http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/world/asia/mullen-asserts-pakistani-role-in-attack-on-us-embassy.html
September 22, 2011
Pakistan's Spy Agency Is Tied to Attack on U.S. Embassy
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JANE PERLEZ
WASHINGTON -- The nation's top military official said Thursday that Pakistan's spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the American Embassy in Kabul last week. It was the most serious charge that the United States has leveled against Pakistan in the decade that America has been at war in Afghanistan.
In comments that were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with an assault on the United States, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American effort in Afghanistan. His remarks were certain to further fray America's shaky relationship with Pakistan, a nominal ally.
The United States has long said that Pakistan's intelligence agency supports the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan's tribal areas, as a way to extend Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. But Admiral Mullen made clear that he believed that the support extended to increasingly high-profile attacks in Afghanistan aimed directly at the United States.
These included a truck bombing at a NATO outpost south of Kabul on Sept. 10, which killed at least five people and wounded 77 coalition soldiers -- one of the worst tolls for foreign troops in a single attack in the war -- as well as the embassy assault that killed 16 Afghan police officers and civilians.
"With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy," Admiral Mullen said in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We also have credible evidence that they were behind the June 28th attack against the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations." In short, he said, "the Haqqani network acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency." His remarks were part of a deliberate effort by American officials to ratchet up pressure on Pakistan and perhaps pave the way for more American drone strikes or even cross-border raids into Pakistan to root out insurgents from their havens. American military officials refused to discuss what steps they were prepared to take, although Admiral Mullen's statement made clear that taking on the Haqqanis had become an urgent priority.
On Thursday, Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, rejected accusations by the United States of ISI involvement in the attacks in Afghanistan. "If you say that it is ISI involved in that attack, I categorically deny it," he said in an interview with Reuters. "We have no such policy to attack or aid attack through Pakistani forces or through any Pakistani assistance." He also said his government would "not allow" an American operation aimed at the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, a remote part of Pakistan's lawless tribal region.
Mr. Malik seemed to indicate that American officials had threatened on Tuesday in meetings in Washington with the head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, that American troops were prepared to cross the border from Afghanistan to attack Haqqani militants. An American official would say only that David H. Petraeus, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told General Pasha that the C.I.A. would continue its campaign of drone strikes against the Haqqanis in Pakistan and pursue them in Afghanistan.
"The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never," Mr. Malik said in an interview with Reuters. "Our government is already cooperating with the U.S. -- but they also must respect our sovereignty."
A senior American official said Thursday that no decisions had been made on actions that the Obama administration might take against the Haqqanis.
American covert raids into Pakistan are rare -- only two, including the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May, have become public -- but some American intelligence officials argue that more aggressive ground raids in Pakistan are necessary.
The United States gives Pakistan more than $2 billion in security assistance annually, although this summer the Obama administration decided to suspend or in some cases cancel about a third of that aid this year. Altogether, about $800 million in military aid and equipment could be affected.
The suspension was intended to chasten Pakistan for expelling American military trainers this year and to press its army to fight militants more effectively. The decision was made after the Bin Laden raid in Pakistan, where the leader of Al Qaeda had been living comfortably near a top military academy.
Admiral Mullen is to retire at the end of this month, and coming from him the statements carried exceptional weight. For years he has been the American military official leading the effort to improve cooperation with the Pakistanis. But relations have reached a nadir since the Bin Laden raid. Pakistani officials were angered that they had not been told of the raid in advance, and questions remain about whether Pakistani intelligence was sheltering Bin Laden.
Although American military officials believe that the ISI is in many cases directing the Haqqani network to attack United States forces in Afghanistan, they did not go so far as to say on Thursday that the ISI specifically directed the assault on the American Embassy. American military officials did not describe the kind of support they believe the ISI gave the Haqqani network for the embassy attack, and also offered no evidence for their claim. In July 2008, the United States was able to determine that the ISI was behind the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul based on intercepted communications of ISI officers.
Admiral Mullen testified alongside Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who told the committee that the attack on the embassy and the assassination this week of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of Afghanistan's High Peace Council and a former Afghan president, were "a sign of weakness in the insurgency." He cast the attacks as signs that the Taliban had shifted to high-profile targets in an effort to disrupt the progress that the American military had made.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack on Mr. Rabbani, which has dealt a potentially devastating blow to efforts to negotiate a peace with the Taliban.
In his remarks to the committee, Admiral Mullen voiced a stern warning to Pakistani officials, who he said were undermining their own interests as well as American interests in the region.
"They may believe that by using these proxies, they are hedging their bets or redressing what they feel is an imbalance in regional power," he said. "But in reality, they have already lost that bet. By exporting violence, they've eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being."
He also said he did not think he had wasted his time by putting so much effort into improving ties with Pakistan's government.
"I've done this because I believe that a flawed and difficult relationship is better than no relationship at all," he said. "Some may argue I've wasted my time, that Pakistan is no closer to us than before, and may now have drifted even further away. I disagree. Military cooperation again is warming."
Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan. Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.
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Earlier at url:
September 22, 2011
Mullen Asserts Pakistani Role in Attack on U.S. Embassy
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JANE PERLEZ
WASHINGTON -- Pakistan's intelligence agency aided the insurgents who attacked the American Embassy in Kabul last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate on Thursday.
In comments that were the first to directly link Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with an assault on the United States, Admiral Mullen went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American military effort in Afghanistan. The United States has long said that the ISI has close links to Afghan insurgents, particularly the Haqqani network, but no one has been as blunt as Admiral Mullen.
Admiral Mullen is to retire at the end of this month, and coming from him the statements carried exceptional weight. He has been the American military official who has led the effort for years to improve cooperation with the Pakistanis. But relations have reached a nadir since American commandoes killed Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan in May. Pakistani officials were not told of the raid in advance, and questions remain about whether Pakistani intelligence was sheltering the Qaeda leader.
The attack on the American embassy, and ISI support for the Haqqani network -- which also forms one of the most lethal parts of the insurgency attacking American forces in Afghanistan -- is the latest point of tension.
Pakistan's intelligence agency has supported the Haqqanis as a way to further Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. On Thursday Admiral Mullen made clear that support extended to increasingly high-profile attacks aimed directly at the United States.
"With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy," Admiral Mullen told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We also have credible evidence that they were behind the June 28th attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations."
In short, he said, "the Haqqani network acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency."
The truck bomb attack that Admiral Mullen referred to occurred at a NATO outpost south of Kabul on Sept. 10, when a cargo vehicle packed with explosives killed at least five people and wounded 77 coalition troops. The toll of wounded was one of the worst for foreign forces in a single episode in the 10-year-old war.
It is unclear what steps American officials are prepared to take against the Haqqanis, but the increasingly strong public statements indicated that reining in the group has become a more urgent priority as the United States looks to withdraw from Afghanistan and leave a stable country and viable government behind.
On Thursday the Pakistani Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, said his government would "not allow" an American operation aimed at the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.
Mr. Malik seemed to indicate that Obama administration officials had threatened Tuesday in their meetings in Washington with the head of Pakistan's intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, that American troops were prepared to cross the border from Afghanistan into North Waziristan to attack the Haqqani militants.
"The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never," Mr. Malik said in an interview with Reuters. "Our government is already cooperating with the U.S. -- but they also must respect our sovereignty."
In a meeting in Islamabad on Wednesday with the head of the F.B.I., Robert S. Mueller III, Mr. Malik said that the Haqqani network was not present in Pakistan, a statement that American officials said they found disingenuous.
In his remarks to Pakistani reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Malik said that if the United States provided information on the whereabouts of the Haqqani network in Pakistan, Pakistani "law enforcement" would go after it.
In making such claims, Mr. Malik was ignoring several years of effort by senior American military officials and diplomats to persuade the Pakistani Army to launch operations against the Haqqani militants, who are well known to American and Pakistani military officials to be centered around Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
The Pakistani Army has a base in North Waziristan not far from compounds of the Haqqani network.
Since the attack on the American Embassy in Kabul, Pakistani military officials have told Pakistani reporters that it is up to the Americans to deal with the Haqqani fighters inside Afghanistan.
The Pakistanis argue that they do not have sufficient troops in North Waziristan to take on the Haqqanis. But aside from the main Pakistani objective of keeping the Haqqanis as a friendly force in a post-war Afghanistan, some Pakistani military experts say the Pakistani Army is reluctant to fight the Haqqanis because there was concern that the army would not prevail against them.
No decisions had been made on what actions the Obama administration might take against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, a senior American official said Thursday.
The options would be discussed at a National Security Council meeting at the White House on Monday, he said.
Admiral Mullen testified alongside Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who told the committee that the attack on the embassy and the assassination this week of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of Afghanistan's High Peace Council and a former Afghan president, were "a sign of weakness in the insurgency." He cast the attacks as signs that the Taliban had shifted to high-profile targets in an effort to disrupt the progress the American military has made.
"Over all, we judge this change in tactics to be a result of a shift in momentum in our favor," Mr. Panetta said.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack on Mr. Rabbani.
Despite his optimistic remarks about American progress, Mr. Panetta said the American military had a difficult job ahead and had to do better in preventing the insurgents from carrying out raids like the one on the embassy. "While overall violence in Afghanistan is trending down -- and down substantially in areas where we concentrated the surge -- we must be more effective in stopping these attacks and limiting the ability of insurgents to create perceptions of decreasing security," Mr. Panetta said.
The hearing, called by the panel to review American military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, was the first for Mr. Panetta as defense secretary.
Like Mr. Panetta, Admiral Mullen sought to cast the recent attacks in Afghanistan in the best possible light. "We must not attribute more weight to these attacks than they deserve," Admiral Mullen said. "They are serious and significant, but they do not represent a sea change in the odds of military success."
Admiral Mullen voiced a stern warning to Pakistan, who he said was undermining its own interests as well as the American interest in fighting terror networks in the region.
"In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan, and most especially the Pakistani Army and ISI, jeopardizes not only the prospect of our strategic partnership but Pakistan's opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence," he said. "They may believe that by using these proxies, they are hedging their bets or redressing what they feel is an imbalance in regional power. But in reality, they have already lost that bet.
"By exporting violence, they've eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being."
But he said he did not believe he had wasted his time by putting so much effort into improving ties with Pakistan's government.
"I've done this because I believe that a flawed and difficult relationship is better than no relationship at all," he said. "Some may argue I've wasted my time, that Pakistan is no closer to us than before, and may now have drifted even further away. I disagree. Military cooperation again is warming."
Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan.