Mr Musharraf’s comments appear to confirm that a deal was done Photo: AP
By Rob Crilly, Islamabad, The Telegraph – April 12, 2013
http://tinyurl.com/d8jc7tn
Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former military ruler, has for the first time admitted doing a secret deal with America to allow CIA drone strikes against terrorist targets.
His comments contradict repeated Pakistani denials that the US has ever been given permission for the strikes. They come amid growing evidence that the country’s intelligence service is collaborating with its American counterpart.
In an interview with CNN, Mr Musharraf, who returned to Pakistan three weeks ago, said he had authorised strikes “only on very few occasions where the target was absolutely isolated and had no chance of collateral damage”.
The first strike on Pakistan soil came in 2004, five years into Mr Musharraf’s reign, killing a tribal leader seen as an enemy of the government. Since then there have been more than 300 strikes and more than 3,000 deaths.
Islamabad has publicly condemned the attacks, describing them as an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty.
They provoke intense anger and have been blamed for stoking anti-American sentiment in the country. Yet there has long been suspicion that Pakistan had given consent.
Documents released by Wikileaks suggested that in 2008 the US ambassador to Islamabad had the consent of the then prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, who said: “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.”
Mr Musharraf’s comments, made as he attempts to win a seat in elections next month, appear to confirm that a deal was done.
He said the strikes were “discussed at the military intelligence level” and cleared only if “there was no time for our own special operations task force and military to act. That was … maybe two or three times only”.
The admission will harm Mr Musharraf’s chances of election, deeply embarrass Pakistan’s military establishment and further anger militant groups, which accuse the government of selling out to Washington.
Earlier this week, McClatchy, an American news organisation published evidence that the CIA were Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency were sharing information and working together on selecting targets.
The CIA programme is officially classified as “covert”, which means officials are not allowed to discuss details, but the US is under increasing pressure to bring it out into the open, setting out the legal basis for launching strikes.
via Golden Age of Gaia
