THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Pakistan's al-Qaeda dilemma
M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Karachi



The head of US spying operations says Pakistan is the base from where al-Qaeda is rebuilding itself. So what is to be made of the Pakistan government's avowed war on militancy?

There can be no two opinions about the fact that Pakistan's decision to support America's war on terror in September 2001 was taken under duress.

This gave rise to a duality in the Pakistani strategy that has defied clear definition and encouraged al-Qaeda and Taleban elements as much as it has curbed them.

Almost overnight, the country faced the prospect of rolling back the entire operational and logistical apparatus it had put in place in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region over the preceding decades.

The role of the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, in organising Afghan resistance against the Soviet troops during 1980s is well established.

The country's diplomatic, material and strategic support to the Taleban regime that took the stage in 1990s is well documented by the US state institutions and intelligence services.


Military supplies

To get this huge apparatus and the mindset attached to move in reverse gear has been a slow process, exposing Islamabad to allegations of complicity with the Taleban as early as 2002.

Media reports from that period quote incidents in which the Pakistani intelligence operatives were accused of protecting al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives or sneaking into Afghanistan with military supplies for the Taleban fighters.

Pakistan was also finding it hard to roll back the Islamist insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir, which was an extension of Pakistani strategy in Afghanistan and served the crucial objective of keeping the disputed valley instable.


Top officials in the American administration, aware of the fact that Pakistan was crucial to their engagement in Afghanistan, started making concessions to Islamabad.

They seemed to believe that as long as Pakistan remained resolute, they could afford to be slow in Afghanistan.

This gave the Pakistani government the crucial breathing space needed to handle the issue more tactfully.

But analysts point out that this also renewed the urge among some sections of the establishment to desist from actions that could harm the country's interests in Afghanistan.


Sanctuary

The American shift to the war in Iraq further eased the pressure.

The year 2004 can be considered as a watershed.

During that year, Pakistan started toning down its activity on the Line of Control in Kashmir. This came to a complete halt following the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir that killed nearly 80,000 people.

In the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan started the year with hyped up military operations but ended it with peace deals in South Waziristan, leaving the district virtually in the hands of pro-Taleban militants known for harbouring Arab as well as Uzbek and Chechen fugitives.

Western observers believe that a similar deal with the militants in the neighbouring North Waziristan district turned a large swathe of Pakistani territory into an extended sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taleban militants.


To a lesser extent, Islamabad's writ has also withered in the tribal districts north of Waziristan, notably in the northern-most district of Bajaur.

In Pakistan's Balochistan province, while the military has focused on a Baloch nationalist insurgency, a sense of urgency in securing the ethnic Pashtun belt along the Afghan border has been lacking.

Western, as well as some Pakistani media, have described this belt as the largest sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taleban elements in Pakistan.

On the Kashmir front, the presence of a strong state, India, forced the militants into a tight spot, reducing their room for manoeuvre.

In Afghanistan, the writ of the state runs thin, and the presence of foreign troops helps the militants reinforce their ranks endlessly.

Nato air strikes, or ground actions, that have caused civilian casualties have also fuelled recruitment to the militants by angry survivors of the attacks.

Unsavoury options

Last year has been particularly difficult, with close to 200 Western troops killed in action. Casualties among the Afghan government forces and civilians ran into thousands.

And many fear that the forthcoming spring offensive by Taleban may be even worse, causing unacceptably large Western casualties.

Analysts believe that this will leave the Western coalition forces with two options, both highly unsavoury.

They either carpet-bomb Pakistan's tribal areas and create a political turmoil in the region, or quit Afghanistan, as some of Pakistan's influential former intelligence operatives have been predicting.

But there is a third option as well.

If Nato and Pakistani officials are to be believed, Thursday's attack that killed a large number of Taleban fighters in the Barmal area of Afghanistan was the result of intelligence sharing and operational cooperation between the two sides.

From Nato's viewpoint, this is a tangible piece of action from Pakistan which has hitherto defined its role in the fight against terrorism in terms of the al-Qaeda operatives arrested or the number of troops deployed in the tribal areas.

If such pro-active cooperation extends over the next year, Taleban and al-Qaeda activities may be curtailed.

But if preparations for the forthcoming election in Pakistan divert the attention of the rulers away from its border region with Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda and Taleban are certain to do more damage next spring than they did last year.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6257029.stm

Published: 2007/01/12 18:23:55 GMT

Al Qaeda's Pakistan Sanctuary
Musharraf appeases the Taliban.
by Bill Roggio
04/02/2007, Volume 012, Issue 28

excerpt from article linked :

Under the leadership of Faqir Muhammad, whom the Pakistani government refuses to arrest, Bajaur has become an al Qaeda command and control center for launching operations into eastern Afghanistan. Kunar, the adjacent Afghan province, is one of the most violent in the country.

None of this will come as a surprise to anyone tracking the situation in northwestern Pakistan. Since the signing of the Waziristan Accord on September 5, 2006, essentially ceding North Waziristan to the Taliban and al Qaeda, attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan have skyrocketed. Afghanistan has seen an increase in attacks of more than 300 percent, and battalion-sized groups of Taliban fighters have been hit while crossing the border from Pakistan. Cross-border raids are up more than 200 percent, and NATO forces have repeatedly engaged in hot pursuit across the Pakistani frontier. U.S. artillery has begun to strike at large Taliban formations in Pakistani territory. Suicide bombings in Afghanistan increased fivefold from 2005 to 2006. This year, there have already been more suicide attacks in Afghanistan than in all of 2006.

The situation has gotten so bad that in February, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan, called "a steady, direct attack against the command and control in sanctuary areas in Pakistan" essential to preempt the expected Taliban spring offensive. Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, voiced similar concerns last month, saying, "Long-term prospects for eliminating the Taliban threat appear dim so long as the sanctuary remains in Pakistan, and there are no encouraging signs that Pakistan is eliminating it."

...

Ican,

Was it possible to destroy that AQ training camp without invading Iraq and toppling the dictator?

Cycloptichorn

...

Every article I posted was backed up with links proving the statements. Waxmans letter was not an opinion piece by any means but a factual letter backed up with solid proof. Deny all you want.

...

Cycloptichorn wrote:

...

Ican,

Was it possible to destroy that AQ training camp without invading Iraq and toppling the dictator?

Cycloptichorn

Yes! It was possible to destroy those camps without invading and occupying Iraq, and without replacing its government.

Permanent distruction of those camps was/is not possible without invading and occupying Iraq, and replacing its government with a government capable and desirous of permanently preventing al-Qaeda from setting up future training camps in Iraq.

ican stated that the U.S. had to invade/occupy iraq and afghanistan because they both provided sanctuaries for al-qaeda .

my understanding is that the real base for al-qaeda's operations and recruitment is PAKISTAN ! yet - except for the occasional remarks from the U.S. administration , chiding pakistan "for not doing more" - there has not been any military action against al-qaeda bases in pakistan .

...

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

...

Ican,

Was it possible to destroy that AQ training camp without invading Iraq and toppling the dictator?

Cycloptichorn

Yes! It was possible to destroy those camps without invading and occupying Iraq, and without replacing its government.

Permanent distruction of those camps was/is not possible without invading and occupying Iraq, and replacing its government with a government capable and desirous of permanently preventing al-Qaeda from setting up future training camps in Iraq.

I completely disagree. We could permanently deny AQ a place in Northern Iraq without invading the country.

How do you think we could have done that?

You surely are aware that the entirety of Iraq, is a big training camp for AQ now? Some success.

The entirety of Iraq?

I agree that the strategy and tactics the Bush administration used in Iraq after successfully replacing Saddam's government, were unsuccessful and did lead to a buildup rather than a collapse of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Maybe the Bush administration since June is finally employing strategy and tactics which will prove successful. If not, then we must try better alternate strategy and tactics, because we must succeed in Iraq.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo: I completely disagree. We could permanently deny AQ a place in Northern Iraq without invading the country.

Ican: How do you think we could have done that?

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3023wmd_fraud.html
This article appears in the June 13, 2003 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
The Henry Waxman Letter:
Who Knew What, and When?
by Jeffrey Steinberg

U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to President George W. Bush, demanding a full explanation from the Administration, as to why senior officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the President himself "cited forged evidence about Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear materials." (Representative Waxman's letter and the Executive's reply appear below in Documentation.)

Informed of Waxman's June 2 letter to the President, Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche immediately seized on the significance of senior Administration officials having used a proven forged foreign government document, to win Congressional and public support for the Iraq War, based on the fabricated claim that Iraq was attempting to purchase large quantities of uranium precursor, "yellow cake," from the Niger government. LaRouche insisted that it is an urgent matter of national security to determine "who knew what, and when?"

LaRouche's own track record of challenging the wall of disinformation thrown up by the Straussian neo-conservative network inside the Bush Administration, to launch the Iraq War, puts him in a unique position to hold the other Democratic Presidential candidates?-as well as Bush Administration top officials?-accountable for their repeated failure, up until now, to challenge the avalanche of disinformation and "spun" intelligence products.

On Feb. 9, 2003, LaRouche had issued a campaign statement, "Powell Apparent Victim of Hoax," sharply criticizing the Secretary of State's Feb. 5 report to the United Nations Security Council, during which he had presented a series of fraudulent charges about Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Appended to the LaRouche statement was a grid of comments from the other declared Democratic Presidential candidates, which, for the most part, revealed that they, too, had been uncritical endorsers of the fakery.

The Waxman Letters
Representative Waxman's letter was a follow-up to one he had written on March 17 to the President on the same topic. The chronology of events, spelled out in the Waxman letters, and in documentation cited in those letters, is as follows:

Sometime in late 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency received several documents, purporting to show Iraqi government efforts to purchase large volumes of "yellow cake" from the African government of Niger. According to EIR intelligence sources, the Niger documents were produced at the country's embassy in Rome, and were passed on to the Italian Carabinieri, who passed them along, without further comment, to the British MI6 and the CIA.

According to a May 6, 2003 New York Times report "Missing In Action: Truth," by Nicholas D. Kristof, "more than a year ago, the Vice President's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the CIA and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged. The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade.... The envoy's debunking of the forgery was passed around the Administration and seemed to be accepted?-except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway."


Despite the fact that top Bush Administration officials?-including Vice President Cheney?-knew that the Niger documents were fabrications as early as February 2002, the same documents continued to be cited?-by both American and British government officials. On Sept. 24, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's 10 Downing Street office issued a 50-page public dossier, titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction?-The Assessment of the British Government," which stated, in part, "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The same day, according to a March 31, 2003 New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh, "Who Lied to Whom?" a group of senior U.S. intelligence officials delivered a closed-door, classified briefing to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, citing the same Niger "yellow cake" evidence of Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Two days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell reported on the same subject and repeated the CIA material.

Two weeks later, the U.S. Congress voted to grant President Bush authority to go to war against Iraq. As Representative Waxman wrote to Bush on March 17, 2003, "Despite serious misgivings, I supported the resolution because I believed Congressional approval would significantly improve the likelihood of effective UN action. Equally important, I believed that you had access to reliable intelligence information that merited deference. Like many other members, I was particularly influenced by your views about Iraq's nuclear intentions. Although chemical and biological weapons can inflict casualties, no argument for attacking Iraq is as compelling as the possibility of Saddam Hussein brandishing nuclear bombs."

On Dec. 19, 2002, the U.S. State Department, in response to Iraq's weapons declaration to the UN Security Council, issued a one-page fact sheet, "Illustrative Examples of Omissions From the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council," which cited eight cases. The third item, "Nuclear Weapons," simply read: "The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?"

In January 2003, senior Administration officials repeated the allegations about Iraq's attempted procurement of uranium, including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld?-and President Bush, in his Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address.

On March 7, Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), testified before the UN Security Council, and flatly declared that the Niger documents were forgeries. "Based on thorough analysis," he testified publicly, "the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents?-which formed the basis for reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger?-are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded."

Even following Dr. ElBaradei's public discrediting of the Niger forgeries, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney appeared, on March 16, on the Sunday TV talk-show "Meet the Press"?-three days before the invasion of Iraq?-and repeated the false charges. Referring to Saddam Hussein, "We know," Cheney told host Tim Russert, "he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

On March 17, 2003, Rep. Henry Waxman wrote the first letter to President Bush, detailing the Niger forgery, and seeking an explanation.

On April 29, 2003, Representative Waxman received a one-page reply from Paul V. Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. After reviewing the sources of the Niger allegations, Kelly wrote, "Not until March 4 [2003] did we learn that in fact the second Western European government had based its assessment on the evidence already available to the U.S. that was subsequently discredited. Based on what appeared at the time to be multiple sources for the information in question, we acted in good faith in providing the information earlier this year to the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors responsible for verifying Iraq's claims regarding its nuclear program."

On June 2, 2003, Representative Waxman sent his second letter to the President on the forged Niger documents and the Administration's continued references to the documents, long after they were known to be fakes. Waxman wrote: "Unfortunately, to date I have received only a cursory, one-page response from the State Department's Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs. Although this April 29, 2003, letter asserts that the Administration acted in 'good faith,' the letter in fact further confuses the situation and raises additional questions."

The Cheney Question
One additional question certainly raised, is the particular role of Vice President Cheney, who was among the first Administration officials to be informed that the Niger documents were forgeries, and who was the only senior Administration official to continue to assert the Niger-Iraq uranium story after Dr. ElBaradei addressed the UN Security Council on March 7, 2003.

Congressional Intelligence Report 09/08/2006
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

Conclusion 6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghdad had not controlled since 1991.

Quote:

Cyclo: I completely disagree. We could permanently deny AQ a place in Northern Iraq without invading the country.

Ican: How do you think we could have done that?

We send in our bombers and special forces units to destroy the currently existing camp. Saddam would have had zero ability to stop this, as we controlled the airspace completely.

Then, we use our satellite and intelligence resources to monitor the area; if and when a new camp springs up, we use our bombers and special forces units to destroy the new camps.

Not hard to figure out that when you completely control the airspace, you control the ability of terrorists to set up training camps.

Cycloptichorn

However, the question I continue to ask myself is how effective your method would be if al-Qaeda after the first strike migrated to densely populated areas of Iraq instead of remaining in the relatively low population area of northeastern Iraq? I think Saddam would have had an even greater problem trying to clean up the mess that would cause than Bush has had.

.................. Can't

Can't is the worst word that's written or spoken;
... Doing more harm here than slander and lies;
On it many a strong spirit broken,
... And with it many a good purpose dies.
It springs from the lips of the thoughtless each morning
... And robs us of courage we need through the day:
It rings in our ears like a timely sent warning
... And laughs when we falter and fall by the way.

Can't is the father of feeble endeavor,
... The parent of terror and halfhearted work;
It weakons the efforts of artisans clever,
... And makes of the toiler an indolent shirk.
It poisons the soul of the man with a vision,
... It stifles in infancy many a plan;
It greets honest toiling with open derision
... And mocks at the hopes and the dreams of man.

Can't is a word none should speak without blushing;
... To utter it should be a symbol of shame;
Ambition and courage it daily is crushing;
... It blights a man's purpose and shortens his aim.
Despise it with all of your hatred of error;
... Refuse it the lodgment it seeks in your brain;
Arm against it as a creature of terror,
... And all that you dream of you someday shall gain.

Can't is the word that is foe to ambition,
... An enemy ambushed to shatter your will;
It's prey is forever the man with a mission
... And bows but to courage and patience and skill.
Hate it, with hatred that's deep and undying,
... For once it is welcomed 'twill break any man;
Whatever the goal you are seeking, keep trying
... And answer this demon by saying: "I can."

Quote:

However, the question I continue to ask myself is how effective your method would be if al-Qaeda after the first strike migrated to densely populated areas of Iraq instead of remaining in the relatively low population area of northeastern Iraq? I think Saddam would have had an even greater problem trying to clean up the mess that would cause than Bush has had.

Thing is, the AQ affiliated groups hated Saddam. They didn't get along with him. He had ways of rooting them out of the densely populated areas; that's why they had to locate in areas he didn't control.

So I find it hard to believe that AQ could set up camp in the middle of Fallujah; there just isn't a lot of evidence that they would have been successful in doing such a thing.

...

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

However, the question I continue to ask myself is how effective your method would be if al-Qaeda after the first strike migrated to densely populated areas of Iraq instead of remaining in the relatively low population area of northeastern Iraq? I think Saddam would have had an even greater problem trying to clean up the mess that would cause than Bush has had.

Thing is, the AQ affiliated groups hated Saddam. They didn't get along with him. He had ways of rooting them out of the densely populated areas; that's why they had to locate in areas he didn't control.

So I find it hard to believe that AQ could set up camp in the middle of Fallujah; there just isn't a lot of evidence that they would have been successful in doing such a thing.

...

Cycloptichorn

How about al-Qaeda setting up camps scattered over Anbar province in Iraq?

Al-Qaeda's Saudi Origins
Islamist Ideology
by Uriya Shavit
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006

From where did Al-Qaeda come? While its actions are well known, its intellectual origins are not. Many scholars and analysts depict the group as a new phenomenon. They cite its international recruitment, its message of global jihad, its lack of a clear chain-of-command, and its use of the Internet as both an operational and informative tool. While the group's amorphousness makes it threatening and unpredictable, neither Osama bin Laden's operative modes nor his ideology are cloaked in mystery. Rather, they are a synthesis of two interlinked and equally important sources of influence: first, the teachings of ?'Abdallah ?'Azzam, the leader of the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s; and second, the Saudi opposition movement which arose in the early 1990s and sought to Islamize Saudi society in response to a perceived Western "cultural attack" on the Muslim world.
.
.
.
The War in Afghanistan and the Legacy of the Armed Jihad

The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was, in the eyes of those cautioning against a Western cultural attack, affirmation of their assumptions. The struggle for Afghanistan gave young, religious Saudis?-graduates of the kingdom's new religious universities?-an opportunity to defend Islam. A few hundred traveled to Afghanistan to join Muslim guerilla fighters, the mujahideen. The United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan assisted them financially and logistically.[9] For the Saudi regime, their activity was a blessing: not only did it portray Saudi Arabia as a leading force in the liberation of Afghanistan without the kingdom having to directly intervene in the conflict, but it also kept the most radical and adventurous young Saudis far from Saudi Arabia. Instead of fighting the U.S. presence on Saudi soil, the kingdom's young radicals fought Soviet penetration of Afghan soil.