Drone attacks follow ISI chief to Pakistan after modest gains in US visit

WASHINGTON: A pair of US drone attacks on Wednesday that killed six suspected militants inPakistan followed the country's intelligence chief back home after his high-wire engagement in Washington during which he is said to have won modest concessions. 

ISI chief Shuja Pasha's 24-hour visit here on Monday for talks with his CIA opposite number saw the US promise greater transparency and accountability of CIA operations in Pakistan without any specific commitments, while rejecting the demand for a halt to drone strikes. Washington followed it up its unremitting stand with two drone strikes hours after Pasha returned to Pakistan. 

The strikes -- the first in more than two weeks -- indicated the two sides are still at odds despite Washington's effort to mollify its angry ally with a series of affable public statements. Asked if the strains between the United States and Pakistan's government are inhibiting counterterrorism efforts, White House spokesman Jay Carney skirted the question while saying the "relationship... cooperation between our two countries...has been important, and continues to this day." 

"We are engaged in a shared goal of defeating insurgents and terrorist groups. ... I can't discuss specifics about intelligence operations, but I can tell you that the cooperation between our two countries is important and continues," he added. 

At the State Department, officials indicated that the US would consider Pakistan's demand to scale down its contingent of intelligence operatives and special ops forces, but said it was having ongoing conversations about the size of US programs to train the Pakistan military. "We want to keep that program alive," spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. "We think it's important." 

Pakistan's military wants to downsize the program and get a better handle on it because it suspects Washington is using it for espionage. It also wants to be kept in the loop about US tracking of organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (which is what led to the Raymand Davis shoot-out), which Washington suspects of having close ties with the Pakistani military establishment. 

But outside the polite bromides issued for public consumption, Pakistan has clearly fallen foul of the Washington establishment and US public opinion over what is widely seen as its two-faced approach to terrorism, including using it as a policy instrument in the region. Even as ISI chief Pasha left Washington, a top US general indicated that Pakistan continued to be dodgy about terrorist outfits such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, while warning that the organization had spread its tentacles beyond the subcontinent. 

"The discussion regarding the government of Pakistan's relationship to LeT is a very sensitive one," Admiral Robert Willard, head of the US Pacific Command, pointedly told a Senate hearing even asIslamabad continued to allow LeT supremo Hafeez Mohammed Saeed a free run in Pakistan, while Pakistani fingerprints appeared in terrorism cases far and wide. 

In the US, on either side of ISI chief Pasha's day-long visit, two Pakistani expats were in the news for exporting what is now jokingly referred to as the country chief produce – terrorism. 

Farooque Ahmed, 35, a naturalized US citizen born in Pakistan, who prosecutors said wanted to "kill as many Americans as possible" by bombing Washington transit hubs, was sentenced to 23 years in prison on Monday. In Massachusetts, Aftab Khan, a Pakistani man who was arrested in connection with the Times Square bombing, agreed to be deported back to Pakistan under a plea deal after spending 11 months in prison. 

Such adverse publicity for Pakistan, including being implicated by the Headley-Rana duo for theMumbai attack during Pasha's visit, has hardly deterred the country's military establishment from pushing the envelope with Washington. While intelligence mavens would struggle to name the spy agencies and chief spooks of countries such as China and Russia, the ISI chief arrived in Washington in a blizzard of pre-visit hype and publicity, having put the country's demands -- stop drone strikes; withdraw CIA personnel -- on the table in background leaks before the trip. 

"It was a 21st-century way to open the high-level bargaining over new rules for the US-Pakistani intelligence relationship," commentator David Ignatius noted in a blog detailing the Pakistani high-wire strategy. What returns Pasha got for his labors will become apparent in the coming weeks. But the drone strikes within hours of his return to Pakistan provide an inkling.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Drone-attacks-follow-ISI-chief-to-Pakistan-after-modest-gains-in-US-visit/articleshow/7972880.cms

US lawmakers tell Obama, dump Pakistan and go with India

WASHINGTON: Expressing apprehension that theUnited States is being "taken for suckers" and "looked at as patsies" by Pakistan, two American lawmakers on Tuesday called for strengthening ties with India even as a White House report gave a harshly critical assessment of Islamabad's effort to defeat extremism. 

While administration officials defended Washington's support for Pakistan using the same logic as London is doing on UK Prime Minister David Cameron's ongoing visit to Islamabad ("a difficult partnership with Pakistan is far better than having a hostile Pakistan," one U.S official testified), lawmakers wanted a major reappraisal of U.S outlook for the region. They expressed doubts if any good would come out of the current U.S policy of coddling Islamabad in the face of Pakistani duplicity in combating extremism. Instead, they pushed for even closer ties with India. 

"After 10 years of hearing the same sales pitch I tend to doubt it. I doubt that our money is buying anything that's deep or durable," New York Congressman Gary Ackerman said at a hearing. "I doubt the leaders in the Afghan government and the Pakistani government are going to do anything except pursue their own narrow, venal self interests. I doubt the ISI will ever stop working with us during the day and going to see their not-so-secret friends in the Lashkar-e-Taibaor Jaish-e Mohammed and other terrorist groups at night." 

His California colleague Dana Rohrabacher went even further back to frame the situation in a historical context. "I've been hearing that for 50 years. And I will tell you, a realistic relationship, rather than basing the relationship on wishful thinking, is what will bring about peace in that part of the world. What we've had is wishful thinking and what I call irrational optimism," he said at a hearing called to assess U.S foreign policy priorities in South Asia. 

The critical comments came just hours after a White House report to Congress concluded that after years of work with the Pakistani military "there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency" that thrives in the country, remarks that analysts said reflected growing frustration in the administration over Pakistan's commitment to fight extremism. 

Still, administration officials defended Washington's outreach to Pakistan, insisting that the country is vital to US national security interests and suggesting the U.S had no other options. 

But lawmakers were not convinced. Both Rohrabacher and Ackerman, who described U.S ties withNew Delhi as the "one shining light" and "brightest light" respectively of the administration's foreign policy pressed for greater emphasis on India. 

"I would hope that we have the intelligence to work and to make sure that India is our best friend in that part of the world," Rochrabacher said, offering his contrast between the two countries. "The fact is that Pakistan is committed to Islam...India is dedicated to prosperity for their people." 

Amid what lawmakers saw as Washington's compulsive obsession with Pakistan, Ackerman in fact criticized the administration for not using U.S diplomatic leadership and agenda-setting capability to focus global attention to the threat to India from Pakistan-based terrorists, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. 

"If there is, God forbid, another Mumbai-like strike, we will not be able to say that we did our utmost to prevent it because in truth, we haven't," he warned. "The ambitions of these terrorists have only grown and a full-fledged global campaign to crush these thugs still awaits at our peril." 

While critical of Pakistan, the White House report offered no new prescription of how to handle Islamabad, aside from reflecting on the well-known fact that India looms large in the Pakistani military's thinking. 

"As India continues to dominate their strategic threat perception, large elements of Pakistan's military remain committed to maintaining a ratio of Pakistani to Indian forces along the eastern border," the Presidential report to the Congress on Afghanistan and Pakistan said, adding, "This deprives the Pakistani COIN (counter-insurgency) fight of sufficient forces to achieve its 'clear' objectives and support the 'hold' efforts." 

Some analysts have suggested India should take steps to reassure Pakistan about its security, but the broad reading in Washington is that nothing can placate a security establishment that uses a trumped-up or exaggerated Indian threat to extend its stranglehold on the Pakistani people and the country's resources. President Obama downwards, U.S officials have said the Pakistani military's obsession is misplaced. Frustrated lawmakers on Tuesday suggested in effect that the administration simply strengthen ties with India to counter Pakistan's policy.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-lawmakers-tell-Obama-dump-Pakistan-and-go-with-India/articleshow/7886263.cms