Inefficiency: Thy Name is Pakistani Intelligence
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
It would have been the surprise of the century had the much-awaited report of the Abbottabad Commission—established by the Gilani government in July 2011 on the heels of the May 2 US helicopter gun-ships’ raid against Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout—been released officially in Pakistan.
Commissions are a thing of convenience for the Pakistani establishment. They are meant to be sops to an agitating or bleating people, and nothing more than that. Their findings, if any, are not—in the scheme of things—meant to be shared with the people, but rather consigned to official archives where their purpose is only to gather dust.
The cobwebs of secrecy surrounding government-sponsored commissions have held good, to date. The pattern hasn’t changed a wee-bit in more than sixty years.
Starting with the daylight murder of the first PM of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, in 1951, the Government of Pakistan (GOP) has gone into the commission formation with abandon. The most notable of such myriad commissions was the famous Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission (HRC) formed after the truncation of Pakistan in December 1971 to probe the causes of the country’s dismemberment and pinpoint out the rogues responsible for Pakistan’s historic debacle.
However, neither the Liaquat murder report has seen the light of the day, ever, nor the HRC report fared any better. Text books taught in Pakistani schools may contain references to these commissions of enquiry, but neither students nor scholars of Pakistan’s history know what, if any, were the findings of these commissions headed by some very noble men. The tragedy was that those powerful people to whom these reports were submitted were even bigger rogues than the ones investigated.
The Rawalpindi Conspiracy report—of Liaquat’s murder—has become history because of the passage of more than six decades. As for the HRC, it is a well-known ‘secret’ that one of the principal villains of the debacle at Dhaka—Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto—not only suppressed the commission’s report but also had it ‘doctored,’ just in case it ever leaked out.
Bits and pieces of HRC managed to find their way into regional and international media. But by then Bhutto was dead and buried and already anointed as a Shaheed (martyr) whose grave has become a focus of reverence. The Bhutto aficionados are still so much under his spell that even if the un-doctored HRC report were ever to get exposure they would refuse to accept it.
But while it may seem easier to some to dismiss the Pindi Conspiracy report or HRC’s missing report as old meat, the blue-ribbon UN Commission bank-rolled by Pakistani to the tune of at least $ 50 million is a recent thing. Zardari and his thieves pulled off a huge scam in coning the people of Pakistan through that expensive clap-trap to make them believe that Benazir Bhutto’s murder—once again in Rawalpindi and at the very same spot where Liaquat was gunned down—deserved to be investigated by a UN commission.
However, the BB Commission’s report was—as per the un-written convention in vogue in Pakistan—never meant for public consumption. It has remained wrapped in official secrecy. It would be interesting to see if the Nawaz govt. would have the savvy to make it public. Going by the past record of the Pakistani establishment, there’s but scant hope of it ever happening.
So, no wonder that the Abbottabad Commission’s report has been leaked to the world by Al Jazeera television. They are a well-heeled and well-resourced organisation with wads of money to spread around; and the kind of Pakistan left behind by Zardari & Co. is a place where money can even get you to the moon.
It’s a damning indictment of Pakistan’s notorious spy and intelligence agencies that one can glean between the lines of the Abbottabad Commission’s scathing report.
The commission headed by Justice (Retd.) Javed Iqbal ( not to be confused with Allama Iqbal’s prolific son) and also including my former Foreign Service colleague, Asharaf Jehangir Qazi, apparently pulled all stops in getting down to the source of what it aptly describes as “the greatest humiliation (for Pakistan) since 1971.”
What the commission was referring to—as the font of Pakistan’s national shame—was the brazen, stealth, attack by four American helicopter gun-ships, on the night of May 2, 2011, against Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary nestled in the lap of Abbottabad, and within hailing distance of Pakistan’s blue-ribbon Kakul Military Academy.
The report makes no bones about the criminal insouciance on part of the guardians of Pakistan’s frontiers who were, to their abiding shame, found literally sleeping at their watch. Could there be a greater humiliation for our pampered and puffed-up armed forces that the Pakistan Air Force—supposed to keep our skies and national space free of all and any intruders—came to learn of the American raid only through television, hours after the night raiders had safely exited from the scene?
Make no mistake: these are the armed forces that have been regularly devouring the fat of the land of Pakistan. They have been, literally, getting the cream and the bulk of the national pie with it, while a soldier-worshipping nation has been straining to keep its body and soul together on mere scraps of the pie.
Ironically—and to add insult to a humbled nation’s injury—the much-vaunted PAF, a force made up of Shaheens (Falcons) in popular Pakistani parlance, tried to wash its hands of any culpability by saying that its radars were tuned to ‘peace-time’ requirement and not geared to war because Pakistan has been an ally of the invaders in Afghanistan for the past decade and more. Moreover, the PAF charade continues, the Americans have a far superior technology; their gun-ships sneaked in undetected and flew below radar. What could the poor PAF nannies do against such a crafty bunch of amply-muscled invaders?
But the report has, rightly, trained its guns on the spy agencies and the intelligence sleuths of Pakistan. They, the report says, are the arch villains who acted like gambols and dim-wits—not just when the US Navy Seals descended down in Abbottabad in the cover of darkness to swoop on their high-value prey—but throughout the episode that surrounded Osama bin Laden’s presence on Pakistan’s soil for nearly a decade.
The commission amply echoes the commonsense question that has agitated experts and laymen, alike, since the night raid of Abbottabad took out bin Laden. How could it be possible, the report asks, that OBL’s presence within the hearing distance of the military academy’s denizens remained undetected for so long?
The report’s findings rightly conclude that OBL had to have outside rogue elements facilitating him in order to survive in wraps for so long. Either our intelligence agencies were purblind or else there were elements of Jihadi outfits, such as Hizb-ut-Tehrir, doing regular errands to keep OBL safely hidden, and in sound comfort, with his brood of three wives and dozens of children.
But without naming it, as such, the report reserves its greatest ire for ISI, long regarded as powerful to the extent where it has the clout, virtually, of being a state within the state.
The commission report castigates ISI for not only its criminal negligence and inefficiency but also faults it for throwing its weight in the wrong places and not allowing other intelligence outfits—such as IB and FIA (both under the Ministry of Interior)—to do their job, either. It says: “It (ISI) just prevented other authorised agencies from doing possibly a better job despite their relative lack of resources.” ISI simply wouldn’t allow any space, or resources, to these civilian outfits to show their mettle.
But the then ISI Chief, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, in his deposition before the commission, washed his hands of any responsibility for preventing the Abbottabad attack, which the commission has referred to as “ An American act of war.”
General Pasha—who was a controversial figure as long as he headed ISI—made light even of the criminal drone attacks by the Americans against Pakistan and its citizens which has been a cause of massive public resentment in Pakistan. He said Pakistan tried to persuade the Americans to stop the use of this stealth weapon but the Americans wouldn’t listen.
But Richard Armitage—George W. Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State—in his media comments to General Pasha’s deposition has said the opposite of it. According to him Pakistan can stop drones from making its people’s lives miserable. Who’s right in this macabre drama?
General Pasha, on top of his annoying ‘innocence’ had the temerity to tell the commission of what he thought of the country that nurtured him at such expense. In his words—talking of Pakistan—“We are (a) failing state, if not failed (already).”
It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that Pakistan would certainly be in grave danger of becoming a failed state in the hands of the likes of him. It takes a lot more than military swagger to lead a country—of as much complexity as Pakistan—to salvation.
Curiously, despite coming down hard on its guardians of power and intelligence, the Abbottabad Commission doesn’t find any individual responsible for the shame and humiliation heaped on the nation on the night of May 2, 2011. It just excuses itself by observing that “no individual can be identified as guilty of connivance.”
Let everyone decide for themselves who to blame for a nightmare debacle. - K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
(The author is a retired ambassador and career diplomat)
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