and information, they have asked for that, and where theyve asked for that, weve supported them, the admiral told a Senate panel.
