Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes

[pkpatriotic]

U.S., Pakistan Have Tacit Agreement on Airstrikes - washingtonpost.com
By Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 16, 2008

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

The arrangement coincided with a suspension of ground assaults into Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview last week that he was aware of no ground attacks since one on Sept. 3 that his government vigorously protested.

Officials described the attacks, using new technology and improved intelligence, as a significant improvement in the fight against Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Officials confirmed the deaths of at least three senior al-Qaeda figures in strikes last month.

Zardari said that he receives "no prior notice" of the airstrikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans "the benefit of the doubt" that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land.

Civilian deaths remain a problem, Zardari said. "If the damage is women and children, then the sensitivity of its effect increases," he said. The U.S. "point of view," he said, is that the attacks are "good for everybody. Our point of view is that it is not good for our position of winning the hearts and minds of people."

A senior Pakistani official said that although the attacks contribute to widespread public anger in Pakistan, anti-Americanism there is closely associated with President Bush. Citing a potentially more favorable popular view of President-elect Barack Obama, he said that "maybe with a new administration, public opinion will be more pro-American and we can start acknowledging" more cooperation.

The official, one of several who discussed the sensitive military and intelligence relationship only on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S-Pakistani understanding over the airstrikes is "the smart middle way for the moment." Contrasting Zardari with his predecessor, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the official said Musharraf "gave lip service but not effective support" to the Americans. "This government is delivering but not taking the credit."
QUOTE:
What a great deal to make fool of public, now what happen.... nothing peoples still senseless and abile to be stupid a lot, so dont worry there is no chance appearing of wakeup nearby so keep it up to refill your new bank accounts by jeoperdizing sovergnity

From December to August, when Musharraf stepped down, there were six U.S. Predator attacks in Pakistan. Since then, there have been at least 19. The most recent occurred early Friday, when local officials and witnesses said at least 11 people, including six foreign fighters, were killed. The attack, in North Waziristan, one of the seven FATA regions, demolished a compound owned by Amir Gul, a Taliban commander said to have ties to al-Qaeda.

Pakistan's self-praise is not entirely echoed by U.S. officials, who remain suspicious of ties between Pakistan's intelligence service and FATA-based extremists. But the Bush administration has muted its criticism of Pakistan. In a speech to the Atlantic Council last week, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden effusively praised Pakistan's recent military operations, including "tough fighting against hardened militants" in the northern FATA region of Bajaur.

"Throughout the FATA," Hayden said, "al-Qaeda and its allies are feeling less secure today than they did two, three or six months ago. It has become difficult for them to ignore significant losses in their ranks." Hayden acknowledged, however, that al-Qaeda remains a "determined, adaptive enemy," operating from a "safe haven" in the tribal areas.

Along with the stepped-up Predator attacks, Bush administration strategy includes showering Pakistan's new leaders with close, personal attention. Zardari met with Bush during the U.N. General Assembly in September, and senior military and intelligence officials have exchanged near-constant visits over the past few months.

Pakistan's new intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, traveled to Washington in late October, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, installed on Oct. 31 as head of the U.S. Central Command, visited Islamabad on his third day in office. On Wednesday, Hayden flew to New York for a secret visit with Zardari, who was attending a U.N. conference.

Zardari spoke over the telephone with Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a conversation Pakistani officials said they considered an initial contact with the incoming Obama administration. Although Kerry has been mentioned as a possible secretary of state, the officials said he indicated that he expects to continue in the Senate, where he is in line to take over Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Despite improved relations with the Bush administration, Zardari said, "we think we need a new dialogue, and we're hoping that the new government will . . . understand that Pakistan has done more than they recognize" and is a victim of the same insurgency the United States is fighting. Pakistan hopes that a $7.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, announced yesterday, will spark new international investment and aid.

Pakistan, whose military has received more than $10 billion in direct U.S. payments since 2001, also wants the United States to provide sophisticated weapons to its armed forces, Zardari said. Rather than using U.S. Predator-fired missiles against Pakistani territory, he asked, why not give Pakistan its own Predators? "Give them to us. . . . we are your allies," he said.

Last month, officials confirmed, Predator strikes in the FATA killed Khalid Habib, described as al-Qaeda's No. 4 official, and senior operatives Abu Jihad al-Masri and Abu Hassan al-Rimi. Three other senior al-Qaeda figures -- explosives expert Abu Khabab al-Masri, Abu Sulayman al-Jazairi and senior commander Abu Laith al-Libi --were killed during the first nine months of the year.

Current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials said improved intelligence has been an important factor in the increased tempo and precision of the Predator strikes. Over the past year, they said, the United States has been able to improve its network of informants in the border region while also fielding new hardware that allows close tracking of the movements of suspected militants.

The missiles are fired from unmanned aircraft by the CIA. But the drones are only part of a diverse network of machines and software used by the agency to spot terrorism suspects and follow their movements, the officials said. The equipment, much of which remains highly classified, includes an array of powerful sensors mounted on satellites, airplanes, blimps and drones of every size and shape.

Before 2002, the CIA had no experience in using the Predator as a weapon. But in recent years -- and especially in the past 12 months -- spy agencies have honed their skills at tracking and killing single individuals using aerial vehicles operated by technicians hundreds or thousands of miles away. James R. Clapper Jr., the Pentagon's chief intelligence officer, said the new brand of warfare has "gotten very laserlike and very precise."

"It's having the ability, once you know who you're after, to study and watch very steadily and consistently -- persistently," Clapper told a recent gathering of intelligence professionals and contractors in Nashville. "And then, at the appropriate juncture, with due regard for reducing collateral casualties or damage, going after that individual."

Two former senior intelligence officials familiar with the use of the Predator in Pakistan said the rift between Islamabad and Washington over the unilateral attacks was always less than it seemed.

"By killing al-Qaeda, you're helping Pakistan's military and you're disrupting attacks that could be carried out in Karachi and elsewhere," said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Pakistan's new acquiescence coincided with the new government there and a sharp increase in domestic terrorist attacks, including the September bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

"The attacks inside Pakistan have changed minds," the official said. "These guys are worried, as they should be."

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.

 

[pkpatriotic]

New U.S. admin to halt drones’ attacks inside Pakistan: Gilani
Sunday, November 16, 2008

KARACHI: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani hoped that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s administration would halt drones’ attacks inside Pakistan.

Addressing the gathering here on Sunday, Prime Minister Gilani said change process is underway in the US, adding that the government was in regular contact with the new U.S. administration.

To a question, Premier Gilani said Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is part of government and a coalition partner. Pakistan Steel Mills and Qadirpur gas field will not be privatized, he clarified.

About IMF, he said every previous government had taken loans during its tenure and added that such criticism against the PPP-led government was uncalled for.

QUOTE:
What non-sense have no ethics nor limits to ruin the facts, economy and ultimately the country..........How dare of such politicios that the exposing of their "Tacit deal" as mentioned in news published by Washington post-USA, as posted in titles, could not stop to stating lies further in this regards atleast that if they can't tell truth to the nation so shut their mouth and dont comments any more now.
Here this is not a matter in fact that we are facing severe situation, as Problems are the always be there in every ones life as individual and as a nation, but the intentions of the governing bodies and the ways shows not only their lack of capabilities of leadership, but lack of nationallism which may be high alert to the nation to think and determine that where we are, and where we have to go? Are We really are such a sovereign nation belongs to such school of thoughts-Islam which emphisis on accountibility, justice and justification as basics of social system?
We have to reassess our individual social charactor and responsibilities, get rid of weeknesses and faults as maximum as possible to make a real worthy soical society which hope full may causes to positive impact to the leadership too.
HOPE BUT FIRST TO HAVE BE RESPONSIBLE TO DO FOR THE BEST AS AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND AS A NATION!
GOOD LUCK

 

[pkpatriotic]

Pakistan Denies Accord With U.S. on Drone Attacks

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) —Pakistan denied on Monday a U.S. media report that it had given tacit approval to the United States to carry out missile strikes by pilotless drones against al Qaeda and Taliban targets on its soil.
The Washington Post on Sunday cited unidentified Pakistani and U.S. officials as saying that the two countries agreed in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allowed Predator aircraft to attack militants in the Pakistani border region with Afghanistan.

But Pakistani ministers said there was no such agreement.

"There is no understanding. There is no tacit understanding," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told parliament.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman rejected the report as "cooked up."

"There is absolutely no question of government entering into such agreement that would allow bombardment of its own people."

Relations between the United States and its major ally in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban have become more strained since U.S. forces launched a ground attack against militants in the Pakistani tribal region on the border with Afghanistan in September.

Although the United States has refrained from sending ground troops into Pakistani territory since the September 3 incursion, its Predators have carried out nearly 20 missile strikes since then, the latest in the past week in which 12 people, including five foreign militants, were killed.

The Washington Post said the agreement between Pakistan and the United States on drone attacks coincided with the suspension of U.S. ground assaults into Pakistan.

Under the deal, the Post said the U.S. government would refuse to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan would continue to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

Pakistani officials say the U.S. strikes will incite public anger against the United States in the country where the U.S.-led war on terrorism is very unpopular.
(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Giles Elgood)

 

[pkpatriotic]

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in Pakistan Drone War
By Noah Shachtman
November 18, 2008
Agony of A-Stan, Drones, Perils of Pakistan

America's top commander in Afghanistan says he doesn't have anything to do with the flurry of U.S. killer drone attacks in the nearby border regions of Pakistan.

In an interview with Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, General David McKiernan, the Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said, "these drones do not come under my command."

It's part of a delicate diplomatic dance surrounding the stepped-up unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes against the Pakistani-based militants who have become one of the leading dangers for coalition forces in Afghanistan. The Washington Post calls it "a don't-ask-don't-tell policy" for the robotic assaults. "The U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes."

This wink-wink-nudge-nudge approach is made easier because the drones hitting Pakistan aren't being operated by the U.S. military, it seems. The Central Intelligence Agency is remotely-flying the UAVs.

Hence Gen. McKiernan's statement. "For more context, unmanned aerial vehicles operating within the borders of Afghanistan may fall under his command," a spokesman for McKiernan e-mails. "But anything in Pakistan would not come under his command. As Gen. McKiernan often puts it, his mandate stops at the Afghan border."

Another example came in late September, when an American-made Predator drone went down in Pakistan; the wreckage was shown on national television. But Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told Danger Room, "It wasn't a U.S. UAV." Well, maybe not a U.S. military drone.

Since the start of August, American Predator and Reaper drones have struck at least 20 times on Pakistani targets. The latest attack killed at least 10; Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called the hits "counterproductive."

But as the Post's story makes clear, the Pakistani government feels quite the opposite. Terrorist attacks within Pakistan have persuaded the government that the border-based "are a grave threat to Pakistan as well as to Afghanistan and the U.S.," Slate's William Saletan notes.

Terrorists use civilian deaths and the prospect of more civilian deaths to blackmail governments. This is a political game, not just a military one... In Pakistan, they've tried the same thing, but this time with a new twist: The enemy they're trying to neutralize is mechanical. The terrorists can't bog down or kill the drones because drones don't bleed and they don't have to land. So the terrorists tried to blackmail the nearest civilian target, Pakistan, to gain leverage over the drones.

If the Post story is correct, this strategy failed. In fact, it backfired. The terrorists are losing not just the military fight but the political one.

UPDATE: "The overwhelming bulk of all activity in Afghanistan since the first U.S. forces went in have been basically under the control of the Central Command," Donald Rumsfeld told Sharon, back in 2002. "An exception has been the armed Predators, which are CIA-operated."

 

[pkpatriotic]

Attack of the drone
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Mir Jamilur Rahman

Pakistan has made as many protests to the US against the drone attacks and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has been blowing hot and cold. But the US has not acknowledged a single protest and continues bombing FATA, and the drone attacks are on the increase. The US used to say sorry for any collateral damage from its actions, but it no more utters a word of sympathy for the FATA casualties, who are mostly women and children.

Does this mean that the drones are entering Pakistan with government permission? It seems so. A few days ago a US newspaper quoted American sources as saying that the US and Pakistani governments are in tacit agreement on the drone strikes. Under this agreement, according to the Post, Islamabad allows the strikes while continuing to complain about them. The Foreign Office has denied the existence of such an agreement.

The prime minister has given a new assurance to the nation, that the drone strikes into Pakistani territory would immediately cease when Barack Obama takes over Jan 20, and that talks were going on between Pakistan and Obama's transition team. However, the chances of these talks' success are very slim. Like President Bush and many other American leaders Obama is convinced that Pakistan's tribal areas present a great security threat to the US.

We cannot stop the drone strikes by force, as Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar has stated. He was accused of timidity and defeatism and lacking a sense of honour, but the minister was talking sense. It is better to be timid than pick up a war you cannot win. Just think of the US aircraft-carrier Abraham Lincoln anchored near our coastline. It has more F-16 planes parked on its deck than Pakistan's total number of F-16 planes.

Most of our ministers are rookies, and half of them have spoken on the issue of privatisation. One day a minister says that Pakistan Steel Mills and Qadirpur Gas Field will be privatised, only to be contradicted by another minister the next day. Such contradictory statements coming from government minister confuse people and further damage the credibility of the government. And now the prime minister has himself stated that the two units are not being considered for privatisation.

Governor Salmaan Taseer of Punjab has started writing letters to Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, accusing him of not following the Constitution. He has pointed to a number of instances where the chief minister has allegedly acted unconstitutionally. There are other pointers which indicate that the PPP/PML-N marriage of inconvenience is heading towards a breakup. For instance, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, has demanded inter alia that, as president, Asif Zardari resign as co-chairman of the PPP.

Isn't it rather late in the day to make this demand now, rather that at the time of presidential election? The PML-N would have made its point more effective by threatening a boycott of the election unless Mr Zardari stepped down from his party position. In any case, this demand has no legal status, since Mr Zardari is not infringing the Constitution or any law by simultaneously holding the two positions. The writing of letters to the PML-N chief minister by the governor of Punjab, who is a born-again PPP activist, and Chaudhry Nisar's sharp criticism of the policies of the PPP government are clear indications that things are rapidly moving towards a head-on collision.

Mr Gilani, responding to a news reporter, said that his "Chief Justice" is the Constitution. In that case he should restore Chief Justice Chaudhry to his position because his removal by Gen Musharraf was unconstitutional.