Smarting, Pak Army chief warns US, India
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The head of Pakistan’s Army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said today that he would not tolerate a repeat of the US covert operation that killed Osama bin Laden, warning that any similar action would lead to a reconsideration of the relationship with the United States.
In his first public reaction to the US raid four days ago, Kayani did not appear in person, choosing instead to convey his angry message through a statement by his press office and in a closed meeting with selected Pakistani reporters. It said: “Any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States.”
Kayani had decided that the number of American military personnel in Pakistan were to be reduced “to the minimum essential,” the statement said. He did not specify the exact number of US personnel asked to leave Pakistan.
Calling the raid a “misadventure,” Kayani said that another similar raid would be responded to swiftly, a promise that seemed intended to tell the Pak public that the Army was indeed capable of stopping the Americans trying to capture other senior figures from al-Qaeda.
Kayani’s blunt warnings came after he met with his top 11 commanders at their monthly conference at the Army Headquarters at Rawalpindi. The meeting comes at a time when the reputation of the Army, the most powerful and privileged force in Pakistan, has been severely undermined by the raid.
That American helicopters could fly into Pakistan, carrying a team to kill the world’s most wanted terrorist and then fly out undetected has produced a stunned silence from the military and its intelligence service that some interpret as embarrassment, even humiliation. The raid has provoked a crisis of confidence for what was long seen as the one institution that held together a nation dangerously beset by militancy and chronically weak civilian governments.
Today’s official Army statement acknowledged “shortcomings” in developing intelligence on the presence of bin Laden in Pakistan. Pak officials and Western diplomats have described Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of ISI, as seething with anger at the American go-it-alone action.
EarIier in the day, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir sought to dispel domestic criticism of Pakistan’s lack of response to the raid, saying that two Pak F-16 fighter jets were airborne as soon as the Army knew about the operation. But by that time, he said, the US helicopters were on their way back to Afghanistan.
Bashir, speaking at a press conference, said that the Americans had used technology to evade Pakistani radar.
Alternatively combative and defensive, Bashir said Washington should abandon the idea that Pakistan was complicit in helping bin Laden hide. But Bashir did not elaborate, saying only that the ISI had a “brilliant” record in counterterrorism.
Defending the Army, Bashir said, “Pakistani security forces are neither incompetent or negligent about the sacred duty to the nation to protect Pakistan.”
In his press conference, Bashir declined to answer a question about whether the American raid was legal or illegal, but implicitly rapped the Obama administration, saying, “It’s important for the international community to be mindful of the fact cooperation is a two-way street. To demand cooperation is one thing; to demand cooperation on terms that are civil is important.”
Apparently in response to comments by CIA chief Leon Panetta that the US decided not to share details in advance with Pakistan because of a lack of trust, Bashir said, “All we expect is some decency and civility, especially in the public domain.”
The Pakistani authorities first learned of the operation when one of the American helicopters involved in the raid crashed at the bin Laden compound. “Immediately our armed forces were asked to check whether it was a Pakistani helicopter,” Bashir said.
Although Abbottabad is home to a major military academy and three military regiments, he said none of these institutions required sophisticated defenses that could have detected the impending raid. Once the helicopter had crashed, it took 15 minutes for military personnel to reach the site, he said. Authorities learned that bin Laden had been killed in the raid from surviving members of his family, he said.
Pakistan received the first official word about from the United States about the covert operation when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, called Kayani at about 3 am Monday Pak time, Bashir said.
That call took some time to arrange, he said, because “secure sets” were needed. Admiral Mullen was the first to raise the issue of Pakistan’s sovereignty in the call, Bashir said. But he did not specify what exactly Admiral Mullen said. Later, Obama telephoned Pak president Asif Ali Zardari.
JANE PERLEZ
(source:indianexpress.com)
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