What happened in 90s [Videos] Kamal Azfar, Rogue Pakistani Establishment & Mehran Bank Scandal. http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/12/kamal-azfar-rogue-pakistani.html

NOTE: On August 9, 1990, another one of the country’s short-lived experiments with democracy came to an end. While “The Empire Strikes Back” published in the August 1990 issue of the Herald describes the events that took place on the day of Benazir Bhutto’s ouster, “The Invisible War (See Herald Monthly Issue of January 2008, page 87), printed in the same issue, provides an analysis of the factors that led to the sacking of her government. [Courtesy Monthly Herald Pakistan January 2008, page 84-85-86]

The Invisible War by Abbas Nasir [Monthly Herald January 2008]

Was there a covert war raging between a sophisticated intelligence agency and the PPP government? And did the crisis in the Gulf have anything to do with Ms Bhutto’s ouster from office? After the dust begins to settle over the dissolution of the assemblies, it becomes clear that Benazir Bhutto’s ouster was directly linked to the fact that the army’s patience with her government had run out. Differences between the two had fuelled much media speculations for the entire duration of the PPP’s 20 month tenure. Issues as diverse as Sindh, Kashmir, postings, corruption, and Afghanistan had caused much tension between the ruling party and the military establishment. But the differences were more deep-rooted than a mere disagreement on some issues. It was clear, from the very outset, that the army had very reluctantly allowed Ms Bhutto to take office, and motivated every move and mistake she made during her 20 – Month Rule.

General Retd. Mirza Aslam Beg – The distrust between the Prime Minister and the army has never been too far below the surface and dates back to the period when Ms Bhutto’s father, the executed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was in power. According to one analyst, “The defence establishment would have never allowed Benazir to come to power, had it not been for the pressure exerted by the US. Reluctantly, the army bowed to this pressure – probably because Washington controlled its purse strings” The attitude of the military towards the PPP and its leader was clearly evident during the run-up to the elections in 1988. One unreported incident from that period perfectly reflects this deep distrust. Knowledgeable sources maintain that a high official of the intelligence set-up came to Karachi just before polls, and convened a meeting of all the candidates contesting from the Lyari constituency, where Ms Bhutto was a candidate. “We can beat her if all of you agree to withdraw and put-up a single candidate against her, “he was quoted as suggesting to them. But such was the foresight of this hotshot that not only did most of the candidates not agree to withdraw, but the PPP leader subsequently won from the area with a margin of votes that six times that of the votes won by all her opponents put together. Another official of the same agency has been credited with the formation of IJI and sources say, he was largely responsible for masterminding the anti-PPP campaign in Punjab, which was to work with devastating effect both before and after elections.

Lt General Retd Hamid Gul – However, on coming to power, Ms Bhutto secured one of the few concessions from the military establishment when she successfully pushed for the removal from the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate of its then Director General Major General Hamid Gul and his Assistant Director General (Internal Security) Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmad. But the removal of Hamid Gul had sting in its tail. Ms Bhutto was not chastened by the fact that the military had forced her to allow the promotion of the ISI strongman, or his posting to the strategically important corps in Multan. Following the appointment as DG of a Benazir nominee, Lt. General (Retd) Shamsur Rehman Kallue, the powers of the Political Cell of the ISI, working in the guise of the Internal Security (IS), were drastically curtailed. However a serving Major General, Khalid Latif Mughal was posted to run the Afghanistan and Kashmir policies. Mughal, formally, and Hamid Gul informally, continued to have a major say in both these spheres. While the Prime Minister was willing, perhaps, to allow the army a free hand in handling the Afghanistan and Kashmir policies as a price to keep herself in power, her government appeared to have relaxed because the army’s earlier meddling in domestic politics through the ISI had been curtailed. But a couple of transfers and postings were hardly enough to ensure a pliant military high command. And a determined army was hardly something that the inept Benazir Administration could tame quite easily. Although the political cell at the ISI was closed down, the army launched a two-pronged offensive primarily through the media, which to the credit of the PPP government, remained free all through the party’s short, but eventful, tenure in office.

Lt General Retd. Asad Durrani – While on one hand, Brigadier Riazullah, an articulate and charming officer, moved into the barracks outside the GHQ which houses the Inter Services Public Relations Directorate, another officer, known for his competence and pleasant demeanor, occupied an office inside the walls of the GHQ. This was the Director General of the Military Intelligence, Major General Asad Durrani. Brigadier Riazullah’s task was to execute General Aslam Beg’s policy of “glasnost” – to wash from the minds of the public, through the media, the negative image of the armed forces had acquired, following the more than a decade long period of Martial Law. The new face of the army was much in evidence when it launched its biggest ever maneuvers – Zarb-e-Momin – in the winter of 1989-90. As a result of an unprecedented media blitz, the “professional soldier” image that the army was beaming out began to sink into public mind slowly but, surely.

Brig (Retd) Imtiaz – Side by side with the rehabilitation of its image, the army (with ammunition provided by the antics of the PPP government itself) set about destroying the populist aura of the PPP and succeeded in making corruption the most talked about subject in the country. The army was aided in this endeavor, of course, by the blundering Johnny-come- latelies who came to represent the public face of the PPP. It is clear that a great deal of homework was done, in gathering as well as fabricating evidence against prominent PPP members and the Prime Minister’s husband. Mush of this information and disinformation was handed over mainly to the right-wing journalists belonging to some key papers and periodicals, who saw themselves as the natural allies of the army, having enjoyed close ties with the Zia Regime. At least three people were assigned to feed corruption stories to the foreign media. The DG, MI also adopted an increasingly high-profile role. Although traditionally the DG, MI is hardly someone, given the sensitivity of his assignment, to come before newsmen, the balding Durrani is understood to have personally briefed more than one journalist about the lack of sincerity on the part of the PPP in handling the Sindh situation. This same officer reportedly maintained contact with dissident PPP members of parliament and dictated strategy to them. Similarly, in Karachi, where the MI had grown to many hundreds-strong since the early 80s, Brigadier Jamil and a couple of other officers personally briefed a select band of newsmen time and again, offering them “evidence” of corrupt and criminal activities of the government. While in Hyderabad these stories were leaked by a Colonel Ayub, in Lahore the main channel of contact with the media was a top aide to fromer Chief Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who coordinated closely with a group of Pro-Estbalishment Right Wing Journalists planted in different papers and periodicals.

Masood Sharif Khan Khattak (Former Director General Intelligence Bureau – Pakistan) – And this was not all. There was something more deep-rooted going on, as an interview with at least one Corps Commander revealed. The gentleman insisted on blaming a PPP minister for planting stories against him although this was not the case as independent investigations subsequently revealed. To this day, however, it is not clear who was briefing the Corps Commander on the “enemy-like” attitude of PPP ministers. The urgency of the army’s desire to see Benazir removed is clear from an article by a journalist, reputed to have very close ties with the army bosses. The report, published soon after the fall of the Bhutto government, alleged that while Ms Bhutto was an opposition leader, her mail used to leave the country courtesy the diplomatic pouch of the Indian mission. The journalist proceeded, without naming sources, to question the patriotism of the elected prime minister. But despite this deep rooted prejudice, the army tolerated Benazir Bhutto for 20 months. What then was the catalyst to her being pushed out of the office in a “constitutional coup”? Knowledgeable quarters point towards two factors that may have served as the proverbial straw that broke the Camel’s back. The first of these was the Alam Jan Mehsud incident. Lt General Mahsud, the Corps Commander at Lahore enjoyed the reputation of being a top class professional soldier. His excellent strategy during the course of Zarb-e-Momin, defence experts say, earned him the reputation of “Pakistan’s Rommel”. The Prime Minister reportedly conveyed her desire to the GHQ to grant Mahsud an extension, and post him as the Deputy Chief of Army Staff – an act that military establishment viewed as direct interference in the army affairs.

Ghulam Ishaq Khan (Former President of Pakistan) What they suspected was that Ms. Bhutto was placing a well known dove in a strategic position as a potential successor to the present COAS. The army’s response was swift. A replacement, Lt General Ashraf, was rushed to Lahore and, the day after, Mahsud’s photograph was carried by various newspapers, receiving the Corps Shield as a farewell gift. Within days, Mahsud had left for a month long holiday to the tribal areas Waziristan, to spend time in his home village. Knowledgeable quarters say it was in the wake of the Mahsud incident, that a Corps Commander tried to convey to the government that the army was planning to move against it. He reportedly said that the military leadership complained to the President that Ms Bhutto was attempting to foment “divisions” in the rank of the army. The army, which has prided itself on its discipline and the unity in its ranks even during the imposition of Martial Law, couldn’t possibly be expected to tolerate what it perceived to be an attempt to divide it. The other important factor that could have acted as a catalyst was the tilt in the balance of relations between the Pakistan Army and the US administration. Ironically, Ms Bhutto has alwayslooked towards the US as a staunch ally. While it is true that the US administration had much to do with the restoration of democracy in Pakistan – as well as the nomination of Ms. Bhutto as prime minister after her party emerged as the largest single party in the elections – it is equally true her party emerged as the largest single party in the elections – it is equally true that the US strategic interest vis a vis Gulf, are far more crucial to it then romantic notions of third world democracy. Well informed sources in Islamabad say that on a number of occasions in the past, Washington had told the army that any attempt to brush aside democracy would be met with a stiff reaction, including a cut off in aid – particularly now that the Soviets had vacated Afghanistan. Given Pakistan’s tension with India, the defence establishment was hardly likely to jeopardize relations with its key hardware supplier.

US Ambassador Robert Oakley – However, with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the threat of an onward march into Saudi Arabia, the US apparently needed the support of the Pakistan Army. In fact, US Ambassador Robert Oakley told a meeting at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, just two days after Benazir’s ouster, that Saudi Arabia had requested troops from Pakistan. Although the once again retained Foreign Minister Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, as well as an army spokesman, denied having received any such request, the US envoy has neither retracted nor clarified his earlier statement. Although there has been no report yet of Pakistani troops being sent to Saudi Arabia, eyewitnesses say that they recently saw at least a couple of giant US Air force transport (C-141) aircraft taking off from a Pakistan Air Force Base. To further confirm American acquiescence in recent events in Pakistan, there was highly significant meeting between the three services chiefs, Bob Oakley and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman of the latter’s headquarters in Chaklala, Rawalpindi. This meeting took place on the weekend preceding the dissolution of the assemblies. In it, sources say, the issue was discussed threadbare, after which admiral Sirohey quietly left for Multan on a routine inspection tour.

The State Department’s quick reaction is hardly attributable to any efficiency at Foggy Bottom. It is clear that prior information was available to them – the denial to the contrary of a USIS official in Islamabad notwithstanding. One thing, however, is clear. The haze of disinformation is still as thick as any fog. But keeping in view the well-oiled machinery that the army has at its disposal, its main political rival, the PPP appears to have been knocked out and has little chance of staging a quick or easy comeback. But whether the army comes out in the open or prefers operate through remote control, only the course of events in the next few months will tell. [Courtesy Monthly Herald Pakistan January 2008, page 87-88-89]

Generals in Pakistan Push for Shake-Up of Government By JANE PERLEZ Published: September 28, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/world/asia/29pstan.html?_r=2&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/world/asia/29pstan.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&hp

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani military, angered by the inept handling of the country’s devastating floods and alarmed by a collapse of the economy, is pushing for a shake-up of the elected government, and in the longer term, even the removal of PresidentAsif Ali Zardari and his top lieutenants.

The military, preoccupied by a war against militants and reluctant to assume direct responsibility for the economic crisis, has made clear it is not eager to take over the government, as it has many times before, military officials and politicians said.

But the government’s performance since the floods, which have left 20 million people homeless and the nation dependent on handouts from skeptical foreign donors, has laid bare the deep underlying tensions between military and civilian leaders.

American officials, too, say it has left them increasingly disillusioned with Mr. Zardari, a deeply unpopular president who was elected two and a half years ago on a wave of sympathy after the assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

In a meeting on Monday that was played on the front page of Pakistan’s newspapers, the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, confronted the president and his prime minister,Yousaf Raza Gilani, over incompetence and corruption in the government.

According to the press and Pakistani officials familiar with the conversation, the general demanded that they dismiss at least some ministers in the oversized 60-member cabinet, many of whom face corruption charges.

The civilian government has so far resisted the general’s demand. But the meeting was widely interpreted by the Pakistani news media, which has grown increasingly hostile to the president, as a rebuke to the civilian politicians and as having pushed the government to the brink.

After the meeting, the president’s office issued a statement, approved by all the men, saying they had agreed “to protect the democratic process and to resolve all issues in accordance with the constitution.”

A Pakistani official close to the president who was familiar with the conversation but did not want to be identified, said, “The president made it clear that he would not leave, come what may.”

“Sanity had prevailed,” the official added.

Since the floods, the government has defended its handling of the crisis, arguing that any government would have been overwhelmed by its scale.

Still, it is clear that General Kayani, head of the country’s most powerful institution, and the one that has taken the lead in the flood crisis, has ratcheted up the pressure on the government.

Having secured an exceptional three-year extension in his post from Mr. Zardari in July, General Kayani appears determined to prevent the economy from bankruptcy. Military officers in the main cities have been talking openly and expansively about their contempt for the Zardari government and what they term the economic calamity, an unusual candor, reporters and politicians said.

“The gross economic mismanagement by the government is at the heart of it,” said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University and a confidant of the military. “And there is the rising public disaffection with the Pakistani Peoples Party under Zardari and Gilani.”

As the military demands the overhaul, the Supreme Court is also pushing the government on the issue of corruption by threatening to remove the president’s immunity from prosecution, a move that would expose him to charges of corruption in an old money-laundering case in Switzerland.

The government has defied the court’s demand to write a letter to the Swiss government requesting a reopening of the case against Mr. Zardari, who served 11 years in prison in Pakistan on unproved corruption charges. On Monday, the court granted an extension of two weeks for the government to reconsider its position.

Much of the rising disdain for the government has to do with the perception among the media and the public of the callous and inept handling of the floods by the nation’s wealthy ruling class.

Mr. Gilani drew public ire for appearing at an ersatz camp for flood victims set up just for television cameras. It also did not help that newspapers reported that scores of cartons from the London luxury store Harrods had arrived at his residence in Lahore at the height of the flooding.

Mr. Zardari, meanwhile, was vilified for visiting his chateau in France as torrents of water wiped out millions of villagers in his home province, Sindh.

In his most recent visit to Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, the American special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the international community could not be expected to provide all the billions of dollars needed to repair the flood damage, a warning interpreted here as a rebuke of the civilian government and its mismanagement.

But Washington, not unlike Pakistan’s military, is caught, American officials say, because there is no appetite for a return of military rule. Nor is there desire to see the opposition politician and former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, resume power.

Mr. Sharif, who has also faced corruption charges during his career, is considered by Washington to be too close to some of Pakistan’s militant groups, whose members vote in Punjab, the Sharif electoral base.

As the head of the of the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, Mr. Sharif is not ready to come to the fore in any case, his aides say, because he does not want to be associated with the paralysis of the current government.

Of mounting concern to the Obama administration is the potential for serious unrest if the economy unspools further: inflation by some predictions will reach 25 percent in the coming period. The price of sugar has tripled, and the cost of flour has doubled since the Zardari government came to power.

In particular, Washington wants the government to raise taxes on the wealthy landed and commercial class, a shortcoming that has become especially galling as Pakistan’s dependence on foreign donors rises.

Pakistan’s revenues from taxes are among the lowest in the world: only 2 million Pakistanis of a population of 170 million pay income tax, according to estimates by the United States.

A report in a leading newspaper, The News, said Monday that Mr. Gilani and 25 of his ministers, including the finance minister, Hafiz Shaikh, did not pay income taxes at all, according to sworn affidavits by the ministers to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The alarm about the economy was first sounded by Mr. Shaikh, a former officer of theWorld Bank, who told a meeting of political and military leaders last month that the government had enough money to pay only two months’ salaries. The economy was “teetering on the brink” before the floods but was now heading for the “abyss,” Mr. Shaikh was quoted as saying.

The military officers who attended were astounded, Mr. Hussain and others informed of the meeting said, and have pressed the government for changes, politicians and diplomats said.

As the military maneuvers for change, it is not immune from criticism. Defense spending is budgeted at 13.6 percent of total expenditures in 2011, in line with past yearly expenditures even as the civilian population suffers.

The defense budget remains beyond public scrutiny, a fact that increasingly irks the public.

“Do we even know how much it costs taxpayers each year to make possible the office, the home, the car fleets, attendants, guest houses and other amenities that are enjoyed by the army chief or even a corps commander?” asked Babar Sattar, a lawyer who often writes about corruption.

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

A version of this article appeared in print on September 29, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Recently and Intellectually Dishonestly, the Jang Group of Newspapers/The News and GEO TV released some part of Bob Woodward’s interview in their newspapers to gain some cheap political point but they forget to mention the complete contents… here it is:

Obama: ‘We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan’ By Bob Woodward Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 29, 2010; 3:03 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092805092.html

President Obama dispatched his national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Pakistan for a series of urgent, secret meetings on May 19, 2010.

Less than three weeks earlier, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen born in Pakistan had tried to blow up an SUV in New York City’s Times Square. The crude bomb – which a Pakistan-based terrorist group had taught him to make – smoked but did not explode. Only luck had prevented a catastrophe.

“We’re living on borrowed time,” Jones told Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at their meeting in Islamabad. “We consider the Times Square attempt a successful plot because neither the American nor the Pakistani intelligence agencies could intercept or stop it.”

Jones thought that Pakistan – a U.S. ally with an a la carte approach of going after some terrorist groups and supporting others – was playing Russian roulette. The chamber had turned out to be empty the past several times, but Jones thought it was only a matter of time before there was a round in it.
Fears about Pakistan had been driving President Obama’s national security team for more than a year. Obama had said toward the start of his fall 2009 Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy review that the more pressing U.S. interests were really in Pakistan, a nuclear power with a fragile civilian government, a dominant military and an intelligence service that sponsored terrorist groups.
Not only did al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban operate from safe havens within Pakistan, but – as U.S. intelligence officials had repeatedly warned Obama – terrorist groups were recruiting Westerners whose passports would allow them to move freely in Europe and North America.

Safe havens would no longer be tolerated, Obama had decided. “We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan,” he declared during an Oval Office meeting on Nov. 25, 2009, near the end of the strategy review. The reason to create a secure, self-governing Afghanistan, he said, was “so the cancer doesn’t spread there.”

Jones and Panetta had gone to Pakistan to tell Zardari that Obama wanted four things to help prevent a terrorist attack on U.S. soil: full intelligence sharing, more reliable cooperation on counterterrorism, faster approval of visas for U.S. personnel traveling to Pakistan and, despite past refusals, access to airline passenger data.

If, God forbid, the SUV had blown up in Times Square, Jones told Zardari, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Should a future attempt be successful, Obama would be forced to do things that Pakistan would not like. “No one will be able to stop the response and consequences,” the security adviser said. “This is not a threat, just a statement of political fact.”

Jones did not give specifics about what he meant. The Obama administration had a “retribution” plan, one of the most sensitive and secretive of all military contingencies. The plan called for bombing about 150 identified terrorist camps in a brutal, punishing attack inside Pakistan.

Wait a second, Zardari responded. If we have a strategic partnership, why in the face of a crisis like the one you’re describing would we not draw closer together rather than have this divide us?

Zardari believed that he had already done a great deal to accommodate his strategic partner, at some political risk. He had allowed CIA drones to strike al-Qaeda and other terrorist camps in parts of Pakistan, prompting a public outcry about violations of Pakistani sovereignty. He had told CIA officials privately in late 2008 that any innocent deaths from the strikes were the cost of doing business against senior al-Qaeda leaders. “Kill the seniors,” Zardari had said. “Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me.”

As part of the partnership, the Pakistani military was billing the United States more than $2 billion a year to combat extremists operating in the remote areas near the Afghan border. But that money had not prevented elements of the Pakistani intelligence service from backing the two leading Afghan Taliban groups responsible for killing American troops in Afghanistan.
“You can do something that costs you no money,” Jones said. “It may be politically difficult, but it’s the right thing to do if you really have the future of your country in mind. And that is to reject all forms of terrorism as a viable instrument of national policy inside your borders.”

“We rejected it,” Zardari responded.

Jones and Panetta had heard such declarations before. But whatever Pakistan was doing with the many terrorist groups operating inside its borders, it wasn’t good or effective enough. For the past year, that country’s main priority was taking on its homegrown branch of the Taliban, a network known as Tehrik-e-Taliban, or TTP.

Panetta pulled out a “link chart,” developed from FBI interviews and other intelligence, that showed how TTP had assisted the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad.

“Look, this is it,” Panetta told Zardari. “This is the network. Leads back here.” He traced it out with his finger. “And we’re continuing to pick up intelligence streams that indicate TTP is going to conduct other attacks in the United States.”

This was a matter of solid intelligence, Panetta said, not speculation.
Jones and Panetta then turned to the disturbing intelligence about Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group behind the horrific 2008 Mumbai attacks that had killed 175, including six Americans.

Pakistani authorities are holding the commander of the Mumbai attacks, Jones said, but he is not being adequately interrogated and “he continues to direct LeT operations from his detention center.” Intelligence shows that Lashkar-e-Taiba is threatening attacks in the United States and that the possibility “is rising each day.”

Zardari didn’t seem to get it.

“Mr. President,” said Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was also at the meeting, “This is what they are saying. . . . They’re saying that if, in fact, there is a successful attack in the United States, they will take steps to deal with that here, and that we have a responsibility to now cooperate with the United States.”

“If something like that happens,” Zardari said defensively, “it doesn’t mean that somehow we’re suddenly bad people or something. We’re still partners.”

No, both Jones and Panetta said. There might be no way to save the strategic partnership. Underscoring Jones’s point, Panetta said, “If that happens, all bets are off.”

Afterward, the Americans met privately with Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, chief of the Pakistani army and the most powerful figure in the country.

Although Kayani had graduated from the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., he was a product of the Pakistani military system – nearly 40 years of staring east to the threat posed by India, its adversary in several wars since both countries were established in 1947.

This was part of a Pakistani officer’s DNA. It was hard, perhaps impossible, for a Pakistani general to put down his binoculars, turn his head over his shoulder and look west to Afghanistan.

Jones told Kayani that the clock was starting now on Obama’s four requests. Obama wanted a progress report in 30 days, Jones said.

Kayani would not budge much. He had other concerns. “I’ll be the first to admit, I’m India-centric,” he said.

Panetta laid out a series of additional requests for CIA operations. Obama had approved these operations during an October 2009 session of the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy review.

The CIA director had come to believe that the Predator and other unmanned aerial vehicles were the most precise weapons in the history of warfare. He wanted to use them more often.

Pakistan allowed Predator drone flights in specified geographic areas called “boxes.” Because the Pakistanis had massive numbers of ground troops in the south, they would not allow a box in that area.

“We need to have that box,” Panetta said. “We need to be able to conduct our operations.”

Kayani said he would see that they had some access.

Jones and Panetta left feeling as though they had taken only baby steps. “How can you fight a war and have safe havens across the border?” Panetta asked in frustration. “It’s a crazy kind of war.”

The United States needed some kind of ground forces to eliminate the safe havens, Panetta concluded. The CIA had its own forces, a 3,000-man secret army of Afghans known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Some of these pursuit teams were now conducting cross-border operations in Pakistan.
“We can’t do this without some boots on the ground,” Panetta said. “They could be Pakistani boots or they can be our boots, but we got to have some boots on the ground.”

Army Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the National Security Council coordinator for Afghanistan and Pakistan, also traveled with Jones and Panetta to Pakistan. He supervised the writing of a three-page trip report to the president that Jones signed.

It contained a pessimistic summary, noting first the gap between the civilian and military authority in Pakistan. The United States was getting nowhere fast with these guys. They were talking with Zardari, who could deliver nothing. Kayani had the power to deliver, but he refused to do much. Nobody could tell him otherwise. The bottom line was depressing: This had been a charade.
Jones said he was alarmed that success in Afghanistan was tied to what the Pakistanis would or would not do. As he saw it, the United States could not “win” in Afghanistan as long as the Pakistani safe havens remained. It was a “cancer” on the plan the president had announced at the end of 2009.

Second, the report said the Pakistanis did not have the same sense of urgency as the Americans. There were regular terrorist strikes in Pakistan, so they could not understand the traumatic impact of a single, small attack on the U.S. homeland.

The Pakistanis were making another mistake by applying that same logic to India, in Jones’s view. If Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the Mumbai attacks, struck there again, India would not be able to show the kind of restraint that it had then. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had barely survived Mumbai politically, would have to respond.

The options for Obama would be significantly narrowed in the aftermath of an attack originating out of Pakistan. Before such an attack, however, he had more options, especially if Pakistan made good on his four requests.
After the Jones-Panetta trip, Pakistan’s cooperation on visa requests did improve. When I interviewed Obama two months after the failed Times Square bombing, he highlighted Pakistan’s recent counterterrorism efforts. “They also ramped up their cooperation in a way that over the last 18 months has hunkered down al-Qaeda in a way that is significant,” he said.

“But still not enough,” I interjected.

“Well, exactly,” Obama said.

Joshua Boak and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

Whispering campaign started by media led by Jang. A young Kamran Khan broke the famous Bukhari Unnar story. [Ahmed]
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A very young “Kamran Khan” on PTV and host is Sajjad Mir [NEWS ONE Anchor and earlier he was Nation’s/Nawa-e-Waqt Editor] – Former Senator Saifur Rehman [PML – Nawaz] during 1996-1997, in connivance with the then President Farooq Ahmed Khan Laghari, Kamran Khan [The News International] and Sajjad Mir [the then Editor of Daily Nawa-e-Waqt and nowadays a TV Anchor in Pakistani Private TV Channel NEWSONE AND TVONE] had a conducted detailed Media Trial of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari [while their cases were pending in the Court of Law]. The most funny thing is that Mr Sajjad Mir played the part of TV Anchor on Pakistan Televison Network and his guest was Kamran Khan revealing the detail of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. [RARE VIDEO OF GOOD OLD DAYS] PLEASE EMBED AND UPLOAD: Ref: Conspiracy: Kamran Khan, Farooq Laghari, Sajjad Mir, Saifur Rehman & Media Trial of PPP.
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/11/conspiracy-kamran-khan-farooq-laghari.html

What a joke “Nawaz Sharif Demads Treason Trial against Musharraf” and his younger brother holds “Political Meeting” with “Musharraf League” PML-Q leaders discuss political crisis with Shahbaz Sunday, 17 Oct, 2010 http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/12-pml-q+leaders+discuss+political+crisis+with+shahbaz–bi-02

How the Q-League came into being:)

ISLAMABAD: The main wheeler and dealer of the ISI during the 2002 elections, the then Maj-Gen Ehtesham Zamir, now retired, has come out of the closet and admitted his guilt of manipulating the 2002 elections, and has directly blamed Gen Musharraf for ordering so. Talking to The News, the head of the ISI’s political cell in 2002, admitted manipulating the last elections at the behest of President Musharraf and termed the defeat of the King’s party, the PML-Q, this time “a reaction of the unnatural dispensation (installed in 2002).” Zamir said the ISI together with the NAB was instrumental in pressing the lawmakers to join the pro-Musharraf camp to form the government to support his stay in power. Looking down back into the memory lane and recalling his blunders which, he admitted, had pushed the country back instead of taking it forward, Zamir feels ashamed of his role and conduct. Massively embarrassed because he was the one who negotiated, coerced and did all the dirty work, the retired Maj-Gen said he was not in a position to become a preacher now when his own past was tainted. He said the country would not have faced such regression had the political management was not carried out by the ISI in 2002. But he also put some responsibility of the political disaster on the PML-Q as well. The former No: 2 of the ISI called for the closure of political cell in the agency, confessing that it was part of the problem due to its involvement in forging unnatural alliances, contrary to public wishes. Zamir’s blaming Musharraf for creating this unnatural alliance rings true as another former top associate of Musharraf, Lt-Gen (retd) Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani has already disclosed that majority of the corps commanders, in several meetings, had opposed Musharraf’s decision of patronising the leadership of the King’s party. “We had urged Musharraf many times during the corps commanders meeting that the PML-Q leadership was the most condemned and castigated personalities. They are the worst politicians who remained involved in co-operative scandals and writing off loans. But Musharraf never heard our advice,” Kiyani said while recalling discussions in their high profile meetings. REFERENCE: The man, who rigged 2002 polls, spills the beans By Umar Cheema Sunday, February 24, 2008 http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=13159

He said one of their colleagues, who was an accountability chief at that time, had sought permission many times for proceeding against the King’s party top leaders but was always denied. Kiyani asked Musharraf to quit, the sooner the better, as otherwise the country would be in a serious trouble. Ma-Gen (retd) EhteshamZamir termed the 2008 elections ‘fairer than 2002’. He said the reason behind their fairness is that there was relatively less interference of intelligence agencies this time as compared to the last time. But he stopped short of saying that there was zero interference in the 2008 polls. “You are quite right,” he said when asked to confirm about heavy penetration of ISI into political affairs during the 2002 elections. But he said he did not do it on his own but on the directives issued by the government. Asked who directed him from the government side and if there was somebody else, not President Musharraf, he said: “Obviously on the directives of President Musharraf.” Asked if he then never felt that he was committing a crime by manipulating political business at the cost of public wishes, he said: “Who should I have told except myself. Could I have asked Musharraf about this? I was a serving officer and I did what I was told to do. I never felt this need during the service to question anyone senior to me,” he said and added that he could not defend his acts now. REFERENCE: The man, who rigged 2002 polls, spills the beans By Umar Cheema Sunday, February 24, 2008 http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=13159

“It was for this reason that I have never tried to preach others what I did not practice. But I am of the view that the ISI’s political cell should be closed for good by revoking executive orders issued in 1975,” he said. Responding to a question regarding corruption cases that were used as pressure tactics on lawmakers, he said: “Yes! This tool was used, not only by the ISI. The NAB was also involved in this exercise.” Former corps commander of Rawalpindi, Lt-Gen (retd) Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani said majority of corps commanders had continued opposing Musharraf’s alliance with top leadership of the PML-Q. “Not just in one meeting, we opposed his alignment with these corrupt politicians in many meetings but who cared. Now Musharraf has been disgraced everywhere, thanks to his political cronies.” REFERENCE: The man, who rigged 2002 polls, spills the beans By Umar Cheema Sunday, February 24, 2008 http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=13159

Watch the Dawn News on “Horse Trading” and back-door Politics to remove the government with a tacit approval of “Judiciary” in 21st Century: Rigging Pakistan’s Election: Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2010/10/rigging-pakistans-election-justice.html

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