Pakistan has renewed calls for an end to US drone aircraft strikes in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), saying they violate its sovereignty. Instead, as Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told a group of visiting US Senators in January, Pakistan wants the US to share the drone technology with Pakistan ?to enable it to take on the terror centres in its border areas itself?. On February 7, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said as a result of Pakistan raising the issue of drone attacks forcefully with the US, the Americans are now seriously thinking of transferring the drone technology to it. When US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry visited Islamabad last week, Pakistan again brought up the issue, complaining bitterly about the ?trust deficit? between the two nations.
Despite the moralising of Pakistani leaders, the truth remains that the US is stingy on giving the drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) technology to Pakistan. On a visit to Pakistan, US defence secretary Robert Gates announced last month that the US will supply Pakistan with several RQ-7 Shadow drones. But the Pakistan military was not at all impressed by the offer of drones used for military surveillance, not targeting.
Islamabad has also requested other sophisticated weaponry, but here, too, it appears that the US is not keen to oblige. Asked about the overall supply of weapons being provided to Pakistan for counter-insurgency, army spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas told the Pakistani media last month: ?Too little, too late.?
As the CIA?which operates the missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones?hunts down Islamic militants after one of the deadliest attacks in its history in neighbouring Afghanistan on December 30, the Barack Obama administration should consider why, exactly, Pakistan is so reluctant to allow drone strikes. The usual answer is that American encroachments into its territory fuel widespread anti-American, anti-government sentiment in Pakistan, and hence Islamabad would prefer to carry out the strikes itself. That?s true as far as it gets.
But, look deeper. Pakistani?s motivation for advanced UAVs and other high-tech equipment is spurred not just by its determination to counter the militants. Part of the motivation comes from the obsession to deter India. In the latest sobering snapshot to its thinking, Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani declared on February 1 that the army will remain ?India-centric? till the Kashmir issue and other disputes were resolved.
In fact, hypocrisy permeates every aspect of Pakistan’s attitude towards drone attacks carried out inside FATA. US officials say the strikes come under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to criticise them in public. Pakistan denies any such agreement. Pakistan’s duality in its approach towards the policy of drone attacks, US officials say, just creates propaganda fodder for terrorists.
Certainly, the Pakistani public knows that the official posturing is pure political theatre. Indeed, it’s the barefaced deniability about drone strikes that makes anti-American sentiments a growth industry in Pakistan. For the US, drones are the most successful weapon in its fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban; even the insurgents grudgingly agree. The Pakistan army doesn’t let US forces operate in FATA, even on an advisory basis. A plan for American trainers to accompany Pakistani troops on missions to thwart insurgents in the tribal belt was also rebuffed by the army.
There is a consensus in the US that Pakistan plays a double-game of supporting America while allowing the Taliban sanctuary within its borders. Last year in May, it was reported in the American media that the US had provided Pakistan with notice of drone operations, but stopped doing so because the information was leaked to targets of the operations. The 2010 threat assessment report of the US intelligence community, released this month, warns that ?Islamabad’s strategic approach risks helping Al Qaeda sustain its safe haven because some groups supported by Pakistan provide assistance to Al Qaeda?. Hardly a revelation, but it uncovers the significant ?trust deficit? that goes to the heart of the US-Pakistan military alliance.
Worse, the pattern of trust deficit has been compounded by a pattern of gross Pakistani mismanagement of military assistance provided by the US. It’s worth recalling the firestorm of protests in Pakistan last September when the Kerry-Lugar Bill in US Congress preconditioned the $7.5-billion American nonmilitary assistance until 2015 on the civilian supremacy in military budgeting in the country, as well as on guarantees of not diverting the aid for military purposes.
According to a New York Times report published in December 2007, US administration and military officials have said they believe that much of the US money hasn?t reached frontline Pakistani units and ?has instead been diverted to finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban?. Estimates by some western military officials put the portion of misappropriated funds at 70%.
In one instance, the army received just $25 million for helicopter maintenance and operations for all of 2007 for their entire national helicopter fleet, out of $55 million intended for that purpose for an eight-month period. In another, Pakistan received around $80 million a month in 2006 and 2007 for military operations even during ceasefires with pro-Taliban tribal elders along the border, in which troops had returned to their barracks. Later, in June 2008, the US Government Accountability Office verified the lapses in the oversight of the Coalition Support Funds, which reimbursed Pakistan $5.5 billion between 2001 and 2007 for conducting military operations in its territory to fight Islamic terrorism.
The Pakistani authorities had all along claimed that they were fighting the Taliban with their hands tied in the back because of lack of equipment. But, verifiable accounts by the US government say that most military aid that the US poured into Pakistan was either misappropriated or went into preparing war machinery not against the Islamic extremists, but against India.
Maybe that?s the reason why their hands were so tied.
?rajiv.jayaram@expressindia.com