What Obama needs to say next on Pakistan

By Cernig

As George Bush urges Pakistan to "take responsibility" for extremists, there's massive disagreement within the US intelligence community about his administration's policy of unilateral attacks inside Pakistani territory.

The entire US intelligence community got behind a warning to the White House against indiscriminate attacks into Pakistan, like recent ones which apparently hit civilians and aroused a vehement reaction from Pakistan, including a threat to retaliate.

Gareth Porter writes that the warning, from the National Intelligence Council, was a consensus view of the entire intelligence apparatus and said that such attacks would carry a high risk of further destabilising the Pakistani military and government. (Update: And Gareth will be talking about this story in an interview tomorrow on Democracy Now!)

That blunt warning was conveyed to the White House in an oral briefing by a top official of the NIC two or three weeks ago, according to Philip Giraldi, former operations officer and counter-terrorist specialist in the CIA Directorate of Operations, who maintains contacts with the intelligence community.

Another source, who has been briefed by NIC officials on the issue, confirms that the NIC message, representing a consensus in the intelligence community, was conveyed to the Bush administration in August, just as an intense debate over whether to carry out commando raids against al Qaeda and Taliban targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan was still under way.

The source, who asked not to be identified because of the confidentiality of his contacts with the NIC, said the White House was warned that if U.S. commando raids continued over a longer period of time, the NIC believes they could threaten the unity of the Pakistani military.

... Patrick Lang, former defence intelligence officer for the Middle East at the Defence Intelligence Agency, told IPS he understands the intelligence community issued a "pretty clear warning" against the commando raid. "They said, in effect, if you want to see the Pakistani government collapse, go right ahead," Lang said.

To some, this might look like bad news for Obama's foreign policy - the McCain campaign has characterised his stance as saying Obama would invade Pakistan in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and others - but that would be to only look at soundbites. Obama's position is actually more nuanced. This is what he wrote:

The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won’t. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.

Make no mistake: we can’t succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homeland unless we change our Pakistan policy. We must expect more of the Pakistani government, but we must offer more than a blank check to a General who has lost the confidence of his people. It’s time to strengthen stability by standing up for the aspirations of the Pakistani people. That’s why I’m cosponsoring a bill with Joe Biden and Richard Lugar to triple non-military aid to the Pakistani people and to sustain it for a decade, while ensuring that the military assistance we do provide is used to take the fight to the Taliban and al Qaeda. We must move beyond a purely military alliance built on convenience, or face mounting popular opposition in a nuclear-armed nation at the nexus of terror and radical Islam.

The first paragraph there, which sounds like it was written by the ZBig contingent of Democratic hawks in Obama's campaign, is the part that has gotten most attention - and was probably intended to do so. It's a hawkish soundbite and, in general, presidential candidates have rarely suffered from sounding hawkish to the American electorate.

Even so, it clearly calls for carefully targeted attacks on high-level terrorists, not indiscriminate bombing or shooting of villagers based on fingerpointing for bounty money. One of the problems with Obama's plan, of course, is how to target strikes that well. As Bob Woodward wrote the other day, the US military certainly has the equipment and expertise to carry out extensive real-time integrated electronic intercepts, intelligence gathering and command - what's been called "collaborative warfare" - but all the technology and people to do that are still mired in Iraq chasing Al Qaeda (who wouldn't be there if Bush hadn't invaded).

The other is Pakistani hostility to America which such strikes would only worsen - and that's where the second part of Obama's plan comes in. The second paragraph reads more as something that could have come from a progressive think-tank. It calls for a Marshall Plan of civilian aid to Pakistan, aimed at stabilizing the economy, the government and people's lives. That's far more the kind of thing that's needed - removing the levers by which the Taliban and their ISI handlers manipulate Pakistani politics, making America obviously a friend to the people as well as the feudal military elite, and thus removing their ability to stay safe and hidden.

It's a great plan and in my humble opinion is something Obama should be stressing far more. Especially as a contrast to McCain's policy on Pakistan - which is to continue the Bush administration's transfer of alliance from a dictator in uniform to one of the most corrupt figures in a very slimy political pool while keeping Pakistan's military supplied with f-16 fighters and ship-killing missiles which have little or no use in any battle against the militants but can instead have only one real target - India. Arming both nuclear-armed sides in a Cold War which has boiled over into violence several times over the years - always at Pakistan's instigation - is pure insanity.

Comments

[Intel Officer]

Being in the intel community, you (your quoted article) are misrepresenting the intel community assessment. There is not a consensus that invading Pakistan will cause the Pakistan government to fall. The Pakistan gov't has a lot of problems. Linking its success/failure to US operations is sort of silly; especially considering that Musharraf resigned before any US actions.

The only consensus is militants are crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Patrick Lang is a FORMER intel official, so he should not know what was said to the President to begin with.