Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA’s drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan’s government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by The Washington Post.
The files describe dozens of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region and include maps as well as before-and-after aerial photos of targeted compounds over a four-year stretch from late 2007 to late 2011 in which
the campaign intensified dramatically.
Markings on the documents indicate that many of them were prepared by the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center specifically to be shared with Pakistan’s government. They tout the success of strikes that killed dozens of alleged al-Qaeda operatives and assert repeatedly that no civilians were harmed.
Pakistan’s tacit approval of the drone program has been one of the more poorly kept national security secrets in Washington and Islamabad. During the early years of the campaign, the CIA even used Pakistani airstrips for its Predator fleet.
But the files expose the explicit nature of a secret arrangement struck between the two countries at a time when neither was willing to publicly acknowledge the existence of the drone program. The documents detailed at least 65 strikes in Pakistan and were described as “talking points” for CIA briefings, which occurred with such regularity that they became a matter of diplomatic routine. The documents are marked “top secret” but cleared for release to Pakistan.
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There was no immediate comment from Pakistan’s military or intelligence service, but Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general, said the revelation that Pakistan’s government was well-informed about the drone program will likely “put cold water on the hype” within Pakistan over the issue.
“I think people knew it already, but this makes it much more obvious, and the [Pakistani] media and others will have to cool off, ” said Masood, a military analyst.
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Several documents refer to a direct Pakistani role in the selection of targets. A 2010 entry, for example, describes hitting a location “at the request of your government.” Another from that year refers to a “network of locations associated with a joint CIA-ISI targeting effort.”
Regular communication
Several of the files are labeled as “talking points” prepared for the DDCIA, which stands for deputy director of the CIA. Michael J. Morell, who held that position before retiring this year, delivered regular briefings on the drone program to Husain Haqqani, who was the Pakistani ambassador to the United States at the time.
The CIA also shared maps and photographs of drone operations in Pakistan that have not previously been shown publicly. The maps contain simplistic illustrations, including orange flame emblems to mark locations of strikes. The photos show before-and-after scenes of walled compounds and vehicles destroyed by Hellfire missiles, some marked with arrows to identify bodies amid the rubble.
The documents indicate that these and other materials were routinely relayed “by bag” to senior officials in Islamabad.
When contacted Wednesday, Haqqani declined to comment and said he would not discuss classified materials.
In one case, Morell indicated that the CIA was prepared to share credit with the Pakistanis if the agency could confirm that it had killed Ilyas Kashmiri, an al-Qaeda operative suspected of ties to plots against India. The agency would do so “so that the negative views about Pakistan in the U.S. decision and opinion making circles are mitigated,” according to a diplomatic memo.
But Morell was also sent on occasion to confront Pakistan with what U.S. officials regarded as evidence of the nation’s support for terrorist groups. In June 2011, he arrived at the embassy with videos showing militants scrambling to clear materials from explosives plants that the United States had discovered and called to the attention of counterparts in Pakistan.
Rather than launching raids, the Pakistanis were suspected of tipping off the militants, who dispersed their materials in a “pickup truck, two station wagons and at least two motorcycles to multiple locations in South Waziristan,” according to the memo summarizing the meeting with Morell.
Morell warned that “these videos left a bad taste” among lawmakers and other senior officials in Washington.
