Musharraf wins praise, but no
jets By Ashish Kumar Sen
WASHINGTON - After their White House meeting at
the weekend, US President George W Bush defended
Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, saying he
was "very pleased" with Pakistan's efforts to fight
al-Qaeda.
Asked if he was disappointed that the
Pakistani army had "downgraded" the search for Osama bin
Laden, Bush told journalists that Pakistani troops had
been "incredibly active and very brave in the South
Waziristan [tribal area], flushing out an enemy that had
thought they had found safe haven".
He hailed
Musharraf as a "determined leader to bring to justice
not only people like Osama bin Laden, but to bring to
justice those who would inflict harm and pain on his own
people. I am very pleased with his efforts, and his
focused efforts," Bush said, with Musharraf by his side.
Shortly afterward, Musharraf admitted that the
trail for bin Laden had grown cold, but said that the US
was in part to blame because it had not committed enough
troops in Afghanistan.
In an interview with CNN
before departing from Washington for London on Sunday,
Musharraf said Pakistan had posted thousands of troops
along the mountainous border with Afghanistan but "we
don't know where he [Osama bin Laden] is. He might be
anywhere."
In previous interviews, Musharraf had
suggested that bin Laden had kidney problems and needed
dialysis. Asked if he still believed that, the Pakistani
leader said he now knows only that bin Laden is alive.
"All the intelligence said that he had - he suffers from
- kidney problems, that he got dialysis machines into
the area. But since then, he is alive, that I am sure
of. I don't really know how much he is suffering," he
said.
US officials have, both in private and in
public, expressed concern about Pakistan's cooperation
in the effort to nab al-Qaeda and Taliban members.
Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who served as the
chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist
Center before he resigned from the CIA earlier this
year, raised some of this concern in his book
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on
Terror.
Writing under the nom de plume
"Anonymous", Scheuer said: "At day's end, Islamabad
cannot endlessly play America's game vis-a-vis
Afghanistan and count on the survival of the government
and Pakistani sovereignty. Whether under President
Musharraf or his successor, Islamabad will support the
Taliban's effort to retake Afghanistan," he wrote.
He acknowledged the existence of reports that
"Pakistani intelligence moved al-Qaeda fighters to
safety in Pakistani Kashmir; that post-invasion help was
provided al-Qaeda by Pakistan's surrogate Kashmiri
insurgent groups, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e Mohammed;
and that the Islamist-dominated government of the North
West Frontier Province will not allow serious actions by
Pakistan's army against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the
border areas."
Following his meeting with
Musharraf at the weekend, Secretary of State Colin
Powell said the Bush administration was "concerned" that
bin Laden was still unaccounted for. "We would like him
to not be on the loose. He's a terrorist. He is on the
loose, but he's also under enormous pressure. He is
being searched for," Powell said. He added that Pakistan
"is fully engaged in those tribal areas." Musharraf has
in recent weeks ordered a "relocation" of 7,000
Pakistani troops from South Waziristan.
"They
make some adjustments to their force requirements from
time to time," Powell explained, adding, "but President
Musharraf reassured us of his full engagement - and
Osama bin Laden is on the loose, but under pressure and
being chased, and eventually he will be brought to
justice."
The al-Qaeda leader resurfaced in a
videotaped message on the eve of the US presidential
elections, warning Americans that their security depends
not on whom they elect president, but on US policy. The
message was the first from the al-Qaeda leader since
December 2001.
In Islamabad there is a growing
perception that Pakistan is not getting enough in return
for its cooperation in the US-led "war on terror".
Bush dismissed these concerns, saying he didn't
view relations "as one that there's a score card that
says, you know, well, if we all fight terror together,
therefore, somebody owes somebody something. Friends
don't sit there and have a score card that says, well,
he did this, or he did that, and therefore, somebody is
- there's a deficit. Our relationship is much bigger
than that. Our relationship is one where we work closely
together for the common good of our own people and for
the common good of the world," he added.
On
Sunday, Musharraf said the US-led invasion of Iraq has
made the world a more dangerous place. Asked whether he
considered the invasion a mistake, the Pakistani leader
said, "With hindsight, yes. We have landed ourselves in
more trouble, yes. People at the lower level don't like
the visibility of foreign troops who are in their
country," he added. However, he said he did not believe
US and coalition troops should pull out immediately.
"[An early withdrawal] would create more problems in the
region. Now that we are there, we need to stabilize the
situation."
Initial accounts indicate Musharraf
didn't receive much more than words from Bush. The
Pakistani leader discussed the sale of F-16s to
Pakistan, but Powell later said "no decisions were
made".
"You know there's always the issue about
F-16s, but no decisions were made at the meetings
today," said the outgoing secretary of state.
New Delhi has strongly opposed the sale of the
jets to Pakistan. Pakistani Air Chief Marshal Kaleem
Saadat first stirred speculation about the sale when he
told reporters in September that the US would soon
accede to Pakistan's 15-year-old campaign to acquire the
F-16s, providing at least 18 of the jets.
In an
interview with Jane's Defense Weekly, Saadat said the
transfers would likely be announced after the November 2
US presidential election. The sale of the jets was
blocked in 1990 when the US government stopped a
shipment of 28 F-16s to Pakistan in accordance with the
Pressler amendment. This required the administration to
cease military exports to Islamabad if it was suspected
of possessing a "nuclear explosive device".
In a
September 23 letter to Bush asking the president not to
clear the sale of the jets, Congressman Frank Pallone, a
Democrat from New Jersey and a former co-chairman of the
Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans,
accused the Bush administration of "contributing to
increased security concerns throughout South Asia, and
particularly to India".
Bush and Musharraf
discussed Pakistan's relations with India and Powell
said he, too, later had a "longer discussion" on the
subject.
In an interview with the Washington
Post, Musharraf was optimistic about the renewed peace
initiative with India. "I think we've broken new
ground," he said, noting a joint statement issued in New
York. "I see this very optimistically. But as I said,
these are mere words. We need to convert them into
action."
Powell said he believed "both sides are
trying to find a way to move forward", referring to a
recent meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and Musharraf on the sidelines of the United
Nations General Assembly and the possibility of a
similar meeting at a regional conference early next
year.
Bush praised the Pakistani leader for
showing "great courage in that relationship [between
India and Pakistan], leading toward what we hope will be
a peaceful solution of what has been a historically
difficult problem".
During their closed-door
meeting, at which Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Powell and his designated
successor, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
were also present, Bush discussed with Musharraf the
possibility of obtaining more information from the
disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Dr A Q
Khan about his nuclear black market.
Musharraf ruled out granting any
outsiders access to Khan. The request shows "a lack of
trust in us and it shows a lack of trust in our
capabilities", he told CNN. "If anyone thinks that he
can question A Q Khan better than us, well I don't agree
with that
at all."
Musharraf
and Bush also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,
which the Pakistani leader described as the "source of
all problems". An Israeli-Palestinian agreement, he
said, would "pull the rug from under the feet of all the
extremist organizations".
Ashish Kumar
Sen is a Washington DC-based journalist.
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