PDA

View Full Version : Feinstein Comment On U.S. Drones Likely To Embarrass Pakistan



Gold9472
02-13-2009, 10:39 AM
Feinstein comment on U.S. drones likely to embarrass Pakistan
The Predator planes that launch missile strikes against militants are based in Pakistan, the senator says. That suggests a much deeper relationship with the U.S. than Islamabad would like to admit.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uspakistan13-2009feb13,0,4776260.story

By Greg Miller
February 13, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States.

The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.

At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Islamic extremist targets along Pakistan's northwestern border.

"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.

The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital, and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.

The CIA declined to comment, but former U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, confirmed that Feinstein's account was accurate.

Philip J. LaVelle, a spokesman for Feinstein, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.

"We strongly object to Sen. Feinstein's remarks being characterized as anything other than a reference" to an article that appeared last March in the Washington Post, LaVelle said. Feinstein did not refer to newspaper accounts during the hearing.

Many counter-terrorism experts have assumed that the aircraft take off from U.S. military installations in Afghanistan and are remotely piloted from locations in the United States. Experts said the disclosure could create political problems for the government in Islamabad, which is considered relatively weak.

The attacks are extremely unpopular in Pakistan, in part because of the high number of civilian casualties inflicted in dozens of strikes.

The use of Predators armed with Hellfire antitank missiles has emerged as perhaps the most important tool of the U.S. in its effort to attack Al Qaeda in its sanctuaries along the Pakistani-Afghan border. A New Year's Day strike killed two senior Al Qaeda operatives who were suspected of involvement in the bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel.

They were among at least eight senior Al Qaeda figures reportedly killed in Predator strikes over the last seven months as part of a stepped-up missile campaign.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said Feinstein's comments put Pakistan's government on the spot.

"If accurate, what this says is that Pakistani involvement, or at least acquiescence, has been much more extensive than has previously been known," he said. "It puts the Pakistani government in a far more difficult position [in terms of] its credibility with its own people. Unfortunately it also has the potential to threaten Pakistani-American relations."

As chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein is privy to classified details of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. The CIA does not publicly acknowledge a campaign against Pakistan-based extremists using remotely piloted planes, making Feinstein's comment all the more unusual.

Feinstein's disclosure came during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair on the nation's security threats. Blair did not respond directly to Feinstein's remark, except to say that Pakistan was "sorting out" its cooperation with the United States.

Pakistani officials have long denied that they have even granted the U.S. permission to fly the Predator planes over Pakistani territory, let alone to operate the aircraft from within the country.

The civilian leadership that took over from an unpopular former general, Pervez Musharraf, last year, has gone to significant lengths to distance itself from the Predator strikes.

The Pakistani government regularly lodges diplomatic protests against the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, and officials said the subject was raised with Richard C. Holbrooke, a newly appointed U.S. envoy to the region, who completed his first visit to the country Thursday.

But a former CIA official familiar with the Predator operations said Pakistan's government secretly approves of the flights because of the growing militant threat.

Feinstein prefaced her comment about the Predator basing Thursday by noting that Holbrooke "ran into considerable concern about the use of the Predator strikes in the FATA areas," a reference to what Pakistan calls its Federally Administered Tribal Area along the border with Afghanistan.

Many Pakistanis believe that the civilian leadership, despite public anger, has continued Musharraf's policy of giving the United States tacit permission to carry out the strikes.

The CIA has been working to step up its presence in Pakistan in recent years. It has deployed as many as 200 people to the country, one of its largest overseas operations besides Iraq, current and former agency officials have estimated. That contingent works alongside other U.S. operatives who specialize in electronic communications and spy satellites.

In his prepared testimony Thursday, Blair said that Al Qaeda had "lost significant parts of its command structure since 2008."

Gold9472
02-14-2009, 09:06 PM
Pakistan's complicity in drone attacks

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=162687

By Shireen M Mazari
Sunday, February 15, 2009

What many of us had suspected seems to have now been revealed by no less a person than the Chairperson of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein – that US drones operating in Pakistan are in fact flown from an airbase in Pakistan. The context of Feinstein's statement, as well as her position, gives weightage and credibility to her assertion. The revelation was made during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, who did not respond directly to this assertion.

Where does that leave the Pakistani state and its government, both the previous and present ones? The delay in a viable response from official Pakistani sources speaks volume but then what can they say and who will buy it? Official sources have lost all credibility. After all, we have been officially briefed on more than one occasion that no drone flew without the knowledge of the Pakistani military. Many sources, both US and Pakistani, have also given out that when Zardari visited the US in September, he agreed to the continuing US drone strikes inside Pakistan.

The brazenness with which the government has chosen to lie not only to its people but to Parliament shows how little it cares for either. Because the truth is not familiar to officialdom, credibility has all but eroded from the state and government. In retrospect it is a sick mind that will continue to harp publicly on how the drone attacks are encouraging extremism and must be stopped while covertly there has always been a Pakistani acquiescence to these drone violations of our sovereignty.

But far more serious is the issue of how a state can allow its own citizens to be killed by a foreign power. The US embassy has put out how Al Qaeda targets have been killed in these drone attacks. Even if one accepts the veracity of these claims – which is asking for a lot given the US's dismal intelligence record – what about all the civilians in their hundreds if not thousands who have so far also fallen prey to the drones' "collateral damage"?

For us Pakistanis this is a critical issue even though for the US loss of Pakistani lives is clearly irrelevant. And now that it has become apparent that the Pakistani state has been complicit in these drone attacks, serious constitutional and moral issues arise. But first, who should bear the responsibility for allowing the US to kill Pakistani citizens? Clearly the permission was given under the Musharraf government and without the agreement of the Pakistan military the drones could not have carried out their strikes. After all, we know that the GHQ was informed of these missions – but now it appears that the military allowed the use of its bases for these attacks. Were these the bases given out to the US post-9/11 or was another air base allocated for this purpose? After the departure of Musharraf, clearly the new government has also given its assent to the drone attacks – and again these have been happening with the full knowledge of the Pakistan military since a military air base is being used according to the head of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, who would have no interest in lying.

So where does the Pakistan government, including the military stand on this issue of allowing the killing of its citizens on their own sovereign soil by foreign forces? Simply, it stands in contravention of Article 4 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which lays that

"4 (1) To enjoy the protection of the law and to be treated in accordance with the law is the inalienable right of every citizen, wherever he may be, and of every other person for the time being within Pakistan.

"(2) In particular –

(a) no action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property of any person shall be taken except in accordance with the law…"

Now clearly no law exists that allows the state to kill its own people, even in the case of capital punishment where legal procedures have to be adopted before the punishment can be carried out.

Beyond the Constitutional infringement, which seems to be of little concern to the rulers – both civilian and military – even purely on moral grounds the state has no right to allow a foreign power to violate its sovereignty in order to kill its citizens. But where can we the ordinary citizens go for redress when there is no independent judiciary. Now it should be clear to all and sundry why the Pakistani state and the US Establishment are not particularly keen to see the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar and the establishment of an independent judiciary.

The drone attacks are the most extreme reflection of the surrender of Pakistani sovereignty to the US, but the US intrusion into Pakistan is extensive with the FBI now moving with Pakistani forces when arrests are made in the frontier province including in Peshawar. US CIA presence is known to be widespread from Islamabad northwards especially around Warsak and in and around the tribal areas US personnel are believed to be embedded with Pakistani security and military forces. So where should the ordinary Pakistani seek protection when its own state is complicit in his killing?

This is the shameful position that exists today with President Zardari declaring that force is the only answer to our problems of extremism and violence. Mr Zardari how has military force helped resolve these problems so far? Do we not have more widespread violence now than before 9/11 or has the use of military force stemmed the tide of extremism? Where there is no law and where the state becomes the perpetrator of extra judicial killings – which is what the drone attack victims are in essence – the legal and moral void will continue to be filled with an ever increasing cycle of violence.

Gold9472
02-22-2009, 09:06 PM
'Secret' CIA operations using drone aircraft inside Pakistan

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Secret_CIA_operations_using_drone_aircraft_0222.ht ml

Joe Byrne
Published: Sunday February 22, 2009

Obama's decision yesterday to expand CIA operations in Pakistan (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_expanding_military_operations_in_Pakistan_02 21.html), targeting those who seek to overthrow the Pakistani government, comes soon after fresh reports of long-lived US military occupation in the country. Photographs published by The Times of London revealed that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were being housed at an airbase within Pakistan as early as 2006, and new buildings and a housing compound implies that the base is still in use by the US. Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Major-General Athar Abbas, admitted on Tuesday that US forces were using the airbase, “but only for logistics.”

The photographs, obtained from Google Earth by The Times of London and taken three years apart, depict the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, 30 miles from the border of Afghanistan. In the first photograph from 2006, three comparatively small craft are parked on the tarmac. Military aviation experts shown the image said that the aircraft appeared to be MQ1 Predator UAVs — the model used by the CIA to observe and strike militants on the Afghan border. The MQ1 Predator carries two laser-guided Hellfire missiles, and can fly for up to 454 miles, at speeds of up to 135 mph, and at altitudes of up to 25,000 feet, according to the US Air Force. In the second photograph, a brand-new airplane hangar that could easily fit the three aircraft is situated right off the runway, and perimeter defenses have also been established.

Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein slipped up (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C02%5C15%5Cstory_15-2-2009_pg3_1) during a hearing and mentioned the existence of a “Pakistani-based staging ground” for UAV strikes. Though Pakistani and US officials have repeatedly denied that bases within the country are being used to launch drones, Fox News reported on Thursday that another official confirmed the use of Pakistani air-fields for US drones.

According to the Fox News report, both President Asif Ali Zardari and General Ashraf Kayani have turned a blind eye to the strikes. These two leaders have launched no protests behind the scenes to US officials about the strikes. Any public protests have been for consumption only within Pakistan. One official, however, says that not all elements of the Pakistani government are aware of this cooperation or support it - suggesting other civilian leaders may not be onboard. Revelations that the Pakistani government has been cooperating with the US to attack Pakistani villages and citizens are sure to incite anger against the weak central government there.

The most recent missile strikes aimed at wiping out Taliban and Al Qaeda "safe havens" in regions bordering Afghanistan occurred on Saturday and Monday of last week, Reuters reported (http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2009/02/16/us-steps-up-missile-strikes-in-pakistans-northwest/). A missile strike on Saturday in the South Waziristan tribal district killed at least 25 people, and another in the Kurram tribal district killed at least 26. Both of the Hellfire missiles responsible for the damage came from Predator UAVs. This doubles the number of attacks in Pakistan since the inauguration.

Experts don't agree on the US attacks of targets within Pakistan, and some don't believe the Pakistani government should be cooperating with the US, highly unpopular in that region. Dave Kilcullen, a leader in counterinsurgency tactics, told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month that “the current approach is having a severely destabilizing effect on Pakistan and risks spreading the conflict further, or even prompting the collapse of the Pakistani state, a scenario that would dwarf any of the problems we have yet faced in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

Kevin Fenton
02-23-2009, 03:12 AM
The whole thing came out after Feinstein's comment. If she had kept her mouth shut, nobody would have gone looking for records of fuel shipments to remote airbases in Pakistan. Assuming it was a slip, it was a bummer for people who think it's right to carry out targeted killings in Pakistan.