US wants lists of all passengers using Pakistan airports

[sonicboom]

US wants lists of all passengers using Pakistan airports



WASHINGTON, Oct 13: The United States wants Pakistan to provide the names of all the passengers coming in and going out of its airports but Islamabad stubbornly resisted the demand because it would impinge on the country’s sovereignty.

The demand was made after the Faisal Shahzad attempted bombing at the Times Square and also because of an earlier plot to bomb New York by Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in Denver on Sept 19, 2009.

Bob Woodward’s book ‘Obama’s Wars’ reveals that US intelligence showed some 100 westerners, including many with US passports or visas were being trained in Pakistani safe havens and the US intelligence had lost track of too many of those people.
It says the investigations into these two cases had established that both Faisal Shahzad and Zazi went to Pakistan for training but the US government did not have any record of their travels.

Pakistanis, the book says, rejected the US demand of providing lists of all passengers because “they suspected it would give the US insight into where the (Pakistani) intelligence officers were going. Most ISI agents were flying east to India or Bangladesh,” Woodward reported.

“So the US had proposed just getting the data of flights heading over to the Persian Gulf, Europe and US, but the Pakistanis stubbornly resisted,” the book revealed.
In the event of a terrorist attack on US, a senior US official worried, it would be hard for President Obama to defend Pakistan because their leaders had refused to do what had been simple and easy, especially on the visas and passenger lists.
“If two near-misses were the leading edge of a trend, what would it take to wake the Pakistanis up?” the book quoted an official as saying.

Woodward said he raised this question in an interview with President Obama, two months after the failed Times Square bombing by Faisal Shahzad. “He (Obama) played up Pakistan’s counter-terrorism (CT) efforts. They also ramped up their CT cooperation in a way that over the last 18 months has hunkered down al Qaeda in a way that is significant,” Obama told Woodward.

“But still not enough,” I interjected. “Well, exactly,” Obama replied. The book says a report prepared by CIA chief Leon Panetta and National Security Adviser Jim Jones observed that Pakistanis did not have the same sense of urgency as the Americans. “Should there be another terrorist attack in the US, the Pakistanis suggested that something could be worked out after the fact,” the report said.

The Pakistanis, it said, could not understand the traumatic impact of a single, small act on the US homeland when there were regular terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

The two top US security executives in their report observed that Pakistanis were making another mistake by applying that same logic to India. “They did not comprehend that India might not show restraint if Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), the group behind the 2008 Mumbai attack, struck there again, Indian PM Manmohan Singh would have to respond.”
The Jones-Panetta report conceded that the Pakistanis wielded “tremendous leverage on the US because they gave tacit approval for drone strikes.”

“Furthermore, the intelligence indicated that the Pakistanis believed the US would not jeopardize their relationship because some 70-80 per cent of the US and Nato supplies for the Afghan war came through Pakistan and there was no way to supply everything by air.

“The Pakistanis would not even have to close the supply routes, just allow some of the extremists to shut down bridges and overpasses,” the top secret report noted.
This assessment of the US officials was proved correct recently when supplies to Nato were blocked for 11 days after Nato strikes inside Pakistani territory and when scores of Nato tankers were set on fire throughout Pakistan, forcing the US officials and top commanders to officially apologise for the Nato attacks.

The book also reveals what was happening to a CIA secret base in Quetta.

On Page 286 it says: “The CIA had a secret base in Quetta, but the Pakistanis tried to keep the CIA people on the base. They did not allow them much access around the city, arguing that they would be spotted too easily because many had white skin. The CIA people felt almost as if they were under house arrest. The CIA argued it could assert a lot more pressure on the Taliban senior leadership if they could be seen as running agents in Quetta. It would demonstrate that the Taliban had been penetrated, a message the CIA wanted to send.”

“The CIA team did have the kill-capture authority on Mullah Omar. But because of the large population in Quetta, drones would not be very effective. Thus - and this was the bottom line —- there was a need for “joint ISI-CIA operation on the ground,” Panetta said.
The Pakistanis, the book says, balked at the joint operations, but were soon granting visas for more CIA people to enter Pakistan. For example, a January 18, 2010 request for 36 CIA people was soon approved, and CIA deputy director Steve Kappes personally asked for 10 more visas on April 19, 2010.

In another interesting note about the first meeting between Richard Holbrooke and Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani on Page 87, the book describes how they mat and what they talked.

Shortly after being appointed special representatives for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Holbrooke phoned Haqqani and invited him for lunch. “You and I should have lunch, but we should have lunch somewhere public so it gets reported in the newspaper, if you don’t mind,” Holbrooke told Haqqani.

“I don’t mind,” Haqqani said and they met at Hay-Adams Hotel, across the White House on January 30. Haqqani had published a book which had exposed the Pakistan Army and ISI’s entanglement with Islamic extremism.

At the meeting, the book revealed, “Haqqani laughingly referred to himself as “Pakistan’s Mr America.” Rivals and critics back home harboured a creeping paranoia that their ambassador was somehow conspiring with Washington.”

Haqqani asked Holbrooke about his new assignment and he laid out his ambition. When it came to India - a country outside of Holbrooke’s portfolio but central to Pakistan’s concern —- Holbrooke said in his theatric baritone, “I will deal with India by pretending not to deal with India.”

“Was Karzai the best man to lead Afghanistan or were alternatives available,” Holbrooke asked Haqqani provocatively. Haqqani maintained a diplomatic silence. The book noted that Holbrooke had failed in his meeting to achieve one of his first missions - to get his tete-a-tete with Haqqani into the media. No journalists, bloggers or gossips reported on their lunch. Apparently, no one had noticed.

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