United State envoy says all in Pakistan on board

By Mohammad Malick

ISLAMABAD: ‘Oh! come on, that’s a ridiculous suggestion...’ was what her expression clearly stated, but what US ambassador Anne Patterson actually said, responding to a query, was that she felt rather “surprised” by some statements flowing out of the presidency and the prime minister’s office, suggesting neither had been taken into confidence during the preparation of the new regional strategy announced by President Obama. On the contrary, she insisted all power centres in Pakistan, including the president, the prime minister and the military had been constantly engaged by the top functionaries of the American power dispensation.

She pointed out to the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and repeated visits by top American generals, including Mullen, McChrystal, the CIA director, national security adviser, etc. “Only a few days back Gen McChrystal had a six-hour session with Gen Kayani as well wherein he explained a lot of things in exhaustive detail,” she added.

The ambassador made these remarks over a breakfast meeting with a group of newspaper editors, ostensibly to discuss the much-awaited Obama speech made a couple of hours earlier but the candid exchange of views ended up being more of a Q&A session with the ambassador ably assisted by her Deputy Chief of Mission Gerald Feierstein and Brigadier General Nagata, while other key officials of the US embassy also enjoyed the typical American breakfast of hash browns, scrambled eggs and sausages (Halal of course).

Elaborating on these interactive parlays she insisted serious and exhaustive discussions had been held between Pakistani and American leadership during the strategy review process and that both sides “shared similar goals”. Ambassador Patterson reasoned that it was inconceivable that a process aimed at stabilising Pakistan and Afghanistan would be done without consulting the two. Why then would the presidency and the prime minister say that they weren’t involved, she was asked? She simply responded with a meaningful smile and a slight shrug of shoulders.

When asked about the feared destabilising effects of new troop deployment in the border areas of Afghan Helmand province in particular, Brig Nagata, claimed a couple of Pakistani generals had even been given a helicopter ride over possible new troop deployment areas to show that it did not pose the much-touted threat. The brigadier’s assertion was also a tacit implication of the US administration having shared the contours of the new strategy, Pakistani government’s denials notwithstanding, in fair detail with the Pakistani civil and military leadership.

When asked about the underlying reason for President Obama making a seemingly unwarranted reference to Pakistan’s nuclear assets with a couched reference to al-Qaeda eyeing them for its own usage, she hastened to add it would be incorrect to assume that Obama had indicated any dissatisfaction with the safety and security protocol of the nuclear programme. To paraphrase what she said, Pakistan’s nuclear assets were as safe as those of the United States and that Obama had only talked of al-Qaeda’s intent to get its hands on weapons of mass destruction.

She added, however, that she had herself viewed highly credible intelligence that claimed that a cell within the al-Qaeda was trying to get hold of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. When asked if it were the same intelligence sources that had also wrongly claimed WMDs in Iraq, Feierstein chimed in by pointing out it would be wrong to draw a parallel between the two, as Pakistan had a declared nuclear programme and al-Qaeda was an established terrorist reality and, therefore, the feared scenario was a very real threat. When the ambassador was pressed on this issue of why Obama had to then flagged this issue if US did not have any real or perceived fears as claimed by her, Feierstein again interjected by arguing that hypothetically there was no security-fail proof system anywhere, including the US itself, and that all Obama wanted to highlight was a real threat by a real enemy which needed to be carefully guarded against and nothing more should be read into his remarks.

Ambassador Patterson stuck to her guns, insisting there was unquestionable intelligence about the presence of top al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. The US envoy was at pains to convince that there would not be any ‘power vacuum’ in Afghanistan in view of the 18-month start of withdrawal window given in President Obama’s speech. When asked about any particular mechanism evolved by the US administration to engage good Taliban as per this revised strategy, she said the US was “very enthusiastic” about the Jirga process and fully favoured the strategy of notable Pashtuns engaging the “good Taliban” through the Jirga process and expressed that hope that the same would be taking place on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. However, she along with Brig Nagata made it abundantly clear that it would not be a role taken on directly by the United States. Ambassador Paterson said in Afghanistan it would be up to the Karzai government to talk to the right Taliban and to the Pakistani govt on this side. When asked who gets to decide who are the good Taliban as in the past there have been clear differences of opinion on this precise issue between US authorities and Pakistani military establishment, the ambassador responded by saying she saw no such complications as according to her “there was now a convergence of views and priorities between the two”. Easier said than done ambassador, is all one can say.

According to Brig Nagata, the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen McChrystal was only directly involved to the extent of engaging low rank Taliban fighters, etc., who may have joined in due to poverty and joblessness. “individual, low-level Taliban fighters”, as he put it. He would also have us believe that McChrystal’s men would be able to identify, talk to and decommission such rankers while cutting their way around the influence of the power lords, binding tribal affinities, etc. The likely outcome is anybody’s guess.

On the matter of Indian involvement in fomenting trouble in Balochistan, she said so far the Pakistani government had not shared any specific evidence in this regards with the US and went on to state that if any credible evidence were to be shared then the US would definitely take action, without elaborating what that action could be.

Replying to the inevitable question of presence of operatives of defence contractor firms like Blackwater, etc., Ambassador Paterson termed Blackwater presence claim “utter nonsense”. She said the US had not employed services of any defence contractor firm for counterinsurgency and military operations within Pakistan. When asked about the possibility of her being kept out of the loop by her own government, she retorted, “No. This is not possible. I would not be left out of the loop in any such event.” She said the firm DynCorp was only being used as maintenance service providers in Quetta and elsewhere.