Pentagon criticizes Mullen to have "overstated the case" (somewhat)

[Awesome]

Adm. Mullen’s words on Pakistan come under scrutiny - The Washington Post

Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week that an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington, according to American officials involved in U.S. policy in the region.

The internal criticism by the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to challenge Mullen openly, reflects concern over the accuracy of Mullen’s characterizations at a time when Obama administration officials have been frustrated in their efforts to persuade Pakistan to break its ties to Afghan insurgent groups.

The administration has long sought to pressure Pakistan, but to do so in a nuanced way that does not sever the U.S. relationship with a country that American officials see as crucial to winning the war in Afghanistan and maintaining long-term stability in the region.

Mullen’s testimony to a Senate committee was widely interpreted as an accusation by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Pakistan’s military and espionage agencies sanction and direct bloody attacks against U.S. troops and targets in Afghanistan. Such interpretations prompted new levels of indignation among senior officials in both the United States and Pakistan.

Mullen’s language “overstates the case,” said a senior Pentagon official with access to classified intelligence files on Pakistan, because there is scant evidence of direction or control. If anything, the official said, the intelligence indicates that Pakistan treads a delicate if duplicitous line, providing support to insurgent groups including the Haqqani network but avoiding actions that would provoke a U.S. response.

“The Pakistani government has been dealing with Haqqani for a long time and still sees strategic value in guiding Haqqani and using them for their purposes,” the Pentagon official said. But “it’s not in their interest to inflame us in a way that an attack on a [U.S.] compound would do.”

U.S. officials stressed that there is broad agreement in the military and intelligence community that the Haqqani network has mounted some of the most audacious attacks of the Afghanistan war, including a 20-hour siege by gunmen this month on the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul.

A senior aide to Mullen defended the chairman’s testimony, which was designed to prod the Pakistanis to sever ties to the Haqqani group if not contain it by force. “I don’t think the Pakistani reaction was unexpected,” said Capt. John Kirby. “The chairman stands by every word of his testimony.”

But Mullen’s pointed message and the difficulty in matching his words to the underlying intelligence underscore the suspicion and distrust that have plagued the United States and Pakistan since they were pushed together as counterterrorism partners after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

U.S. military officials said that Mullen’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee has been misinterpreted, and that his remark that the Haqqani network had carried out recent truck-bomb and embassy attacks “with ISI support” was meant to imply broad assistance, but not necessarily direction by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

U.S. officials have long accused Pakistan of providing support to the Haqqani network and allowing it to operate along the Afghanistan border with relative impunity, a charge that Pakistani officials reject.

But Mullen seemed to take the allegation an additional step, saying that the Haqqani network “acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency,” a phrase that implies ISI involvement and control.

That interpretation might be valid “if we were judging by Western standards,” said a senior U.S. military official who defended Mullen’s testimony. But the Pakistanis “use extremist groups — not only the Haqqanis — as proxies and hedges” to maintain influence in Afghanistan.

“This is not new,” the official said. “Can they control them like a military unit? We don’t think so. Do they encourage them? Yes. Do they provide some finance for them? Yes. Do they provide safe havens? Yes.”

That nuance escaped many in Congress and even some in the Obama administration, who voiced concern that the escalation in rhetoric had inflamed anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.

U.S. officials said that even evidence that has surfaced since Mullen’s testimony is open to differences in interpretation, including cellphones recovered from gunmen who were killed during the assault on the U.S. Embassy.

One official said the phones were used to make repeated calls to numbers associated with the Haqqani network, as well as presumed “ISI operatives.” But the official declined to explain the basis for that conclusion.

The senior Pentagon official treated the assertion with skepticism, saying the term “operatives” covers a wide range of supposed associates of the ISI. “Does it mean the same Haqqani numbers [also found in the phones], or is it actually uniformed officers” of Pakistan’s spy service?

U.S. officials said Mullen was unaware of the cellphones until after he testified.

Pakistani officials acknowledge that they have ongoing contact with the Haqqani network, a group founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, who was one of the CIA-backed mujaheddin commanders who helped drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Now in poor health, Haqqani has yielded day-to-day control of the network to his son, Sirajuddin.

U.S. officials see indications that their Pakistani counterparts can exert influence on the Haqqani group in some cases, if not exert control.

Last year, at the United States’ behest, the ISI appealed to the Haqqani group not to attack polling stations during Afghan elections, a request that appears to have been honored. The senior Pentagon official declined to say how U.S. intelligence knows that the request was made, except to say, “We were aware of it.”

Mullen’s testimony was prepared at a time of intense frustration with Pakistan, in the aftermath of the embassy attack and other incidents. His remarks were striking in part because Mullen has long been sympathetic to Pakistan, traveling frequently to Islamabad and meeting more than two dozen times with its army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani.

But with his term as Joint Chiefs chairman about to expire, Mullen has become increasingly frustrated with the failure to get Pakistan to cut ties with Haqqani, and instructed his staff to compose testimony for last week’s hearing that would convey a message of exasperation.

In Pakistan, a military official emerged from a meeting of corps commanders Sunday saying they would make no move against Haqqani in the North Waziristan tribal region and warning that a unilateral U.S. action would have “disastrous consequences.”

The reaction in the Pakistani press to Mullen’s message has been more severe. A column this week by retired air vice marshal Shahzad Chaudry asked, “What could be the possible motives for America’s recent diatribes?” It concluded that the United States was intentionally sowing chaos in the region to weaken Pakistan.

In Washington, a senior Obama administration official said that “no one has any interest in walking back” what Mullen said, even while voicing concern over the comments’ impact on the fragile relationship with Pakistan.

“If the Pakistanis are finally scared about this, great,” the administration official said. “But we don’t want to walk [the relationship] over a cliff.”



Correspondent Karin Brulliard in Islamabad and special correspondents Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

---------- Post added at 02:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:02 PM ----------

Amazing... America blinks!

This should set some new precedent. Major thumbs up to China's strong statements in support for Pakistan!

 

[Al Bhatti]

They want to work with us, they want to fight against us, they do not want anyone to make overstated remarks against us.

US government officials and generals should visit the nearest psychiatrist at the soonest. Otherwise their country will be in more trouble than it is now.

 

[Awesome]

Haqqanis not to be put on terrorist list

The Obama administration isn’t ready to declare the Haqqani group in Pakistan a “foreign terrorist organization” even after Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the group attacked the U.S. embassy and American troops in Afghanistan.

“We are continuing to review whether to designate” the Haqqani organization, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said yesterday.

Mullen’s declaration in Senate testimony last week that Haqqani operatives acted as a “proxy” for Pakistan’s intelligence service may have further complicated the question.

Taking the first step -- adding the Haqqani group to the list of terrorist organizations -- would lead to demands that Pakistan be declared a state sponsor of terrorism. That would put at risk Pakistan’s cooperation as the U.S. tries to snuff out al-Qaeda’s core and other militants in the country’s tribal areas.

For now, the U.S. has designated the Haqqani network’s founder and other leaders. It has made clear to Pakistan that clamping down on the group “is job one, that we want to do it together, and that’s the conversation that we’re having now,” Nuland said.

Designating Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism would put it in the company of only four other countries -- Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria -- and might trigger a nationalist backlash in Pakistan. It would require halting U.S. aid to Pakistan, force the U.S. to oppose World Bank loans to Pakistan, and end cooperation between the two countries in fighting terrorism and trying to stabilize Afghanistan.

Pariah State

Naming Pakistan a sponsor of terrorism “would turn it into a pariah state,” Robert Lamb, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “That would complicate a lot of aspects of the relationship, which is complicated enough already. It’s ugly, but it’s not unsalvageable.”

The administration is under new pressure to designate the Haqqanis a terrorist organization alongside 49 others, including al-Qaeda, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

After Mullen testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the Haqqani group “meets the standards for designation” as a terrorist organization. So far, said congressional officials, Clinton hasn’t responded.

Congressional Pressure

“I think there’s going to be increasing congressional pressure on them to list the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization,” said Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst and now a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation policy group in Washington.

“If we know that the Haqqani network is behind these major attacks on U.S. interests and we fail to confront them, that is a signal of weakness and it simply invites more attacks,” she said.

Nuland and other administration and military officials signaled a reluctance to sanction Pakistan.
Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said yesterday that the U.S. wants to “maintain a relationship with Pakistan that’s grounded in common interests, to include going after terrorists that threaten both countries.”

“There are differences from time to time,” Little told reporters at the Pentagon. “Those differences have been made public, and we continue to discuss those differences in private. We look forward to working with the Pakistanis to try to resolve them.”

Stretched Thin

Pakistani military officials told reporters in Islamabad on Sept. 25 that they had decided not to take action against the Haqqani group because their forces are stretched too thin.

If tensions escalated, Pakistan might again, as it did in a previous diplomatic confrontation, cut supply lines to U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan from its port city of Karachi. Alternative land or air routes are more costly and difficult.
The Pakistanis, said two U.S. intelligence officials, also might abandon secret agreements that permit unmanned U.S. drones to collect intelligence and attack targets in designated areas of Pakistan.

The U.S. already is restricted from operating over the Haqqanis’ suspected base in North Waziristan or the border city of Quetta, home to the main Afghan Taliban group. They also might expel some or all of the classified number of U.S. intelligence officers and special operations forces who are training Pakistani troops and helping target drone attacks, the officials said.

ISI Role

Designating the Haqqani network a terrorist organization would do little to stop the group, said Curtis of the Heritage Foundation. The Haqqanis, she said, probably still would be able to garner financial support from their allies in the Persian Gulf region and backing from the Pakistan spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, known as ISI.

A U.S. designation of the Haqqanis isn’t likely to change Pakistani policy either, said Christine Fair, a Pakistan expert at Georgetown University in Washington.

The ISI and the Pakistani military regard the Haqqani network and other militants as allies in their campaign to maintain Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and prevent arch- rival India from getting a toehold on Pakistan’s western border, said Fair and other specialists.

“They believe that the Haqqanis would protect Pakistan’s interest in any future setup in Afghanistan,” Curtis said.
Rejecting the charges that his government uses the Haqqanis as a proxy, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in a Sept. 25 statement that U.S. policy on Afghanistan shows “confusion and policy disarray.”

“We may just let this ride,” said Marvin Weinbaum, a former Afghanistan and Pakistan intelligence analyst at the State Department and director of the Center for Pakistan Studies at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “We know what direction the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is going, and now we have no idea what the bottom looks like.”

To contact the reporters on this story: John Walcott in Washington at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net; Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

 

[unicorn]

Don't make haste my friend in assuming that USA is blinking.

 

[BATMAN]

I was also surprised by this fast development.

According to my estimates the war should break between 2012 - 2013 but not this year.

 

[Awesome]

Don't make haste my friend in assuming that USA is blinking.

Rumorville has it, the Saudi team that came in yesterday played some role too, a message was delivered from the US about their real intentions... I think ISI will use its clout on the Haqqanis to ask them to pull back on the offenses since the US is going to leave anyway. The US needs to be given a face-saving chance to come off as a victor (or at least not humiliated as running away) when it leaves. Given attacks like the truck bombing and the US embassy bombing it complicates US from saying that it is leaving after achieving its goals as flimsy as that line may be it should be somewhat believable.

So its not exactly blinking - the US never meant to do anything it was backed into a corner in giving strong statements and blowing some face-saving wind through its rear.

 

[Abingdonboy]

US government damage control goes into overdrive. Whenever such comments are made that contravenes official US policy such statements are made, to an extent this is understandable but it means the truth is muffled.

 

[fd24]

USA seems to be behaving like a middle aged woman going through a menopausal change.
A message to you American friends :

Make your mind up guys. Either appoint people into influencing positions that think before engaging brain or leave the position vacant. The uncertainty of what the main body of the USA government wants is destabilizing the whole Territory and fueling unnecessary speculation for all concerned. You irrational behavior is creating you no new friends and by the way keep the aid we don't want it. Many thanks USA

 

[lem34]

And then people wonder why i suggest that american govt are liars and duplicitous.

 

[Awesome]

This is hillarious .. a pakistani advicing Amercians about incompetentcy when in their own country most corrupt and incomeptent people are at the helm.

You should advice these to your countrymen to choose wise people who may know the word "diplomacy"

Yes we Pakistanis have a right to an opinion too, Oh Superior and Mighty Indian.

If you have nothing to contribute to the topic, you can always choose to remain quiet.

 

[VCheng]

One needs to be careful about the conclusions drawn from this piece. People inside the beltway will see importance in the statements highlighted:

Adm. Mullen’s words on Pakistan come under scrutiny - The Washington Post

Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week that an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington, according to American officials involved in U.S. policy in the region.

The internal criticism by the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to challenge Mullen openly, reflects concern over the accuracy of Mullen’s characterizations at a time when Obama administration officials have been frustrated in their efforts to persuade Pakistan to break its ties to Afghan insurgent groups.

The administration has long sought to pressure Pakistan, but to do so in a nuanced way that does not sever the U.S. relationship with a country that American officials see as crucial to winning the war in Afghanistan and maintaining long-term stability in the region.

Mullen’s testimony to a Senate committee was widely interpreted as an accusation by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Pakistan’s military and espionage agencies sanction and direct bloody attacks against U.S. troops and targets in Afghanistan. Such interpretations prompted new levels of indignation among senior officials in both the United States and Pakistan.

Mullen’s language “overstates the case,” said a senior Pentagon official with access to classified intelligence files on Pakistan, because there is scant evidence of direction or control. If anything, the official said, the intelligence indicates that Pakistan treads a delicate if duplicitous line, providing support to insurgent groups including the Haqqani network but avoiding actions that would provoke a U.S. response.

“The Pakistani government has been dealing with Haqqani for a long time and still sees strategic value in guiding Haqqani and using them for their purposes,” the Pentagon official said. But “it’s not in their interest to inflame us in a way that an attack on a [U.S.] compound would do.”

U.S. officials stressed that there is broad agreement in the military and intelligence community that the Haqqani network has mounted some of the most audacious attacks of the Afghanistan war, including a 20-hour siege by gunmen this month on the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul.

A senior aide to Mullen defended the chairman’s testimony, which was designed to prod the Pakistanis to sever ties to the Haqqani group if not contain it by force. “I don’t think the Pakistani reaction was unexpected,” said Capt. John Kirby. “The chairman stands by every word of his testimony.”

But Mullen’s pointed message and the difficulty in matching his words to the underlying intelligence underscore the suspicion and distrust that have plagued the United States and Pakistan since they were pushed together as counterterrorism partners after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

U.S. military officials said that Mullen’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee has been misinterpreted, and that his remark that the Haqqani network had carried out recent truck-bomb and embassy attacks “with ISI support” was meant to imply broad assistance, but not necessarily direction by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

U.S. officials have long accused Pakistan of providing support to the Haqqani network and allowing it to operate along the Afghanistan border with relative impunity, a charge that Pakistani officials reject.

But Mullen seemed to take the allegation an additional step, saying that the Haqqani network “acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency,” a phrase that implies ISI involvement and control.

That interpretation might be valid “if we were judging by Western standards,” said a senior U.S. military official who defended Mullen’s testimony. But the Pakistanis “use extremist groups — not only the Haqqanis — as proxies and hedges” to maintain influence in Afghanistan.

“This is not new,” the official said. “Can they control them like a military unit? We don’t think so. Do they encourage them? Yes. Do they provide some finance for them? Yes. Do they provide safe havens? Yes.”

That nuance escaped many in Congress and even some in the Obama administration, who voiced concern that the escalation in rhetoric had inflamed anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.

U.S. officials said that even evidence that has surfaced since Mullen’s testimony is open to differences in interpretation, including cellphones recovered from gunmen who were killed during the assault on the U.S. Embassy.

One official said the phones were used to make repeated calls to numbers associated with the Haqqani network, as well as presumed “ISI operatives.” But the official declined to explain the basis for that conclusion.

The senior Pentagon official treated the assertion with skepticism, saying the term “operatives” covers a wide range of supposed associates of the ISI. “Does it mean the same Haqqani numbers [also found in the phones], or is it actually uniformed officers” of Pakistan’s spy service?

U.S. officials said Mullen was unaware of the cellphones until after he testified.

Pakistani officials acknowledge that they have ongoing contact with the Haqqani network, a group founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, who was one of the CIA-backed mujaheddin commanders who helped drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Now in poor health, Haqqani has yielded day-to-day control of the network to his son, Sirajuddin.

U.S. officials see indications that their Pakistani counterparts can exert influence on the Haqqani group in some cases, if not exert control.

Last year, at the United States’ behest, the ISI appealed to the Haqqani group not to attack polling stations during Afghan elections, a request that appears to have been honored. The senior Pentagon official declined to say how U.S. intelligence knows that the request was made, except to say, “We were aware of it.”

Mullen’s testimony was prepared at a time of intense frustration with Pakistan, in the aftermath of the embassy attack and other incidents. His remarks were striking in part because Mullen has long been sympathetic to Pakistan, traveling frequently to Islamabad and meeting more than two dozen times with its army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani.

But with his term as Joint Chiefs chairman about to expire, Mullen has become increasingly frustrated with the failure to get Pakistan to cut ties with Haqqani, and instructed his staff to compose testimony for last week’s hearing that would convey a message of exasperation.

In Pakistan, a military official emerged from a meeting of corps commanders Sunday saying they would make no move against Haqqani in the North Waziristan tribal region and warning that a unilateral U.S. action would have “disastrous consequences.”

The reaction in the Pakistani press to Mullen’s message has been more severe. A column this week by retired air vice marshal Shahzad Chaudry asked, “What could be the possible motives for America’s recent diatribes?” It concluded that the United States was intentionally sowing chaos in the region to weaken Pakistan.

In Washington, a senior Obama administration official said that “no one has any interest in walking back” what Mullen said, even while voicing concern over the comments’ impact on the fragile relationship with Pakistan.

“If the Pakistanis are finally scared about this, great,” the administration official said. “But we don’t want to walk [the relationship] over a cliff.”



Correspondent Karin Brulliard in Islamabad and special correspondents Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

---------- Post added at 02:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:02 PM ----------

Amazing... America blinks!

This should set some new precedent. Major thumbs up to China's strong statements in support for Pakistan!

 

[karan.1970]

In my view, next 4-6 weeks and PA goes after Haqquani.. Looks like Pakistan has caved in , in private though...

 

[unicorn]

Rumorville has it, the Saudi team that came in yesterday played some role too, a message was delivered from the US about their real intentions... I think ISI will use its clout on the Haqqanis to ask them to pull back on the offenses since the US is going to leave anyway.

So you do believe that ISI is directing Haqqanis for making an offensive in Afghanistan. Even If I agree what makes you sure that the other Talibans who are not connected with Pakistan will stop their offensive just because of ISI . The USA in any case whether Haqqanis act against them or not will blame Pakistan.So this assumption is flawed from the very start.First thing!

The US needs to be given a face-saving chance to come off as a victor (or at least not humiliated as running away) when it leaves. Given attacks like the truck bombing and the US embassy bombing it complicates US from saying that it is leaving after achieving its goals as flimsy as that line may be it should be somewhat believable.

So its not exactly blinking - the US never meant to do anything it was backed into a corner in giving strong statements and blowing some face-saving wind through its rear.

No one can give USA a face saving chance.It is us who thinks that is important, for them they don't care.The only thing matters to them is their interest in the region and they will do what ever it takes to achieve them. They have already pre positioned people in Paksitan and have set up a huge network of intelligence which is working, probably one of the largest in the world. Why I think that way is because the facts are completely in support of this thought.In time they will become more and more less reliant on Pakistan.For example they now openly say that in their new US-Afghan policy they don't require Pakistan and so are the other cases.

VPR News: U.S. Now Relies On Alternate Afghan Supply Routes


Thomas Schelling in one of his book "The Strategy of Conflict" has pioneered the study of bargaining and strategic behavior in what Schelling refers to, in the book, as "conflict behavior".

"[Y]ou're standing at the edge of a cliff, chained by the ankle to someone else. You'll be released, and one of you will get a large prize, as soon as the other gives in. How do you persuade the other guy to give in, when the only method at your disposal -- threatening to push him off the cliff -- would doom you both?"

"Answer: You start dancing, closer and closer to the edge. That way, you don't have to convince him that you would do something totally irrational: plunge him and yourself off the cliff. You just have to convince him that you are prepared to take a higher risk than he is of accidentally falling off the cliff. If you can do that, you win."

 

[fd24]

Our leaders may be corrupt but they don't compromise on sovereignty and interference in our diplomatic policy.

Pakistan has 1 friend i.e. China and we have more than half of the world as friends.

India-US are friends on mutual basis. We work on mutual interest. We buy some military aircraft by paying hard cash (We paying 7-8 Billion $ for P8i Pos., C-17,C-130) and they do business in software industry. India is too big to become anyone's puppet. Don't compare Pakistan with India.

Mr king123

Firstly i would like to say to you i have several examples of what your leaders are capable of but this would be going off thread. Something may i hasten to add is common when you post. This is not about India - US friends nor China or your software industry muppet.
Secondly back on thread i think one will see in the foreseeable future a retreat and a number of face saving statements made by the USA as they are fully aware Mullen was wrong in his haste.

 

[gambit]

In my view, next 4-6 weeks and PA goes after Haqquani.. Looks like Pakistan has caved in , in private though...

The targets will most likely be low level lackeys. There are always plenty of such to be sacrificed. Pakistan's ISI may not be in direct operational controls of the Haqani Network but often their leaderships shared similar goals. Different methods are often because of differences in institutional freedoms to act towards those goals. The ISI, like the Pakistani Army or Air Force or Navy, is an official branch of the Pakistani government. The Haqqani Network is not. Paksitan's ISI has certain institutional and political restraints, as all governmental institutions do. The Haqqani Network does not. The latter has more freedoms to act but the lack of corporate controls by the ISI over the Haqqani Network means that Pakistan will occasionally pay the price of excesses when the Haqqani Network does act from either ignorance of accepted boundaries or contempt of those same boundaries.