ISI: Failing state within a state? – by Nadeem Saeed
“The ISI, no wonder, has lost control over both violent jihadi militant extremists on the one hand and the CIA special operatives on the other”, this startling observation about Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency is made in a leaked report of what is labelled as ‘Abbottabad Commission’.
The commission was constituted by the Government of Pakistan after audacious US raid in the cantonment city of Abbottabad which culminated in the killing of the FBI’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden in the early hours of May 2, 2011. The raid had acrimoniously exposed the trust level, or the lack of it, between the USA and Pakistan, the two so-called allies in America’s war on terror.
The Americans did not bother to let Pakistan know about the raid even before entering its airspace. Pakistani authorities were still grappling to understand the situation when the raiders had left the Pakistani skies with their trophy of OBL body.
For Pakistan’s military establishment and its intelligence muscle, there was no place to hide from the double embarrassment: failure to perform its duty of defending the territory against foreign aggression and the fact that the most wanted person in the ‘war on terror’ was hunted down just next to the highly-guarded military academy of the country.
There was a big hue and cry against the atrocious US raid and a subsequent question mark on the capabilities of the Pakistan’s armed forces, more specifically its intelligence agencies. Perhaps, to calm down the increasing public outrage, the government reluctantly requested the country’s apex court to constitute an inquiry commission to ascertain full facts about the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, US operation in Abbottabad and causes of the lapses (that had led the country to a humiliating situation).
The Supreme Court of Pakistan formed the commission. Headed by Justice Javed Iqbal, the commission included Abbas Khan, a senior police officer; Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, a senior career diplomat; and Lt. Gen Nadeem Ahmed as members.
The commission took one-and-half-year to complete the task. Statements of as many as 201 witnesses including officials of Pakistan armed forces and members of Laden family were recorded. The commission submitted its findings and recommendations on January 2, 2013 while urging the government to fulfil its obligation by making the report public both in English and Urdu languages without delay.
The report however did not see light of the day until Qatar-based Aljazeera TV got hold of its copy and published it on its website last week. The cat was now out of the bag. For a country like Pakistan, It is a bold (if not conclusive) report. The commission dissected the OBL fiasco quite aptly, though without pinpointing the main culprit.
Media stooges of Pakistan’s permanent establishment are trying to spread as much confusion as possible about the authenticity of the leaked report through sometimes laughable ‘inside stories’ but none of the commission members has so far challenged its veracity.
It ultimately held the Prime Minister responsible for all the failings because theoretically Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is answerable to his office, though everybody, who has the objective knowledge of Pakistan’s political realities, knows that this conclusion is only for academic purposes.
Of course, Pakistan is now a democracy where elected representatives are supposed to be at the helms of affair. But this is not the case as yet.
But the underlying impression one gets after reading and re-reading the report is that it is ISI which was the root cause of disgrace the country suffered in the OBL affair.
“It showed both naiveté and its [ISI’s] lack of commitment to eradicating organised extremism, ignorance and violence which is the single biggest threat to Pakistan,” observed the commission when one after the other ISI official told it that the agency had stopped searching for OBL after the Americans started thinking he might not be alive.
The commission attacked ISI scathingly for not interrogating various High Value Targets (in war on terror) properly after their capture in Pakistan. These HVTs included alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Bali bomber Umar Patek.
Some 202 people were killed when terrorists struck in Indonesian island of Bali in October 2002. Patek was wanted for his alleged role in the bombing and the Americans had announced a one million dollar reward for his arrest.
Patek was arrested in January 2011 from the same Abbottabad town along with his wife where OBL was living with his family. “No information was obtained from Patek. It seems that ISI never developed any real intelligence on how Umar Patek had come to Abbottabad beyond the romantic story of [his] going to Afghanistan to seek Martyrdom. Abbottabad is not on way to Afghanistan”, the commission noted.
The commission further commented that the pretence that the ISI leadership was in command was exposed by the fact that they dared not to offend their most zealous operatives, who have given the agency its fearful reputation.
The commission observed that there was no real search for OBL which allowed its (ISI’s) foreign and domestic critics to allege that its operatives were too close to their “assets” in the field, who would not tolerate betrayal to OBL, who for them was a big symbol of ‘heroic resistance to the corrupt west’.
About most of the senior officials of the armed forces and intelligence agencies, who appeared before the commission, the report says were unable to answer professionally and satisfactorily. They gave emotional replies especially when asked whether they were expecting an attack from the USA.
The Director General of Military Operations termed the US raid as “betrayal of trust”. However, when asked whose responsibility was it to keep the area (Abbottabad Cantonment) under surveillance, the DGMO told the commission that only ISI could respond to the question.
The commission noted that the ISI enjoyed a ‘wider de-fecto jurisdiction’ which prevented other authorised agencies from doing possibly a better job despite their relative lack of resources.
The then ISI chief Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha told the commission, “the ISI is the first line of national defence”. He also admitted that though the government had never asked ISI to deal with the counterterrorism measures but it had assumed the responsibility owing to what he called current dysfunctional system and ineffectiveness of other state organs.
This is perhaps a situation which the then Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani had daringly referred to as ‘state within a state’ while speaking in the parliament after the US raid.
In its recommendations the leaked report of Abbottabad Commission has called for redefining Pakistan’s ties with the US and restructuring of the country’s intelligence apparatus. For many analysts both are difficult calls to make because of the country’s historical reliance on the US and cautious civilian leadership which has to bear the brunt of military interventions time and again.
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Writer is a Pakistani journalist who has worked for daily Dawn and BBC World Service. His twitter handle is @NadeemSaeed
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Nonsense article. Blame ISI and Pakistan Military for all failures and save the skin of political rulers as “text book”. Gilani granted extension to Kiani on one hand and dubbed ISI (when expedient) as a ‘State within state’ on the other hand. Is it a secret that the ISI is answerable to PPP’s extension-granted army chief? The PPP regime never gave a national security and counter-terrorism policy to the country, left the entire security burden on the military establishment and demorlaized police. And instead fully concentrated on plundering national resources. I don’t understand why LUBP reprints such junk articles.