seymour on kashmir

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> >The Getaway >by Seymour M. Hersh > > The New Yorker 21 January 2002 > Centre

for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca , 11 June 2002 >

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> >CRG's Global Outlook, premiere issue on "Stop the War" provides detailed

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> > In Afghanistan last November, the Northern Alliance, supported by American

Special Forces troops and emboldened by the highly accurate American bombing,

forced thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to retreat inside the

northern hill town of Kunduz. Trapped with them were Pakistani Army officers,

intelligence advisers, and volunteers who were fighting alongside the Taliban.

(Pakistan had been the Taliban's staunchest military and economic supporter in

its long-running war against the Northern Alliance.) Many of the fighters had

fled earlier defeats at Mazar-i-Sharif, to the west; Taloqan, to the east; and

Pul-i-Khumri, to the south. The road to Kabul, a potential point of retreat,

was blocked and was targeted by American bombers. Kunduz offered safety from

the bombs and a chance to negotiate painless surrender terms, as Afghan tribes

often do. > > Surrender negotiations began immediately, but the Bush

Administration heatedly—and successfully—opposed them. On November 25th, the

Northern Alliance took Kunduz, capturing some four thousand of the Taliban and

Al Qaeda fighters. The next day, President Bush said, "We're smoking them out.

They're running, and now we're going to bring them to justice." > > Even before

the siege ended, however, a puzzling series of reports appeared in the Times and

in other publications, quoting Northern Alliance officials who claimed that

Pakistani airplanes had flown into Kunduz to evacuate the Pakistanis there.

American and Pakistani officials refused to confirm the reports. On November

16th, when journalists asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the

reports of rescue aircraft, he was dismissive. "Well, if we see them, we shoot

them down," he said. Five days later, Rumsfeld declared, "Any idea that those

people should be let loose on any basis at all to leave that country and to go

bring terror to other countries and destabilize other countries is

unacceptable." At a Pentagon news conference on Monday, November 26th, the day

after Kunduz fell, General Richard B. Myers, of the Air Force, who is the

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked about the reports. The General

did not directly answer the question but stated, "The runway there is not

usable. I mean, there are segments of it that are usable. They're too short for

your standard transport aircraft. So we're not sure where the reports are coming

from." > > Pakistani officials also debunked the rescue reports, and continued

to insist, as they had throughout the Afghanistan war, that no Pakistani

military personnel were in the country. Anwar Mehmood, the government

spokesman, told newsmen at the time that reports of a Pakistani airlift were

"total rubbish. Hogwash." > > In interviews, however, American intelligence

officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were indeed

flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the

Bush Administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a

limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended

consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join

in the exodus. "Dirt got through the screen," a senior intelligence official

told me. Last week, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld did not respond to a request

for comment. > > Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power

in a 1999 coup, had risked his standing with the religious fundamentalists—and

perhaps his life—by endorsing the American attack on Afghanistan and the

American support of the Northern Alliance. At the time of Kunduz, his decision

looked like an especially dangerous one. The initial American aim in

Afghanistan had been not to eliminate the Taliban's presence there entirely but

to undermine the regime and Al Qaeda while leaving intact so-called moderate

Taliban elements that would play a role in a new postwar government. This would

insure that Pakistan would not end up with a regime on its border dominated by

the Northern Alliance. By mid-November, it was clear that the Northern Alliance

would quickly sweep through Afghanistan. There were fears that once the Northern

Alliance took Kunduz, there would be wholesale killings of the defeated

fighters, especially the foreigners. > > Musharraf won American support for the

airlift by warning that the humiliation of losing hundreds—and perhaps

thousands—of Pakistani Army men and intelligence operatives would jeopardize

his political survival. "Clearly, there is a great willingness to help

Musharraf," an American intelligence official told me. A C.I.A. analyst said

that it was his understanding that the decision to permit the airlift was made

by the White House and was indeed driven by a desire to protect the Pakistani

leader. The airlift "made sense at the time," the C.I.A. analyst said. "Many of

the people they spirited away were the Taliban leadership"—who Pakistan hoped

could play a role in a postwar Afghan government. According to this person,

"Musharraf wanted to have these people to put another card on the table" in

future political negotiations. "We were supposed to have access to them," he

said, but "it didn't happen," and the rescued Taliban remain unavailable to

American intelligence. > > According to a former high-level American defense

official, the airlift was approved because of representations by the Pakistanis

that "there were guys— intelligence agents and underground guys—who needed to

get out." > > Once under way, a senior American defense adviser said, the

airlift became chaotic. "Everyone brought their friends with them," he said,

referring to the Afghans with whom the Pakistanis had worked, and whom they had

trained or had used to run intelligence operations. "You're not going to leave

them behind to get their throats cut." Recalling the last-minute American

evacuation at the end of the Vietnam War, in 1975, the adviser added, "When we

came out of Saigon, we brought our boys with us." He meant South Vietnamese

nationals. " 'How many does that helicopter hold? Ten? We're bringing

fourteen.' " > > The Bush Administration may have done more than simply

acquiesce in the rescue effort: at the height of the standoff, according to

both a C.I.A. official and a military analyst who has worked with the Delta

Force, the American commando unit that was destroying Taliban units on the

ground, the Administration ordered the United States Central Command to set up

a special air corridor to help insure the safety of the Pakistani rescue

flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of Pakistan, about two hundred

miles away. The order left some members of the Delta Force deeply frustrated.

"These guys did Desert Storm and Mogadishu," the military analyst said. "They

see things in black-and-white. 'Unhappy' is not the word. They're supposed to

be killing people." The airlift also angered the Northern Alliance, whose

leadership, according to Reuel Gerecht, a former Near East operative for the

C.I.A., had sought unsuccessfully for years to "get people to pay attention to

the Pakistani element" among the Taliban. The Northern Alliance was eager to

capture "mainline Pakistani military and intelligence officers" at Kunduz,

Gerecht said. "When the rescue flights started, it touched a raw nerve." > >

Just as Pakistan has supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan's

arch-rival India has supported the Northern Alliance. Operatives in India's

main external intelligence unit—known as RAW, for Research and Analysis

Wing—reported extensively on the Pakistani airlift out of Kunduz. (The Taliban

and Al Qaeda have declared the elimination of India's presence in the contested

territory of Kashmir as a major goal.) RAW has excellent access to the Northern

Alliance and a highly sophisticated ability to intercept electronic

communications. An Indian military adviser boasted that when the airlift began

"we knew within minutes." In interviews in New Delhi, Indian national-security

and intelligence officials repeatedly declared that the airlift had rescued not

only members of the Pakistani military but Pakistani citizens who had

volunteered to fight against the Northern Alliance, as well as non-Pakistani

Taliban and Al Qaeda. Brajesh Mishra, India's national-security adviser, said

his government had concluded that five thousand Pakistanis and Taliban—he

called it "a ballpark figure"—had been rescued. > > According to RAW's senior

analyst for Pakistani and Afghan issues, the most extensive rescue efforts took

place on three nights at the time of the fall of Kunduz. Indian intelligence had

concluded that eight thousand or more men were trapped inside the city in the

last days of the siege, roughly half of whom were Pakistanis. (Afghans, Uzbeks,

Chechens, and various Arab mercenaries accounted for the rest.) At least five

flights were specifically "confirmed" by India's informants, the RAW analyst

told me, and many more were believed to have taken place. > > In the Indian

assessment, thirtythree hundred prisoners surrendered to a Northern Alliance

tribal faction headed by General Abdul Rashid Dostum. A few hundred Taliban

were also turned over to other tribal leaders. That left between four and five

thousand men unaccounted for. "Where are the balance?" the intelligence officer

asked. According to him, two Pakistani Army generals were on the flights. > >

None of the American intelligence officials I spoke with were able to say with

certainty how many Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters were flown to safety, or may

have escaped from Kunduz by other means. > > India, wary of antagonizing the

Bush Administration, chose not to denounce the airlift at the time. But there

was a great deal of anger within the Indian government. "We had all the

information, but we did not go public," the Indian military adviser told me.

"Why should we embarrass you? We should be sensible." A RAW official said that

India had intelligence that Musharraf's message to the Americans had been that

he didn't want to see body bags coming back to Pakistan. Brajesh Mishra told me

that diplomatic notes protesting the airlift were sent to Britain and the United

States. Neither responded, he said. > > Mishra also said that Indian

intelligence was convinced that many of the airlifted fighters would soon be

infiltrated into Kashmir. There was a precedent for this. In the past, the

Pakistani Army's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (I.S.I.) had trained

fighters in Afghanistan and then funnelled them into Kashmir. One of India's

most senior intelligence officials also told me, "Musharraf can't afford to

keep the Taliban in Pakistan. They're dangerous to his own regime. Our reading

is that the fighters can go only to Kashmir." > > Kashmir, on India's northern

border, is a predominantly Muslim territory that has been fiercely disputed

since Partition, in 1947. Both India and Pakistan have waged war to support

their claim. Pakistanis believe that Kashmir should have become part of their

country in the first place, and that India reneged on the promise of a

plebiscite to determine its future. India argues that a claim to the territory

on religious grounds is a threat to India's status as a secular, multi-ethnic

nation. Kashmir is now divided along a carefully drawn line of control, but

cross-border incursions—many of them bloody—occur daily. > > Three weeks after

the airlift, on December 13th, a suicide squad of five heavily armed Muslim

terrorists drove past a barrier at the Indian Parliament, in New Delhi, and

rushed the main building. At one point, the terrorists were only a few feet

from the steps to the office of India's Vice-President, Krishan Kant. Nine

people were killed in the shoot-out, in addition to the terrorists, and many

others were injured. The country's politicians and the press felt that a far

greater tragedy had only narrowly been averted. > > In India, the Parliament

assault was regarded as comparable to September 11th. Indian intelligence

quickly concluded that the attack had been organized by operatives from two

long-standing Kashmiri terrorist organizations that were believed to be heavily

supported by the I.S.I. > > Brajesh Mishra told me that if the attack on the

Parliament had resulted in a more significant number of casualties "there would

have been mayhem." India deployed hundreds of thousands of troops along its

border with Pakistan, and publicly demanded that Musharraf take steps to cut

off Pakistani support for the groups said to be involved. "Nobody in India

wants war, but other options are not ruled out," Mishra said. > > The crisis

escalated, with military men on both sides declaring that they were prepared to

face nuclear war, if necessary. Last week, Colin Powell, the Secretary of State,

travelled to the region and urged both sides to withdraw their troops, cool the

rhetoric, and begin constructive talks about Kashmir. > > Under prodding from

the Bush Administration, Musharraf has taken action against his country's

fundamentalist terror organizations. In the last month, the government has made

more than a thousand arrests, seized bank accounts, and ordered the I.S.I. to

stop all support for terrorist groups operating inside Kashmir. In a televised

address to the nation on January 12th, Musharraf called for an end to

terrorism, but he also went beyond the most recent dispute with India and

outlined a far-reaching vision of Pakistan as a modern state. "The day of

reckoning has come," he said. "Do we want Pakistan to become a theocratic

state? Do we believe that religious education alone is enough for governance?

Or do we want Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare

state?" The fundamentalists, he added, "did nothing except contribute to

bloodshed in Afghanistan. I ask of them whether they know anything other than

disruption and sowing seeds of hatred. Does Islam preach this?" > > "Musharraf

has not done as much as the Indians want," a Bush Administration official who

is deeply involved in South Asian issues said. "But he's done more than I'd

thought he'd do. He had to do something, because the Indians are so wound up."

The official also said, however, that Musharraf could not last in office if he

conceded the issue of Kashmir to India, and would not want to do so in any

case. "He is not a fundamentalist but a Pakistani nationalist—he genuinely

believes that Kashmir 'should be ours.' At the end of the day, Musharraf would

come out ahead if he could get rid of the Pakistani and Kashmiri terrorists—if

he can survive it. They have eaten the vitals out of Pakistan." In his address,

Musharraf was unyielding on that subject. "Kashmir runs in our blood," he said.

"No Pakistani can afford to sever links with Kashmir. . . . We will never budge

an inch from our principled stand on Kashmir." > > Milton Bearden, a former

C.I.A. station chief in Pakistan who helped run the Afghan war against the

Soviet Union in the late nineteen-eighties and worked closely with the I.S.I.,

believes that the Indian government is cynically using the Parliament bombing

to rally public support for the conflict with Pakistan. "The Indians are just

playing brinkmanship now—moving troops up to the border," he said. "Until

September 11th, they thought they'd won this thing—they had Pakistan on the

ropes." Because of its nuclear program, he said, "Pakistan was isolated and

sanctioned by the United States, with only China left as an ally. Never mind

that the only country in South Asia that always did what we asked was

Pakistan." As for Musharraf, Bearden said, "What can he do? Does he really have

the Army behind him? Yes, but maybe by only forty-eight to fifty-two per cent."

Bearden went on, "Musharraf is not going to be a Kemal Atatürk"—the founder of

the secular Turkish state—"but as long as he can look over his shoulder and see

that Rich Armitage"—the United States Deputy Secretary of State—"and Don

Rumsfeld are with him he might be able to stop the extremism." > > A senior

Pakistani diplomat depicted India as suffering from "jilted-lover

syndrome"—referring to the enormous amount of American attention and financial

aid that the Musharraf government has received since September 11th. "The

situation is bloody explosive," the diplomat said, and argued that Musharraf

has not been given enough credit from the Indian leadership for the "sweeping

changes" that have taken place in Pakistan. "Short of saying it is now a

secular Pakistan, he's redefined and changed the politics of the regime," the

diplomat said. "He has de-legitimized religious fundamentalism." The diplomat

told me that the critical question for Pakistan, India, and the rest of South

Asia is "Will the Americans stay involved for the long haul, or will attention

shift to Somalia or Iraq? I don't know." > > Inevitably, any conversation about

tension between India and Pakistan turns to the issue of nuclear weapons. Both

countries have warheads and the means to deliver them. (India's capabilities,

conventional and nuclear, are far greater—between sixty and ninety

warheads—while Pakistan is thought to have between thirty and fifty.) A retired

C.I.A. officer who served as station chief in South Asia told me that what he

found disturbing was the "imperfect intelligence" each country has as to what

the other side's intentions are. "Couple that with the fact that these guys

have a propensity to believe the worst of each other, and have nuclear weapons,

and you end up saying, 'My God, get me the hell out of here.' " Milton Bearden

agreed that the I.S.I. and RAW are "equally bad" at assessing each other. > >

In New Delhi, I got a sense of how dangerous the situation is, in a

conversation with an Indian diplomat who has worked at the highest levels of

his country's government. He told me that he believes India could begin a war

with Pakistan and not face a possible nuclear retaliation. He explained, "When

Pakistan went nuclear, we called their bluff." He was referring to a tense

moment in 1990, when India moved its Army en masse along the Pakistani border

and then sat back while the United States mediated a withdrawal. "We found,

through intelligence, that there was a lot of bluster." He and others in India

concluded that Pakistan was not willing to begin a nuclear confrontation.

"We've found there is a lot of strategic space between a low-intensity war

waged with Pakistan and the nuclear threshold," the diplomat said. "Therefore,

we are utilizing military options without worrying about the nuclear

threshold." If that turned out to be a miscalculation and Pakistan initiated

the use of nuclear weapons, he said, then India would respond in force. "And

Pakistan would cease to exist." > > The Bush Administration official involved

in South Asian issues acknowledged that there are some people in India who seem

willing to gamble that "you can have war but not use nuclear weapons." He added,

"Both nations need to sit down and work out the red lines"—the points of no

return. "They've never done that." > > An American intelligence official told

me that the Musharraf regime had added to the precariousness of the military

standoff with India by reducing the amount of time it would take for Pakistan

to execute a nuclear strike. Pakistan keeps control over its nuclear arsenal in

part by storing its warheads separately from its missile- and aircraft-delivery

systems. In recent weeks, he said, the time it takes to get the warheads in the

air has been cut to just three hours—"and that's too close. Both sides have

their nukes in place and ready to roll." > > Even before the airlift from

Kunduz, the Indians were enraged by the Bush Administration's decision to make

Pakistan its chief ally in the Afghanistan war. "Musharraf has two-timed you,"

a recently retired senior member of India's diplomatic service told me in New

Delhi earlier this month. "What have you gained? Have you captured Osama bin

Laden?" He said that although India would do nothing to upset the American

campaign in Afghanistan, "We will turn the heat on Musharraf. He'll go back to

terrorism as long as the heat is off." (Milt Bearden scoffed at that

characterization. "Musharraf doesn't have time to two-time anybody," he said.

"He wakes up every morning and has to head out with his bayonet, trying to find

the land mines.") > > Some C.I.A. analysts believe that bin Laden eluded

American capture inside Afghanistan with help from elements of the Pakistani

intelligence service. "The game against bin Laden is not over," one analyst

told me in early January. He speculated that bin Laden could be on his way to

Somalia, "his best single place to hide." Al Qaeda is known to have an

extensive infrastructure there. The analyst said that he had concluded that

"he's out. We've been looking for bombing targets for weeks and weeks there but

can't identify them." > > Last week, Donald Rumsfeld told journalists that he

believed bin Laden was still in Afghanistan. Two days later, in Pakistan,

Musharraf announced that he thought bin Laden was probably dead—of kidney

disease. > > A senior C.I.A. official, when asked for comment, cautioned that

there were a variety of competing assessments inside the agency as to bin

Laden's whereabouts. "We really don't know," he said. "We'll get him, but

anybody who tells you we know where he is is full of it." > > India's

grievances—over the Pakistani airlift, the continuing terrorism in Kashmir, and

Musharraf's new status with Washington—however heartfelt, may mean little when

it comes to effecting a dramatic change of American policy in South Asia.

India's democracy and its tradition of civilian control over the military make

it less of a foreign-policy priority than Pakistan. The Bush Administration has

put its prestige, and American aid money, behind Musharraf, in the gamble—thus

far successful—that he will continue to move Pakistan, and its nuclear arsenal,

away from fundamentalism. The goal is to stop nuclear terrorism as well as

political terrorism. It's a tall order, and missteps are inevitable.

Nonetheless, the White House remains optimistic. An Administration official

told me that, given the complications of today's politics, he still believed

that Musharraf was the best Pakistani leader the Indians could hope for,

whether they recognize it or not. "After him, they could only get something

worse." > >

>--

> > The New Yorker 2002. For fair use only > >

>--

> >The URL of this article is: >http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HER206A.html

>CRG's Global Outlook, premiere issue on "Stop the War" provides detailed

documentation on the war and September 11 > >Order/. Consult Table of

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