Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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What we knew all along!

    The US and [Pakistan](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan) struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against [Osama bin Laden](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/osamabinladen) on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned.

The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.
Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.
“There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him,” said a former senior US official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations. “The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn’t stop us.”
The deal puts a new complexion on the political storm triggered by Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, where a team of US navy Seals assaulted his safe house in the early hours of 2 May.
Pakistani officials have insisted they knew nothing of the raid, with military and civilian leaders issuing a strong rebuke to the US. If the US conducts another such assault, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani warned parliament on Monday, “Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force.”
Days earlier, Musharraf, now running an opposition party from exile in London, emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the raid, terming it a “violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan”.
But under the terms of the secret deal, while Pakistanis may not have been informed of the assault, they had agreed to it in principle.
A senior Pakistani official said it had been struck under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the “transition to democracy” – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.
Referring to the assault on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, the official added: “As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement.”
The former US official said the Pakistani protests of the past week were the “public face” of the deal. “We knew they would deny this stuff.”
The agreement is consistent with Pakistan’s unspoken policy towards CIA drone strikes in the tribal belt, which was revealed by the WikiLeaks US embassy cables last November. In August 2008, Gilani reportedly told a US official: “I don’t care if they do it, as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.”
As drone strikes have escalated in the tribal belt over the past year, senior civilian and military officials issued pro forma denunciations even as it became clear the Pakistani military was co-operating with the covert programme.
The former US official said that impetus for the co-operation, much like the Bin Laden deal, was driven by the US. "It didn’t come from Musharraf’s desire. On the Predators, we made it very clear to them that if they weren’t going to prosecute these targets, we were, and there was nothing they could do to stop us taking unilateral action.
“We told them, over and again: ‘We’ll stop the Predators if you take these targets out yourselves.’”
Despite several attempts to contact his London office, the Guardian has been unable to obtain comment from Musharraf.
Since Bin Laden’s death, Pakistan has come under intense US scrutiny, including accusations that elements within Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence helped hide the al-Qaida leader.
On Sunday, President Barack Obama said Bin Laden must have had “some sort of support network” inside Pakistan.
“We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, outside of government, and that’s something we have to investigate,” Obama said.
Gilani has stood firmly by the ISI, describing it as a “national asset”, and said claims that Pakistan was “in cahoots” with al-Qaida were “disingenuous”.
“Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd,” he said. “We didn’t invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan.”
Gilani said the army had launched an investigation into how Bin Laden managed to hide inside Pakistan. Senior generals will give a briefing on the furore to parliament next Friday.
Gilani paid lip-service to the alliance with America and welcomed a forthcoming visit from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, but pointedly paid tribute to help from China, whom he described as “a source of inspiration for the people of Pakistan”.

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Re: Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan

I have one more conspiracy theory here!!

CIA increases pressure on Pasha to quit

The May 2 Abbottabad fiasco has given an already furious Leon Panetta of CIA a God-gifted opportunity to pin down ISI chief Lt General Shuja Pasha and get him replaced by a “friendly” ISI chief who would tow Washington’s line.

Already the leading American magazine, Newsweek, has demanded of the US administration to insist on the resignation of General Pasha whereas an official source in the Pakistan Embassy in Washington confided to this correspondent that some US authorities have already sounded them about their intentions about Pasha. However, no formal demand has been put forward to Islamabad as yet by Washington to this respect.

To the bad luck of Pasha and the ISI, the Abbottabad fiasco has hit Pakistan at a time when Leon Panetta-led CIA and Gen Pasha-led ISI were already at daggers drawn following Pasha’s insistence to curtail and bring into regular check all CIA operations in Pakistan.

The Newsweek in its latest article “A Faltering Bargain with Pakistan” writes: “As a minimal first step, the U.S. should insist on the resignation of the chief of the ISI, Gen. Shuja Pasha, on the official grounds of a gross failure of his service, and the unofficial grounds that this would be the start of a movement toward greater responsibility and accountability in the service. The U.S. should also insist on more rapid progress in creating an effective counter-terrorism agency to coordinate Pakistan’s feuding intelligence services.”

Washington and the CIA have long been desirous of reducing the ISI as its subsidiary agency and for the same purpose have been pressing Pakistan to “restructure” the agency and to bring it under what the US calls “civilian control”.

A couple of years back, reportedly on foreign pressure, a notification was issued to bring the ISI under Interior Minister Rehman Malik but it was undone immediately following military establishment’s serious objections and the general condemnation of this move by the media, political parties, retired generals, etc. Interestingly, the timing of the notification coincided with the first official visit of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to Washington.

In the post-May 2 get-Osama operation by special US forces in Abbottabad, the CIA Chief Leon Panetta came really hard on the ISI despite the latter’s sharing of crucial intelligence information as acknowledged even by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Panetta, however, while commenting about OBL’s whereabouts suggested that Pakistan (ISI) was either accomplice or incompetent. It was the first serious charge levelled by Washington against Pakistan, which though has categorically said that it was the ISI, which provided to the CIA the initial lead that led to the final location of Ladin.

Panetta’s CIA is believed to be in a revengeful mood to teach a lesson to the ISI and Gen Pasha for how they have been treating the CIA in the recent past. Pasha, who was seen by the Americans as “usually emotional”, as reflected by the recent disclosures of WikiLeaks, has been tough with the CIA in recent times. According to the latest media report, the CIA has sought from the ISI the details of all those ISI officials who have been interacting with the al-Qaeda members in the past. In case of Osama also though the ISI provided the lead, the CIA never shared with ISI the information as it later matured.

It is said that Pakistan Army and ISI’s reluctance to expand the military operations against militants beyond the tribal regions of South Waziristan into neighbouring North Waziristan was one of the contributing factors for the deterioration of US-CIA intelligence relationship but the sore point became the ISI’s refusal to dance to the CIA’s tunes.

The relationship between ISI and CIA hit a low point when the CIA was forced to withdraw its local chief in Pakistan late last year after his name was published in the Pakistani media. The CIA blamed ISI for this. Later, the tension grew further between the two after a CIA private contractor Raymond Davis was caught red-handed in a broad daylight cold-blooded murder of two Pakistanis in Lahore. Davis was put behind the bars despite American pressure for his immediate release for being a “diplomat”. Though Davis was later shamelessly released and handed over to the US following a major role reportedly played by the ISI, tensions between the ISI and CIA grew further reportedly after Gen Pasha insisted that all Davis-like CIA agents must wrap up and leave Pakistan.

Media reports though suggested that along with Raymond Davis dozens of undercover CIA operators were also made to pack up, the details of the quid pro quo over Davis’ release were never shared by the government, ISI or the army with the media.

Surprisingly the Raymond Davis’ release instead of improving relations between the CIA and the ISI brought them to all-time low.

After Raymond’s case the ISI reportedly asked CIA to disclose the location of its agents in Pakistan and share with the ISI the nature of their emplacement in Pakistan. After repeated questioning CIA kept denying that they have so many operatives in Pakistan.

In the recent past, spats between the ISI and the CIA got worsened when DG ISI went to USA for talks with the US officials including Panetta. He started with one point agenda that ISI will not support any CIA activity in Afghanistan or Pakistan if the CIA did not declare their operatives in Pakistan.

The ISI is said to have prepared the list of 438 US officials who were in Pakistan but were not part of any consulate or embassy staff in any city. Their whereabouts were asked from CIA, to which they gave the funny reply that many of them have been lost. The CIA, it is said, claimed that these operatives were used in FATA area for the war on terror but in various incidents they have either been kidnapped or killed by Taliban, so now they were no more in Pakistan.

“This stupid reply was totally non-digestible to DG ISI,” a source claimed, adding that in his concluding remarks the DG ISI gave a clear and stern reply to CIA officials that if they don’t know where their operatives were in Pakistan, then ISI was well aware of CIA operatives in the Middle East and we can tell those governments about their presence and activities. Panetta never expected such reply from Pasha.

The two reportedly were embroiled in heated arguments and it all ended up in Pasha returning to Pakistan from Washington within hours of his reaching there. Panetta was furious with Pasha, as he never thought that the intelligence chief of a country like Pakistan would confront the CIA chief this way. So he resolved to pin down Pasha and the ISI.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=5868&Cat=13&dt=5/9/2011

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Re: Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan

**The real target was Gen Kayani **

http://www.pakistanpatriot.com/?p=34592

President Obama is a brilliant strategist, a deep thinker and cold hearted calculator who has used the best brains in America to kill three (not two) birds with one stone. At 9 pm when he announced to the world the completion of the operation in Abbottabad, he was actually talking about more than one operation. The question of “Why” President Obama carried on the Special Ops operation is self evident. He used it to grab America’s Public enemy number one, and announce to the “Birthers” that we was a real American. To the rest of the country he announced that he was as much a Rambo as Reagan was–and maybe more. In doing so, he surely did put himself on the road to re-election. The campaign has already begun. MSNBC was showing clips of McCain criticizing Obama’s stated intent that he would grab Osama by whatever means necessary. He declared himself judge, jury and executioner when he said “justice has been done”. No one in the West dared to disagree, except Chancellor Merkel of Germany who considered it a violation of the UN charter. China supported Islamabad, and a lone voice out of Havana showed sympathy for Pakistan. Bharat used it as an excuse to carry out its own “Operation Geronimo”.
From an American perspective all that is profitable to Washington. Mr. Spock would find it “logical”
What has been taxing our brains is the fact question of “Why”–why did Mr. Obama not inform the Pakistani government, why did not make it a joint operation? After all Mr. Zardari is the most pro-American president that Pakistan has ever had, and Mr. Haqqani is the most pro-US ambassador that Islamabad has ever posted anywhere. He could have included the Pakistanis on the return journey, or asked them to transport the wives of OBL—but he didin’t, even blowing up the chopper in the compound.
So the question of why President Obama humiliated the Pakistanis is a valid one.

The answer lies that the Abbottabad raid was also a psy-ops operation. It accomplished exactly what President Obama wanted to do. He wanted a drive a wedge between the people and the ISI–the organization despised in Delhi and Washington. Operation Geronimo also has discredited General Kayani, and many Pakistnais are mad at him. A cacophony of voices within the PPP and without have called for the resignation of the COAS and the Director of the ISI. This is exactly what the psy-ops portion of Operation Geronimo wanted to do. It wanted to whittle down the popularity of the the ISI which had been giving the CIA a tough time. Just two weeks ago the ISI published a list of about 7000 individuals that had been granted visas to Pakistan by the Pakistani Ambassador to Washington, Mr. Hussain Haqqani](Husain Haqqani - Wikipedia) (who is a US citizen).
An editorial in The Hindu gives us an inkling on why Mr. Obama did not involve the Pakistani Army in Operation Geronimo “It is important that India does nothing that will help the Pakistan military reassert itself”. Delhi thinks that the COAS and the ISI is on the backfoot, and for Bharat this is a good thing. Analysts in Bharat and also in Washington seem to think that this bolster the stature of the obsequious Mr. Zardari. All this in the name of “democracy” ad “civilian control” and the tooth fairy etc.
In the mind of Bharati strategists writing for The Hindu “The killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan by the (United States Navy - Wikipedia)‘s special operations force has created an obvious rift between the people of Pakistan and their Army. Tough questions are being asked about the security establishment’s role in the entire affair: did it know that the world’s most wanted man was living at walking distance from the [Pakistan Military Academy](Google Maps (Pakistan%20Military%20Academy)&t=h) at Kakul in Abbottabad? Was it involved in turning him in? If not, why not? Did it know about the U.S. operation in advance? If so, why did it allow the unilateral operation on its territory? If it did not know, what is the point of a military?”
The Hindu then goes on to describe history in Bharati terms–which have elements of truth in them.

  • The last time public ire against the military was apparent was in 2007 when Pervez Musharraf was running the show as “President General” — he was Army chief as well as head of government.

  • The unpopularity of Asif Ali Zardari, especially after he became President, helped improve the Army’s stock.

  • After that, the Pakistan Army was on a roll.

  • The anti-Taliban operations in Swat saw it aggressively market itself as the saviour of the nation. Much of the Pakistani media was eating out of its hands. By the time the Kerry-Lugar Bill authorising non-military aid to Pakistan came to fruition in late 2009, the Army was in a position to rally the entire country to protest against conditions in the legislation that sought to rein in its role in national affairs.

  • The bin Laden episode has brought back questions about the Army. As in 2007, this time too there is more than one thread to the people’s anger. There are those who are taking the Army to task for allowing the U.S. to violate national sovereignty, thus putting at stake national honour and pride; they are asking how this self-appointed guardian of the “national ideology” can guard its frontiers from other wolves at the door, mainly India.
    US and Bharati analysts see Operation Geronimo as an opportunity to rally against their nemesis, the ISI and the Army “Once again, there is a civilian opportunity, but it lies in the second line of questioning about the Pakistan Army’s national security vision, its strategic priorities and its links to extremism and militancy.”
    Of course the threat from General Singh throws a spanner into the grand plan to defile the Pakistani Army. Bharati analysts see it in the following manner “For India, peace with Pakistan is dependent to a large extent on the strengthening of that country’s civilian moments.”
    There is nothing new in this. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto saw through US intentions very clearly when he railed againt “Unite and Rule”–the American policy of ruling Asia by forcing Pakistan and India together against China.
    American leaders live in a paradigm of “Pakistan should support India and get over its obsession with Delhi”. Hillary Clinton and many Democrats live under this illusion that the belligerency lives in the minds of Pakistani policy makers. Obviously Hillary Clinton doesn’t live in the neighborhood and her interests cater to US goals in the region. In an ideal situation it would be very reasonable for America to expect that Islamabad move all her forces from the Eastern front to the Western front– so that Pakistan could focus on assisting the US in her wars in Afghanistan.Keywords: Osama bin Laden killing, Pakistan Army, Indian reaction.
    South Asia is not North America and Bharat is not Canada. America’s Northern frontier didn’t automatically become “the world’s friendliest border”. That came after several US raids into Canada and the ensuing reprisals of 1843–when the White House was burned in 1814. Before 1814 there was constant enmity between the US and Canada. After 1814, the US had given up its dream of extending the country to Quebec and Calgary. Bharat and Pakistan are in the pre-1814 stage. Bharat has burned down the Pakistani house in Dhaka and constantly wants to take over the rest. For America Bharati hegemony and quest for “Akhand Bharat” is akin to Hitler’s acquisition of Polan and desire to subjugate all of Europe.
    The idea of becoming subservient to India is abhorrent and that of cooperation with India, with the object of promoting tension with China, equally repugnant.” Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
    (http://rupeenews.com/2009/09/02/the-idea-of-becoming-subservient-to-india-is-abhorrent-and-that-of-cooperation-with-india-with-the-object-of-promoting-tension-with-china-equally-repugnant-zulfiqar-ali-bhutto-2/)
    China has been the cardinal principle of Pakistani foreign policy and of its establishment. A compliant present or an obsequious Foreign Minister cannot change the direction of that foreign policy.
    As General Pasha heads to Washington to talk to Washington–President Zardari heads to Moscow to start a new “Leap forward” with Moscow. General Pasha whether he is on his way out or not needs to reaffirm that principle in a diplomatic and nuanced manner. Given the propensity of the American media, and the US Generals to be rude and crass, Pakistan should hand out Ali Bhutto’s seminal book “Myth of Independence” to Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus. General Petraeus is a veracious reader. Reading Ahmed Rashid doesn’t give him the ethos of the Pakistan state. He should be reading Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Imran Khan gets it. He is from the generation that was inspired by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. If the White House is to understand Pakistan, Bruce Riedel whould be listening to what Imran Khan is saying. The Khan doesn’t have the votes in parliament but he voices the feelings of the people. The words of Shireen Mazari give us an insight into what is left unsaid in the meetings in Washington.

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Re: Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan

The answer lies that the Abbottabad raid was also a psy-ops operation. It accomplished exactly what President Obama wanted to do. He wanted a drive a wedge between the people and the **ISI](Inter-Services Intelligence - Wikipedia)–the organization despised in Delhi and Washington. Operation Geronimo also has discredited General Kayani, and many Pakistnais are mad at him. A cacophony of voices within the PPP and without have called for the resignation of the COAS and the Director of the ISI. This is exactly what the psy-ops portion of Operation Geronimo wanted to do. It wanted to whittle down the popularity of the the ISI which had been giving the CIA a tough time. Just two weeks ago the ISI published a list of about 7000 individuals that had been granted visas to Pakistan by the Pakistani Ambassador to Washington, Mr. Hussain Haqqani](Husain Haqqani - Wikipedia) (who is a US citizen).
**

man, this makes lot of sense!!! where everybody is looking at this whole thing tht they just wanted to kill him, there is soo much beyond tht!!!

too many conspiracies, too many differnt theories! I cant wait until US dooms!!

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Re: Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan

Niether Mush nor Bush is in power today, why couldn't the current set of hijras in Pakistan (Zardari + Kiyani + Gilani) cancel the deal???

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Re: Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan

Came across another article which claims that TTP was created by CIA just like they created Al-Qaeda.
It was TTP that carried out the Parade Lane mosque attack in Rawal Pindi in December 2009
CIA is apparently hiring and bribing (+ brainwashing) drug addicts to carry out suicide attacks!

CIA’s fake Taliban wreaking Pakistan terror havoc

Much of the information-gathering network of Pakistan’s supreme security service was curtailed in the tribal areas in General Pervez Musharraf’s era, consequently giving the edge to America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it is reliably learnt.
The entire territory of North and South Waziristan was given in the direct access of the CIA which has since developed its stronghold in the belt. The CIA’s operations suspended in Balochistan, Punjab, Islamabad and other areas of the country after the Raymond Allen Davis (RAD) incident and the mysterious episode of Osama bin Laden have also been restored, sources said.
To a query, sources said the CIA operatives have infiltrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda networks and have created their own Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan) force, which has been recruited, trained and equipped by these CIA operatives to target the Pakistan Army personnel, armed forces’ installations, markets, hospitals, schools and public places to destabilise Pakistan.
They claimed, the Soviet Intelligence Agency SVR had already disclosed that RAD and his network have provided Al-Qaeda operatives with chemical, nuclear and biological weapons so that installations in the US may be targeted and Pakistan be blamed and pressed to do more of the US’ dirty work such as conducting operations in North Waziristan. “After the civil government justified the CIA operation in Abbottabad all of them have again indulged in their original nefarious activities,” sources added.
In the words of two American journalists Julian E Barnes and Adam Entous: “Following wishes of President Barack Hussain Obama, the number of CIA personnel in Pakistan has grown substantially in recent years. The exact number is highly classified. The push for more forces reflects, in part, the increased need for intelligence to support the CIA drone program that has killed hundreds of militants with missile strikes.”
A former ISI Punjab regional commander Brigadier (r) Ghazanfar said the CIA has established its parallel intelligence network. He said the CIA always establishes its network according to their needs and demands, which has been established in Pakistan not only in tribal but in urban areas also and the RAD incident is enough to quote here. “Days after the mystery of 9/11, the CIA operatives landed in Pakistan in order to train Pakistani troops and authorities concerned for counter terrorism but with the passage of time, their demands increased and now the CIA network has a strong grip,” he added.

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/12-May-2011/CIAs-fake-Taliban-wrecking-Pak-terror-havoc

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Re: Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan

BBC: 9/11 Hijack ‘suspects’ alive and well

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm