‘Strike inside Pakistan is an option’
REF:
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=9244
Pentagon officials tell House panel US Special Forces will enter Pakistan on specific intelligence;
Democrats lash out at Musharraf
By News desk
WASHINGTON: US Special Forces would enter Pakistan if they had specific intelligence about an impending terrorist strike against the United States, despite warnings from the Pakistani government that it would not accept US troops operating independently inside its borders, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
Quoting top Pentagon and State Department officials that a
strike by the US inside the tribal areas of Pakistan is an option, the report said there were the
clearest assertion yet of the Bush administration’s willingness to act unilaterally inside Pakistan.
“If there were information or opportunity to strike a blow to protect the American people,” US forces would act immediately, Peter Verga, the acting assistant secretary of defence for international security, told an unusual joint session of the House’s Armed Services Committee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
At a separate Senate hearing, R Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, suggested that a unilateral strike would be a last resort, according to the report. “Given the primacy of the fight against al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, if we have in the future certainty of knowledge, then of course the United States would always have the option of taking action on its own,” Burns said during questioning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The statements were prompted by lawmakers’ questions about an intelligence assessment released last week that concluded that a resurgent al-Qaeda was using the tribal areas of Pakistan as a sanctuary for planning attacks against the United States and suggested that Pakistan had not been effective in combating the terrorist group and its allies.
James R Clapper Jr, Undersecretary of Defense and the Pentagon’s top intelligence official, told the House committee hearing that the Musharraf government
was not “doing 100 per cent of everything we might like,” but he added, “I think they are doing what they can, given the constraints.”
Clapper said the new efforts by Pakistan to rout al-Qaeda out of its haven “are only in the first week or so of implementation... and so, at this point, it is much too early to try to provide an assessment of the impact of these latest Pakistani moves”.
Several Democrats on the committee questioned Musharraf’s commitment to a head-on confrontation with the terrorists. Representative Robert Andrews said the American people — both Republicans and Democrats — want this job done by the United States. “We do not want to farm this one out.”
He asked whether the US would be willing to intercede with Pakistan’s special forces against al-Qaeda if it received actionable intelligence (or) the US special forces would be able to strike if the US received a report that required swift action, Clapper responded: “Well, yes, sir. We would be.”
Pete Verga interjected: “I would not want the American people to get the impression that if there were information and opportunity to strike a blow to al-Qaeda in (the tribal area) that we would not take immediate advantage of that opportunity.”
The committee members also questioned the Bush administration’s steadfast reliance on the Pakistani president and whether he had earned the more than $10 billion in US assistance provided since the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.
Warning Musharraf that US assistance, which requires congressional approval, was “not a blank check,” Senator Robert Menendez said the Pakistani president was operating with a “blind eye” to the terrorist build-up.
However, Clapper replied that Musharraf had faced at least three assassination attempts because of his assistance to the United States. “Some of the most critical arrests that have occurred of senior al-Qaeda members have occurred in Pakistan by the Pakistanis,” he said, adding: “Since al-Qaeda is in an area largely inaccessible to Pakistani forces, it is a very difficult operating environment for them.” He stressed that more involvement of Pakistani troops would help, as would “more freedom of action on our part to engage in Pakistan”.
Democratic members complained that the National Intelligence Estimate released last week contradicted President Bush’s earlier repeated assertions that al-Qaeda was “on the run” instead portrayed a resurgent al-Qaeda after the US has spent billions of dollars on the war on terrorism.
The defence and intelligence officials testified that al-Qaeda attempted to reconstitute itself in Pakistani urban areas, only to be pushed out by Pakistani forces in early 2004. Al-Qaeda then “relocated” to North Waziristan, where it was far more difficult for Pakistani forces to find its members.
“We saw indications that the top (al-Qaeda) leadership was able to exploit that comfort zone” and exert more influence over al-Qaeda affiliates elsewhere, Edward Gistaro, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for trans-national threats, told the hearing.
Michael Leiter, deputy director of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, testified that a peace agreement Musharraf signed last year with the North Waziristan tribes contributed to the development of a safe haven for al-Qaeda in the tribal areas.
Mary Beth Long, acting assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs, told the hearing that the agreement has since been “abandoned by both sides” and is “no longer in effect”.
Back at the Senate panel hearing,
Burns called President Musharraf the “most indispensable partner” of the United States in fighting terror and added that the Bush administration wanted a more sustained and effective effort by the Pakistani government against both al-Qaeda and Taliban forces on Pakistani soil.
An al-Qaeda build-up in tribal areas along the Afghan border underscores the need for Pakistan to “elevate its efforts to fight the enemy,” said Burns. “Al-Qaeda remains a potent force inside Pakistan, as is the Taliban,” he said. “Defeating these enemies is essential to our effort to defeat terrorism in South Asia and around the world.”
.....once again..ARROGANT MFKS......I hope Pakistan....in its own usual way....treat the American special forces with due courtesy......that is...KICK their Effing arses the hard way. The US/Nato are making strategic cock-ups and are not able to subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan despite their HI-TEC gear. It is the Bastard Us lobbys who would like Pakistan to be disabled and made ineffective as other Muslim Nations have been made.
The
Babur cruise missile was a 'timely' tested reminder to these arrogant twats (US/Nato....still with their effing 'colonialist' attitudes!!!.... I hope PaK PLAYS IT COOL. tHE uS/Nato are just trying to woo their own public on the progress on the 'war on terrorism'.....it looks like the neo-cons would desire a 'clash of civilization' to further their agendas.....
