Daily Times Editorial April 14, 2013

Secrets, deception, and plain lies For the first time, a Pakistani former leader has admitted that Pakistan had some role to play in the US drone strikes programme in FATA. General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, in an interview with CNN, has acknowledged his government secretly signed off on drone strikes. Pakistani leaders, including the previous PPP-led government, have for long criticized the drone programme as ‘counterproductive’ and insisted they had no part in it. Musharraf’s admission lifts the lid off this ‘secret’ duality of public and private postures by successive governments, even if Pakistan could not by any stretch of the imagination have been considered to have control over the drone programme or targeting. In fact, at some point, the US decided it was too risky consulting its ostensible Pakistani ally since some targets appeared to have been forewarned, allegedly by Pakistani military intelligence, and escaped before the drones struck. Musharraf’s attempts to put the best face on his belated admission by stressing that targets were only approved on two or three occasions, and that too when they were isolated and there was little or no chance of collateral damage, appears to be a post-facto window dressing. The fact is that the drone programme may have, if Musharraf is to be believed, had initial Pakistani support given, as Musharraf himself says, the difficulties of terrain, a tenacious and dangerous enemy, and the serious problems of counterinsurgency in FATA, but later, public approbation may have compelled Musharraf and later leaders to protest the programme in public while acquiescing in it privately. Reports to this effect have regularly appeared in the media. Former US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson’s cable regarding a discussion on drones with former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and former interior minister Rehman Malik indicates in clear terms the duality Pakistani leaders had adopted as a matter of policy by 2008, if not earlier. Drone strikes in FATA have been a fact of life since 2004, a date not without significance, given that it was the year the Pakistani army ventured into FATA against the militants for the first time in Pakistan’s history. That campaign was inspired by the threat local, Afghan and foreign Taliban posed to Pakistan’s security (not to mention Afghanistan’s), backed by al Qaeda. Nek Mohammad was one of the local militant leaders accused of harbouring al Qaeda elements that had fled across the border when the US invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 2001. At the time of his death in June 2004, contradictory accounts circulated that he had been killed by a drone strike, whereas the Pakistani military claimed it had killed him by a missile strike of its own. Now Musharraf has confirmed that it was indeed a drone that eliminated Nek Mohammad. Duality of policy has been at the heart of the Pakistani policy vis-à-vis its purported alliance with the US before, during and after the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The Bush administration’s threatening posture in the wake of 9/11 persuaded the Musharraf regime that there was no option but to sign on in the so-called war on terror. However, Musharraf opened the door to elements fleeing across the border in the face of overwhelming US force, elements that included Afghan and foreign Taliban and al Qaeda. FATA aside, the infamous Quetta Shura of Mulla Omar continued to tantalize as to its existence and location amidst Pakistani denials. In other words, Musharraf adopted the dual policy of ostensibly allying with Washington while turning a blind eye to al Qaeda elements in FATA, supporting a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil, and only presented with exquisite timing the odd al Qaeda leader caught in the cities whenever it suited his purpose to obtain further largesse from Washington. This game continued for years, until it unravelled in the fray over the Raymond Davis affair, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, and the Salala check post attack by the US/NATO forces that killed Pakistani soldiers. The ability of Pakistan to extract concessions and aid from the US has been in precipitate decline since then, and promises to dwindle further after the US forces leave Afghanistan in 2014. Already, the Pakistan Counter-insurgency Capability Fund is being closed, according to the US State Department. Washington will no longer be over a barrel after 2014, and the first likely impact will be a reduction, if not petering out, of US aid for Pakistan except for some peripheral social sectors. Pakistani decision makers had better tighten their belts and prepare for not only dwindling US aid, they must also be prepared to face lack of cooperation from international financial institutions, in which Washington's influence and weight cannot be ignored.