U.S. Drones Hit Taliban Commander's Pakistan Base - The War Begins Again

U.S. Drones Hit Taliban Commander's Pakistan Base

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By REUTERS

Published: September 8, 2008

Filed at 2:27 a.m. ET

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MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Missiles fired by U.S. drone aircraft killed at least three people on Monday in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border where a religious school founded by an old friend of Osama bin Laden is located, witnesses said.

"There were two drones and they fired three missiles," said a resident of Dandi Darpakheil, a village near Miranshah, main town of the North Waziristan tribal region.

A military official said a house and madrasa founded by Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani was the target of the attack.

The resident said three people had been killed in the attack while doctors said 15 to 20 wounded people, most of them women and children, had been brought to Miranshah's main hospital.

Haqqani's younger son said his father and son Sirajuddin had been away from the house at the time.

"Haqqani and Sirajuddin were in Afghanistan at the time of the attack. They are alive," Badruddin, the commander's third son, told Reuters by telephone.

Badruddin said one of his aunts had been killed in the attack, and women and children were among the wounded.

Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas confirmed an "incident" had taken place in North Waziristan and its cause was being ascertained.

Haqqani is a veteran commander of the U.S.-backed Afghan war against Soviet invasion in the 1970s and 1908s.

CLOSE LINKS WITH ISI

He also has had close links with Pakistani intelligence agencies, notably the military Inter-Services Intelligence

(ISI).

The New York Times reported in July that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had given Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani evidence of the ISI's involvement with Haqqani along with evidence of ISI connections to a suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed nearly 60 people on July 7.

While the senior Haqqani is believed to be in poor health and less active, Sirajuddin has been leading the Taliban faction.

Coalition forces in Afghanistan have stepped up cross-border attacks in recent weeks against al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistani tribal areas.

U.S. commandos carried out a helicopter-borne ground assault in the neighboring South Waziristan region on Wednesday in what was the first known incursion into Pakistan by U.S. troops since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Pakistani officials said 20 people, including women and children, had been killed in the attack which drew a furious response from the government.

A day later, four Islamist militants were killed and five wounded in a missile attack in North Waziristan, believed to have been launched by a U.S. drone aircraft.

Intelligence officials and witnesses said five people had been killed in another suspected drone attack on Friday but the Pakistan military denied it.

(Writing by Zeeshan Haider; editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Roger Crabb)

Jane Mayer: 'The Dark Side'

Jane Mayer: 'The Dark Side'
Reviewed by Jennifer Schuessler

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Dark Side The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals By Jane Mayer 392 pages. $27.50. Doubleday.

'The Dark Side," Jane Mayer's gripping new account of the war on terror, is really the story of two wars: the far-flung battle against Islamic radicalism, and the bitter, closed-doors domestic struggle over whether the president should have limitless power to wage it.

The euphemistically named but often grisly particulars of the fight against al-Qaida - the "extraordinary renditions" by hooded agents in unmarked planes, the secret "black site" prisons across the globe, the "enhanced" interrogation techniques, the "reverse rendition" of detainees lucky enough to be found innocent and dumped blindfolded at remote borders - are harrowingly recounted here, complete with fresh revelations. But in Mayer's hands the story of bureaucratic jockeying in well-upholstered offices and in the fine print of legal documents makes for an equally absorbing and disturbing story. It's a cage match between the U.S. Constitution and a cabal of ideological extremists, and the Constitution goes down.

The war on terror, according to Mayer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, was a "political battle cloaked in legal strategy, an ideological trench war" waged by a small group of true believers whose expansive views of executive power she traces from the Nixon administration through the Iran-contra scandal to the panicked days after 9/11. Mayer's prime movers and main villains are Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal counsel (now chief of staff) David Addington, who after the terrorist attacks moved to establish "a policy of deliberate cruelty that would've been unthinkable on Sept. 10."

As the leader of the self-styled "war council," a group of lawyers who took the lead in making the rules for the war on terror, Addington startled many colleagues with the depth of his fervor and the reach of his power.

"How did this lunatic end up running the country?" an unnamed "high ranking and very conservative" administration lawyer quoted by Mayer recalls asking himself in meetings. "Even his admirers," Mayer writes, "tended to invoke metaphors involving knives." "Cheney's Cheney" was known to carry a dog-eared copy of the Constitution in his pocket - a detail that in another story might suggest a steadfast devotion but in Mayer's comes off as just a way of breaking it down before swallowing it whole.

The original copy of the Geneva Conventions rests in the vaults of the State Department, but Mayer describes how Cheney, Addington and their allies made sure this was less a place of honor than an oubliette. The war council settled on a "pre-emptive criminal model," in which suspects would be used - more or less indefinitely - to gather evidence of future crimes rather than held accountable for previous ones. There would be minimal oversight from Congress. The CIA would take the lead, developing aggressive new interrogation methods that would be described as "enhanced," "robust," "special." What they were not, a series of secret memos issued by John Yoo and others at the Office of Legal Council would attempt to certify, was "torture."

Mayer pieces together detailed case histories for several prisoners, beginning with "detainee 001," the so-called American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, whose botched prosecution led the administration to decide, in Mayer's words, that "open criminal trials under the strict rules of the American legal system were not worth the risk." But even as such trials were largely abandoned, evidence gathering was stepped up, using increasingly exotic means.

SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) was a program developed by the military to train soldiers to resist torture or other rough treatment if captured. After 9/11, as Mayer first reported in The New Yorker, it was "reverse-engineered" into an offensive weapon. Under the influence of James Mitchell, a former military psychologist hired to supervise the project despite his lack of experience with either interrogations or Islamic extremism, the black sites, Guantánamo and eventually Abu Ghraib became a bizarre world where detainees were kept on dog leashes and bombarded with intolerable sounds, including "meows from cat food commercials, Yoko Ono singing and Eminem rapping about America."

The elaborately plotted interrogations - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, accused of being the mastermind of the 9/11 plot, was subjected to "hundreds of different techniques in just a two-week period soon after his capture" in 2003 - were authorized and tracked at the highest levels, with officials in Washington, including George Tenet, at the time the director of central intelligence, approving any deviations from the "treatment" plans in what one source calls "top-down quality control" and Mayer calls a twisted version of Mother, May I? A secret Red Cross report given to the CIA last year and described to Mayer said some of these techniques were categorically torture. (An internal CIA review, she writes, was on its way to reaching the same conclusion in 2004 before Cheney derailed it.)

While waterboarding has drawn the most public criticism, a former government official familiar with the program told Mayer, the real brutality lay in the sheer number and duration of the different "procedures." "The totality is just staggering," this official said.

The early months of the rendition program, a CIA officer told Mayer, was the "Camelot of counterterrorism," with volunteers turned away. But as the harsh interrogations became "routinized," second thoughts - and fear of legal exposure - began to mount. As the CIA officer put it, "Do you really want to be building these skill sets?"

Meanwhile some in Washington were having doubts as well. In the last third of the book, Mayer shifts focus to the heroes of her story, the government lawyers - often hard-line conservatives - who tried to fight back against a program whose existence and scope they only belatedly grasped. There is a particularly fine chapter on Alberto Mora, then the general counsel of the Navy, who in early 2003 mounted a futile challenge to the interrogation policy, which he feared might result in war crimes charges. Mora reportedly warned Donald Rumsfeld's chief counsel, William Haynes, to "protect your client!" Haynes did - by getting another secret opinion from Yoo, superseding Mora's.

Mayer also gives a gripping account of the standoff between Addington and Jack Goldsmith, who after being named head of the Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 moved to revoke Yoo's memos. And she recounts how another group of administration lawyers met in secret in June 2005 to formulate "the Big Bang," a plan to shut down the black sites and bring the interrogations in line with international law by doing an end run around Cheney and going straight to President Bush, whom they believed to be sympathetic.

In reality, Mayer writes, "there is no record that Bush ever objected to the methods employed by the CIA in its black sites or insisted on any outside review of the CIA's claims that their approach was working." She vigorously argues that the approach did not work, and in fact did tremendous damage to national security by unleashing a flood of false and even dangerously misleading intelligence, including some used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

"What does that mean? 'Outrages upon human dignity'?" President Bush said at a news conference in 2006, after the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions applied even to "enemy combatants." In "The Dark Side" Mayer provides a chilling answer, along with the most vivid and comprehensive account we have had so far of how a government founded on checks and balances and respect for individual rights could have been turned against those ideals.

"The Right Place to Fight Terrorism... Is the [Terrorists'] Sanctuaries... in Pakistan"

"The Right Place to Fight Terrorism... Is the [Terrorists'] Sanctuaries... in Pakistan"


To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1813.htm.

Hamid Karzai: "The problem of terrorism, as it is affecting Afghanistan, is not entirely an Afghan problem. As a matter of fact, a greater part of this problem is a regional problem, and a greater part of this problem is unfortunately coming to us from Pakistan. So the Americans, the international coalition - when they say they are continuing to work in Afghanistan, and yet the security is not there, they are right, because they have not gone to the right place to fight terrorism."

Interviewer: "Which is?"

Hamid Karzai: "Which is the sanctuaries that the terrorists have in Pakistan."

Interviewer: "But Pakistan, actually, recently... I have noticed that there is a very strong declaration from the Afghan government against Pakistan. You have accused the Pakistani government of being behind your attempted assassination, the last one, and the most dangerous thing is that you have threatened that you would go behind the borders just to find Al-Qaeda, and Taliban as well, which means you will go to Pakistan. Right now, Mr. President, if you don't have the power to secure the situation in Afghanistan, do you think you have the power to go behind the border?"

Hamid Karzai: "When I said that Afghanistan would go in self defense beyond the Durand Line, [it] was in response to a statement that came from terrorist networks from Pakistan, from someone called Baitullah Mahsoud - you must have heard of him, and from someone called [Maulana] Fazlullah. They declared that they would cross the border and come into Afghanistan, to kill Afghans and the international troops. Now, for me, the president of a sovereign country - when there is a threat issued to me beyond my borders by someone, what is my responsibility?"

"When the Afghan People Decide to Defend Themselves, They Always Win"

Interviewer: "That's right, but the question is: Do you have the power? Can you do it?"

Hamid Karzai: "The power is the power of the government, of the institutions of the government, and of the people. Afghanistan is known in history - and Afghanistan has proven that in history - that when the Afghan people decide to defend themselves, they always win - as we have always won.
[...]
"Why did the international community come to Afghanistan after 9/11?"

Interviewer: "Why?"

Hamid Karzai: "Because they were threatened. The Twin Towers were blown up. A lot of innocent lives were lost. It was a great tragedy for all of us, not only for Americans, but for the whole world. Muslims died, Christians died. Every other nationality died. They felt that the source of that problem was in Afghanistan, so they all came here, first of all, to free themselves of the threats of terrorism, and in the process, to help Afghanistan to regain its independence and to rebuild. And the Afghan people joined hands with them in order to get liberated from the oppression of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Because of that, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were driven out of Afghanistan in less than a month and a half.

"But then, why are we still fighting terrorists? If the Afghan people are friendly and want the rest of the world to help them, then what is the problem in Afghanistan? Who is fighting the Afghan government and the international community? If the war is in Afghanistan, and if we are not winning this war, that means there is something wrong in Afghanistan, and then, in that case, it becomes an internal matter for the Afghan people.

"Therefore, we would not need the pressure of the international community in Afghanistan for our internal problems. Then, the Taliban is an internal problem of Afghanistan, and I should sit down with Mullah Omar, find him somewhere, talk to him, and resolve it.

"But if the problem has tentacles, roots, beyond the borders of Afghanistan, if the international community, the international press, and the governments say that there are sanctuaries beyond our borders, in another country, namely, in Pakistan, if the tribal territories of Pakistan are sanctuaries to terrorists, to training grounds, to suicide bombers and their training, which some officials of the government of Pakistan admit and talk about...

"In that case, it is needed, for the security of Afghanistan, for the security of Pakistan, and for the success of the international community, to wage the struggle against terrorism in the right place - that is, the sanctuaries of terrorists beyond the Afghan borders, in Pakistan.
[...]

"This war against terrorism will never be won by bombing Afghan villages. The war of terrorism is not in the Afghan villages."

Interviewer: "Is it in Pakistan?"

Hamid Karzai: "It is in the sanctuaries of terrorists."

Interviewer: "Right now, Mr. President, you are saying that the coalition forces did not do what they should do in Pakistan, while the Western media in general are actually saying: 'No, Mr. Karzai does not do the job well in Afghanistan.' So who do you think we actually should..."

"If [The International Community Says That] Karzai is Not Doing the Job Well In Afghanistan, Then [It] Is Saying That It is an Afghan Problem - [And] In That Case, [It] Has No Business in Afghanistan"

Hamid Karzai: "If Karzai is not doing the job well in Afghanistan, then the international community is saying that it is an Afghan problem. In that case, the international community has no business in Afghanistan, and they'd better leave - if it is an internal Afghan problem."

Interviewer: "But you think it is not an internal, but an international problem..."

Hamid Karzai: "It is an international problem, in which Afghanistan has been suffering the most, and unless the international community focuses in the right place... Afghanistan too is a sovereign country. If they can go with their planes and bomb Afghan villages in pursuit of terrorism, they should do the same in any other sovereign country.
[...]

"I've been trying to find the Taliban and talk to them for the past six years. This is an extremely important question. In Pakistan, the government of Pakistan can find Baitullah Mahsoud and talk to him. They can find Mullah Fazlullah and talk to him. They can find Mangal Bagh and talk to him. They can find Mullah Fazlullah and talk to him, and Mullah Omar of Pakistan, and talk to him. But where do I find the Taliban leaders to talk to them? How can I find Mullah Omar? Where is he?"

Interviewer: "Where is he, do you think?"

Hamid Karzai: "That is the question."

Interviewer: "I am asking you as the President of Afghanistan."

Hamid Karzai: "That is the question. If I know where he is, I will go and talk to him."

Interviewer: "Where do you expect him to be right now?"

Hamid Karzai: "He is not in Afghanistan."

Interviewer: "How are you so sure... You have mentioned before, Mr. President, that even Bin Laden is not in Afghanistan."

Hamid Karzai: "He is not. Surely."

Interviewer: "What is your proof?"

Hamid Karzai: "I am sure if he were here, I would have found him."