Pakistan: Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) - a collection
Moderator's Note
This thread has been re-named to reflect the merging of three threads and that it is a collection on ISI (ends).
The Role of the ISI in Counterterrorism and Pakistan’s Political Landscape
A Teleconference featuring Pakistani Voices
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
9:00-10:00am
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Brigadier Shaukat Qadir, retired Army brigadier, former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), and weekly columnist for the Daily Times—where he is authoring a two part series on restructuring the ISI.
Shaheen Sehbai, Group Editor of The News International and former foreign correspondent for The Dawn in Washington D.C.
Dr. Hassan Abbas, Research Fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom and International Security Program, former government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995–1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999–2000), and author of the blog Watandost (
http://watandost.blogspot.com/) on Pakistan-related affairs.
Moderated by Karin von Hippel, Co-Director, PCR Project, CSIS
RSVP to
pcrproject@csis.org
Center for Strategic and International Studies
4th floor Conference room
1800 K Street NW
Washington, DC
Visit
http://www.pcrproject.com for publications, commentary, and more information about our work.
1 Attachment(s)
Pakistan: Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) - a collection
An Indian article from the Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses (October 2011), by Rana Banerji, a former senior intelligence officer with RAW; following a hat tip from Hamid Hussain, our occasional contributor and for the moment this deserves its own thread.
Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) feature regularly in posts, either in the South Asia arena or in OEF, but IMO rarely in such detail.
Hamid has added his commentary, with his text in red and is on the attachment - alas minus the charts, diagrams etc.
He starts with:
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This is one of the most comprehensive articles written about ISI. It is an Indian perspective but not an amateur one. Respected author probably has access to database kept by Indian intelligence agencies about their rival intelligence agency of Pakistan. Author has used Mr. Shuja Nawaz’s encyclopedic work on Pakistan army and also used some of my own very limited work on Pakistan army.
Link to article:http://idsa.in/system/files/jds_5_4_rbanerji.pdf
The article is very comprehensive, the charts are a bonus.
"Leaked" ISAF report on Taliban & ISI
From the BBC...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16821218
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Pakistan helping Afghan Taliban - Nato
The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.
The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people....
...The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report - on the state of the Taliban - fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the ISI and the Taliban.
The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.
It notes: "Pakistan's manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly"....
...It quotes a senior al-Qaeda detainee as saying: "Pakistan knows everything. They control everything. I can't [expletive] on a tree in Kunar without them watching."
"The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad."...
...Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military...
It goes on a bit. The report is of course open to all manner of interpretation and challenge. Doesn't sound a terribly optimistic read by any account.
A pretty massive indictment
This report was discussed today on BBC Radio Four's PM programme, with Bruce Reidel and he stated:
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It is an extraordinary document..with quite good vintage wine...we've known for a long time that Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban...it is a pretty massive indictment of Pakistan support for the Afghan Taliban...
Link to podcast, his remarks are 40:40 to 43:30:http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01bb7jy
Even the Daily Telegraph comment is pithy:
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..There is little in the report which marries with Nato claims the insurgency's momentum has been broken.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ommanders.html
leak highlights the need for more realism over Afghanistan
For once a measured, careful commentary on this "leak" and the fuss afterwards by a British think tank author, who was a special adviser to the former Labour government:http://www.ippr.org/articles/56/8609...er-afghanistan
A "taster" from his last two paragraphs:
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This suggests a total inability to see the conflict from the insurgency’s point of view. At the same time as Western leaders, looking to their domestic constituencies, are talking about accelerating the process of ‘transition’ to Afghan control, today’s report tells us that ‘the Taliban are deliberately hastening NATO’s withdrawal by reducing their attacks in some areas and then initiating a comprehensive hearts-and-minds campaign’. We shouldn’t ascribe too much strategic sophistication, and in particular too much strategic co-ordination, to what is undeniably a fragmented insurgency under a degree of pressure; but the trends identified in the report are plausible components of a deliberate strategic shift by the insurgency, in response to NATO’s own strategic shift towards ‘transition’. Dismissing them as ‘desperation’ is itself rather desperate.
Leaks are always damaging, but however difficult this is to handle in the short term, we must hope that UK officials and others use it as an opportunity to move towards a more honest and realistic debate about the Afghan campaign and its prospects of success, in public as well as private. Clearly, they are under no obligation to talk up our enemies, but complacency can be just as damaging as defeatism.
Never fear, Petreaus is here!
I only last week got around to reading in the December Atlantic Magazine an article about our friends in Pakistan:http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...rom-hell/8730/
I am now very optimistic after reading the article. This is the last sentence.
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A senior US intelligence official told us that General David Petraeus, the new director of the CIA, says he believes he can rebuild relations with the ISI, because he has "a good personal relationship with these guys.
See. A new day has dawned.
Not one of the general's better logical conclusions ...
though personal assessments are always controversial. One will say "I look into his eyes and see his soul”; another, "I look into his eyes and see KGB”.
I confess to liking David Petraeus' research. That comes down, without a doubt, to his dissertation, The American Military and the lessons of Vietnam (Princeton, 1987) (used to be online; perhaps here).
In those 300+ pages, he provides great sourcing into those of the "Never Again, but" school of thought. That "school" lies at the heart of my Worldview. Note that these folks were not pacifists.
"Never Again" grew out of the Korean War - whoops, "peace enforcement action". Its first articulation re: Vietnam, that I've found, was by a section of the War College Class of 1951-1952. U.S. Policy in Southeast Asia, Reports of Student Committees # 13-17 (Carlisle Barracks, Pa: U.S. Army War College, 1951), presented in October 1951. From Bruce Palmer, Jr., The 25 Year War (University Press of Kentucky, 1984), pp.2-3:
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.... Although opinions were somewhat divided, a large majority opposed any major U.S. involvement. The conclusions of the majority could be summarized as follows:
(1) The United States had probably made a serious mistake in agreeing with its allies to allow French power to be restored in Indochina. As a colonial power, France had done little to develop indigenous civilian and military leaders and civil servants in preparation for the countries' eventual independence.
(2) Indochina was of only secondary strategic importance to the United States. The economic and military value of Vietnam, the most important state in the region, was not impressive. Politically and socially Vietnam was obviously entering an unstable period with uncertain consequences. In any event, it did not warrant the commitment of US forces to its defense.
(3) General war planning by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) envisioned a strategic defense in the Pacific, drawing the U.S. forward defense line to include Japan, South Korea, and the offshore island chain (Okinawa-Taiwan-the Philippines). But in Southeast Asia the line was drawn through the Isthmus of Kra on the mainland, excluding all of Indochina and most of Thailand. Thus the Straits of Malacca and populous, endowed Indonesia were considered to be the prime strategic targets of the region.
(4) Militarily the region in general and Vietnam in particular would be an extremely difficult operational area, especially for U.S. forces. Unlike the relatively narrow Korean peninsula, Vietnam presented very long land and coastal borders that would be almost impossible to seal against infiltration and difficult to defend against overt military aggression. Much of the region was covered with dense jungle and much was mountainous. Weather, terrain and geographical factors combined to present formidable obstacles for military operations and logistic support.
(5) Politically and psychologically the United States, if it were to become involved, would have to operate under severe disadvantages, for it would inherit the taint of European colonialism. The United States should not become involved in the area beyond providing materiel military aid.
I was steered to GEN Palmer's book by a pink paratrooper - a good steer, indeed.
Someone else can rewrite the five conclusions in terms of Afghanistan, etc.
Regards
Mike