Why this anti-ISI propaganda?

[fatman17]

Blain,

Point taken.

If it is under the PM why the reluctance to follow his instrs ? Why were the orders of the PM reversed ?

The internal dynamics are not known entirely, what is visible is the snakes & ladders that is invariably played out whenever anything is to do with ISI. Surely, things cannot be so spasmodic as they appear ?

The necessity of an efficient Int agency for running the nation is not contested. What irks the world is the reluctance of a Govt agency to follow instrs of the Govt & the flip flop that follows after any instrs are issued.

because most of the time the PM wanted the ISI to report on his political opponents as well as the army high command.

 

[fatman17]

According to me the ISI needs to be under civilian leadership. Having a "state withing a state" cannot be described as an advantage for any country.
A powerful vigilante group answerable to nobody does nothing but undermine the system.

easier said than done - what happens when the civilian leadership misuses this institution.? which it has done in the past.

 

[abaig]

ISI should work as it is working 'state within state' as frontline defence of Pakistan Army. Every single secret service agency works similarly, no matter how transparent it seems from the surface i.e RAW, CIA, MI5, Mossad, etc.

Even the FBI works secretly and keeps its documents secret. There are two sets of documents....one for official use (for political face-saving) and the other the original set (to achieve its objectives).

ISI is Pakistan's frontline defence (as states by Mr.Musharraf) and its crucial to intelligence gathered by PAK army.

The USA and India are greatly disturbed over ISI's activities...is there any wonder why these recent stories emerging in papers maligning ISI? Dr Afia Siddiqi's case has been given worldwide coverage to malign ISI. Why was this case kept quiet for 5 years?

SImilarly, when there was design to malign PAK armed forces... Dr.Ayesha Siddiqa's book came to limelight. Our people must understand the international conspiracy to dismantle ISI & Armed forces somehow.

 

[fatman17]

ISI should work as it is working 'state within state' as frontline defence of Pakistan Army. Every single secret service agency works similarly, no matter how transparent it seems from the surface i.e RAW, CIA, MI5, Mossad, etc.

Even the FBI works secretly and keeps its documents secret. There are two sets of documents....one for official use (for political face-saving) and the other the original set (to achieve its objectives).

ISI is Pakistan's frontline defence (as states by Mr.Musharraf) and its crucial to intelligence gathered by PAK army.

The USA and India are greatly disturbed over ISI's activities...is there any wonder why these recent stories emerging in papers maligning ISI? Dr Afia Siddiqi's case has been given worldwide coverage to malign ISI. Why was this case kept quiet for 5 years?

SImilarly, when there was design to malign PAK armed forces... Dr.Ayesha Siddiqa's book came to limelight. Our people must understand the international conspiracy to dismantle ISI & Armed forces somehow.

the political wing of the ISI has been dismantled by Gen.Kiyani. the officers and men sent back to their original units. look for a change in the ISI internal demeanor.

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Without The ISI

Everyone in Washington and New Delhi mentions ISI when talking about terrorism. Really? What about the Israeli Mossad, the Indian RAW, and the American CIA? Who had links with Al-Qaeda all along? Certainly not the ISI. The fact is that ISI never had links with Al-Qaeda. Others did. And yes, ISI has links with some people inside the Afghan Taliban. But without this link, U.S. soldiers and others in Afghanistan would have been in a worse situation than they are in now.

By FATIMA RIZVI

Tuesday, 26 August 2008.

Ahmed Quraishi-Pakistan/Middle East politics, Iraq war, lebanon war, India Pakistan relations

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Strategic Forecasting, Inc., the American private intelligence gathering company better known as STRATFOR, seems to have deviated from its policy of terse insightful articles by putting out a long rambling unsubstantiated tirade against the ISI, one of Pakistan's three major intelligence agencies.

Recently the company produced a report that was immediately quoted in the western media, dubbing the ISI as a ‘rogue agency’ and a list of other accusations that accurately mirror the motivated and unsubstantiated statements made by the Indians, the U.S. officials and their puppet regime of Hamid Karzai in Kabul.]

Kamran Bukhari, the Pakistani researcher working for company and the author of the article, does not offer even a shred of evidence to support the many allegations (none of them new) against the ISI. This inevitably brings the motivation of the exercise into question because so far STRATFOR has been impartial and objective in its reports.

The author or STRATFOR seems to think that 'overhauling' the ISI would somehow ward off 'foreign pressures', end the 'jihadist insurgency' and resolve the 'crisis in government' in Pakistan.

Amazingly the U.S. and the incumbent Pakistan government think this is exactly what the present ISI is trying to do against great odds and there is plenty of evidence to support this contention. So an overhaul will not lead to any dramatic results and may be counterproductive.

The author has described the ISI as 'large, powerful and autonomous'.
It is large and it is powerful – among the most credible spy agencies in the world. But it is not autonomous. It works under the Prime Minister, its director general is appointed by the Prime Minister from a panel of serving three-star generals, all the officers are posted from the three services – army, navy, the air force – and they are all career officers who come for fixed tenures.

The ISI is funded by the Ministry of Finance through the Ministry of Defense. How can it possibly be autonomous? The ISI's task is strategic intelligence and if it is directed to do other things then that tasking has to come from the government of the day.

ISI has been placed center-stage in the whole transnational terrorist scene. The CIA, RAW and KHAD and many other intelligence agencies are not mentioned. They all have a role. ISI has been linked to AL Qaeda – actually it is a target of Al Qaeda and there is plenty of evidence to support this. ISI never had links with Al Qaeda.

If today the ISI did not have links with the Taliban then the U.S. and Afghanistan would be in a much greater trouble than they are now. It is the ISI that uses its links to obtain vital intelligence. In some areas there is no substitute for human intelligence.

No organization, and certainly no intelligence agency, would ever tolerate sub-groups within its ranks. The ISI does not have any people within its ranks who would work against the overall policy. Such elements would not be tolerated and the organization would be undermined very quickly. This has never happened.

Freelancing retired personnel of ISI do pick up jobs outside the agency after retirement and get involved in various assignments. But the ISI does not maintain any links with them. If there was any truth in such allegations then names and places would have surfaced a long time ago.

The attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul should not be seen in isolation. It had been preceded by an attack on the Afghan National Day Parade and by a spectacular jail break in Kandahar. In fact, unsubstantiated charges can actually start a proxy war in Kabul between rival intelligence agencies – something that must be avoided at all costs.

ISI is an asset and a vital link in the war against terror. It has proved this time and again.

Mrs. Rizvi is a Pakistani commentator based in Sehwan Sharif, Sindh.

© 2007-2008. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I think this excerpt from an article quoting, yet again, anonymous defense and intelligence officials, does shed some light on how the CIA (or anonymous sources within it, per the NYT) might be jumping the gun and coming to flawed conclusions when it comes to blaming the ISI (and ISI leadership, going by the NYT article) for institutional support.

But senior military officers who urge restraint are highly skeptical of the CIA's claims, with some arguing that while Al Qaeda has been able to find safe havens within Pakistan, constant U.S. surveillance and shifting loyalties of tribal chieftains have forced Al Qaeda's leadership to break up into small, remote groups in the tribal areas.

The distance between these cells, coupled with the knowledge that the U.S. can monitor most forms of electronic communications, has made it difficult for Al Qaeda to do any real coordinated planning for a large-scale attack on the U.S., these military officials believe.

"My opinion is there isn't that clear and present danger," said a senior military official who recently traveled to Pakistan. "I don't see that as within their capabilities."

The former senior Pentagon official, who was recently briefed on the CIA's Pakistan plans, also said he found the agency's information inadequate. "Every bit of intel they ever could gather was snippets," said the former official. "Under every rock there's an Al Qaeda? I don't think so."

U.S. debates going after militants in Pakistan - Los Angeles Times

It is prudent to note that the majority of the case made in the media against the ISI was on the basis of an alleged intercept between an ISI official and the Haqqani network. Pakistan has stated that it does maintain links with some of those groups, as it pursues a policy of dividing the Taliban within Pakistan, between the TTP and groups like those of Mullah Nazir, and has used some of those groups to beat back 'foreigners' and other militants. That 'snippet of information' very possibly could have been due to those contacts between the Pakistanis and some Taliban.

It doesn't automatically translate into the ISI aiding and abetting the Taliban nor does it automatically mean that the ISI was responsible for the attack on the Indian Embassy.