U.S. considering new covert push within Pakistan Steven Lee Myers, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt* | International Herald Tribune | 06 January 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/06/america/06terror.php?page=1 President George W. Bush's senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The debate is in response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts to destabilize the Pakistani government, according to several senior administration officials. Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and a number of President George W. Bush's top national security advisers met at the White House on Friday to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of Pakistan's opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto. Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to the government of President Pervez Musharraf is now so grave that both Musharraf and Pakistan's new military leadership are likely to give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions were made, said the officials, who declined to speak on the record because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions. The specifics of the option under discussion are unclear, and may not have been decided. But they would involve the CIA working with the military's Special Operations forces. The Bush administration has not formally presented any new options to Musharraf, who gave up his military role last month, or to his successor as the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who the White House thinks will be more sympathetic to the American position than Musharraf. Kayani was an aide to Bhutto early in his career, and later led the Pakistani intelligence service. But from the White House to the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in the nuclear-armed country. "After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize creating chaos in Pakistan itself," one senior official said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was on vacation last week and did not attend the White House meeting, said in late December that "Al Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people." In the past, the administration has largely stayed out of the tribal areas, in part for fear that exposure of any American-led operations there would so embarrass the Musharraf government that it could further empower his critics, who have declared that the Pakistani leader was too close to Washington. Even now, according to officials, some in the State Department are arguing that American-led military operations on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan could result in a tremendous backlash, and could ultimately do more harm than good. That is particularly true, they said, if Americans were captured or killed in the territory. In part, the White House discussions may be driven by a desire for another effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al- Zawahri. Currently, CIA operatives and Special Operations forces have limited authorities to conduct counterterrorism missions in Pakistan based on specific intelligence about the whereabouts of those two men, who have eluded the Bush administration for more than six years, or of other members of the terrorist organization hiding in or near the tribal areas. The CIA has launched missiles from Predator aircraft in the tribal areas several times, with varying degrees of success. Intelligence officials said they believed that in January 2006, an airstrike narrowly missed killing Zawahri, who had attended a dinner in Damadola, a Pakistani village. But that, apparently, was the last real evidence American officials had about the whereabouts of their chief targets. The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening the reins of the CIA to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources, officials said. Under current law, most counterterrorism operations in Pakistan have to be conducted by the CIA; in Afghanistan, where military operations are under way, including with NATO forces, the military can take the lead. The legal status would not change if the administration decided to act more aggressively. However, if the CIA were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military, or deputize some Special Operations forces to act under the authority of the agency. The United States now has about 50 troops in Pakistan. Any expanded operations using CIA operatives or Special Operations forces, like Navy Seals, would be small and tailored to specific missions, military officials said. Critics said more direct American military action would be ineffective, anger the Pakistani Army and drive up support for the militants. "I'm not arguing that you leave Al Qaeda and the Taliban unmolested, but I'd be very, very cautious about approaches that could play into hands of enemies and be counterproductive," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. Similar warnings have been issued by some American diplomats in South Asia, officials said. Hasan Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani military and political analyst, said that raids by American troops would spark a powerful popular backlash against Musharraf and the United States. In the wake of the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, many Pakistanis suspect that the United States is trying to dominate Pakistan as well, he said. Musharraf who is already widely unpopular would lose even more popular support. "At the moment when Musharraf is extremely unpopular, he will face more crisis," Rizvi said. "This will weaken Musharraf in a Pakistani context." He said that such raids would be seen as vote of no confidence in the Pakistani military in general, including Kayani. The meeting on Friday, which was not publicly announced, included Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser; Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and top intelligence officials. Spokesmen for the White House, the CIA, and the Pentagon declined to discuss the meeting, citing a policy against doing so, but the discussion reflected an urgent concern that a new Qaeda haven was solidifying in parts of Pakistan and needed to be countered, one official said. There was also discussion of how to handle the period between now and the Feb. 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections. Although some officials and experts have criticized Musharraf and questioned his ability to take on extremists, Bush himself has remained steadfast in his support, and it is unlikely any new measures, including direct American military action inside Pakistan, would be approved without Musharraf's consent. "I've always been a supporter of President Musharraf," Bush said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. "I believe he is strong in the war on terror. He understands clearly the risks of dealing with extremists and terrorists. After all, they've tried to kill him." The Pakistan government has identified a militant leader with links to Al Qaeda, Baitullah Mehsud, who holds sway in tribal areas near the Afghanistan border, as the chief suspect behind the attack on Bhutto. American officials are not certain about Mehsud's complicity but said the threat he and other militants posed was a new focus even though he is not a member of al Qaeda, and is a Pashtun. He is considered, they said, an "Al Qaeda associate." In an interview with foreign journalists on Thursday, Musharraf warned of the risk any counterterrorism forces American or Pakistani faced in confronting Mehsud in his native tribal areas. "He is in South Waziristan agency, and let me tell you, getting him in that place means battling against thousands of people, hundreds of people who are his followers, the Mehsud tribe, if you get to him, and it will mean collateral damage," Musharraf said. The next few weeks before parliamentary elections which were originally scheduled for Tuesday are seen as a critical period because of threats by extremists to disrupt the vote. But it seemed unlikely that any additional American effort would be approved and put in place in that time frame. Administration aides said that Pakistani and American officials shared the concern about a resurgent Al Qaeda, and that American diplomats and senior military officers had been working closely with their Pakistani counterparts to help bolster Pakistan's counterterrorism operations. Shortly after Bhutto's assassination, Admiral William Fallon, who oversees American military operations in Southwest Asia, telephoned his Pakistani counterparts to ensure that counterterrorism and logistics operations, like trucking in fuel and supplies for American operations in Afghanistan through Pakistan, remained on track. In early December, Admiral Eric Olson, the new head of the Special Operations Command, paid his second visit to Pakistan in three months to meet with senior Pakistani officers, including Lieutenant General Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Admiral Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited from border tribes that the United States is planning to help train and equip. But the Pakistanis are still years away from fielding an effective counterinsurgency force, and some senior American officials have voiced concerns that the United States may have to take direct action against militants in the largely ungoverned tribal areas. So far, American officials said the crisis surrounding Bhutto's assassination had not diminished the Pakistani counterterrorism operations, and there were no signs that Musharraf had pulled out any of the 100,000 Pakistani forces deployed in the tribal areas to help police urban unrest. *Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Islamabad, and David Rohde from New York.
