New CIA Chief Hints That Predator Strikes in Pakistan Will Continue
New CIA director Leon Panetta says the U.S. strategy for targeting al Qaeda remains unchanged
The Obama administration appears to be continuing many of its predecessor's tactics in the fight against suspected al Qaeda forces in the tribal regions of Pakistan, including a controversial program using unmanned airplanes to strike at key targets. U.S. intelligence officials credit the highly classified program with the killing of key terrorist leaders, but it has also sparked a strong backlash in Pakistan for causing numerous civilian casualties.
The CIA's new director, Leon Panetta, refused to address specifics yesterday about the airstrikes and U.S.-Pakistan relations, nor would he comment on reports that the drones were launched from air bases inside Pakistan. But when asked about the Predator drone strikes inside Pakistan and the U.S. strategy in the tribal areas, he made it clear that the nation's counterterrorism efforts remained on a steady course.
"Nothing has changed our efforts to go after terrorists, and nothing will change those efforts," he told a small group of reporters. "We are continuing at a level of action that is on a par with the challenges we are confronting. None of that has diminished, and none of it will."
The program isn't officially acknowledged by the U.S. government, but the CIA plays a central role in coordinating the program with the quiet assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service. The strikes are aimed not only at killing al Qaeda senior leaders but also at turning their Pashtun hosts against them, senior U.S. officials say.
By some accounts, the strikes have killed some 80 members of the terrorist organization and perhaps as many as 140 civilians. Last year, the Bush administration launched up to 37 strikes in the region, killing more than 200 people.
Meanwhile, outrage in Afghanistan and particularly Pakistan has grown. For months, government officials in Islamabad have been openly critical about the U.S. strikes, and the streets have sometimes filled with demonstrators. Pakistani officials complain that the strikes may be reducing al Qaeda's global reach, but they are also putting Pakistan's fragile government in peril.
Imagine Pakistani and U.S. chagrin then, a few weeks ago, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a public hearing she understood that the drone missions "are flown out of a Pakistani base." A search of Google Earth by journalists soon revealed what appeared to be drones sitting on a runway at an air base inside Pakistan.
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Reader Comments
Good Morning America
What a same it really is that we as the American people must beg our leaders to do right by this Great Nation! Where are my fellow Americans? I surely hope you will join the rest that are trying to keep us FREE. Please come to Washington DC Nov %th 2009 I will see you there!!!!and tell these folks that we will be putting them in the bread lines with us, if they continue to not listen to our people. United we still have great things to do and it will take us all. Lend a hand to clean up this administration,get a mop and wet the floors so we can slide these folk off the floor of the Senate and the House, OH one other office also CHANGE is coming SOON, I don't like to tranform anythging this great!!! we are already living in the greatest nation in the Earth. (Clean Sweep) for those who want to destroy this nation.
My TRUST is in God that is how we were founded.
Hello to all
I consider myself to be a true American just like many others and I do believe that all the monies I have placed in our government has in the past worked for the betterment of all the American people. I do so much trust in these agency that we have built over the years and have had the opportunity to meet and talked with some of the people that have worked in our government for all these agency. I also do believe that these men and women that have sworn allegiance to America will never allow any one to sell us out.
Please never allow us to forget the we were at work trying to continue to build a free system that treat all men and women equal the day these terrorists hit the twin towers and we not happy and our president told us all it would take time and we would fight back To WIN. When they were cutting head off we were asking questions,and those folks are still on the planet The people they chose to question or NOT they had they heads removed. My trust is in our GOD and My fellow Americans.
New CIA Chief Leon Panetta will continue Predator Strikes in Pakistan
There is more to this story. The current turmoil in Pakistan over the disqualification by the Pakistani Supreme Court of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to hold office is tied to the U.S. Predator strikes. After the February 18, 2008 Pakistani elections, John Negreponte and Richard Boucher went to Pakistan to make sure that the assassinated Benazir Bhutto party retained control, and honored it pledge to support unconditionally the U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S., then, pressed Switzerland to drop criminal charges against her husband Asif Zardari [his conviction in Pakistan was nullified at the request of the U.S. by Pervez Musharraf before his ouster], and Zardari with U.S. blessing became president. And Zardari -known as Mr. 10% for the bribes he got to arrange government contracts when Benazir Bhutto was prime minister, just like the $ 25.000 by Illinois governor Blagojevich- is now to the U.S. what Musharraf was before the Pakistani elections. And the CIA Predator strikes will continue in Pakistan because the U.S. has made sure that nothing changed with the elections and the ouster of Musharraf.
Nawaz Sharif wanted a reconciliation with the Taliban, and he told John Negreponte and Richard Boucher: "We want you to stop bombing our villages." Negreponte responded: "You cannot talk to those people [the Taliban]." Sharif's attitude against the U.S. Predator bombing of Pakistan casted him as an enemy of the U.S., and there is no doubt in Pakistan that his disqualification to hold office was formulated with U.S. complicity. A poll by the Pakistan News.com readers on February 25, 2009, showed a 94% support for Sharif, and 5% against him. And that percentage reflects the typical anti-American sentiment in Pakistan shown in other polls.
Surely, Sharif was offered a deal to accept the legitimacy of Musharraf's appointed Supreme Court Judge Abdul Hameed Dogar -also Zardari's preference over the legitimate SC Judge Iftikhat Chaudhry- and be deemed eligible for office by Dogar, but he refused on ethical and nationalistic grounds.
Now, with Nawaz Sharif out, Asif Zardari in full control, and with the Pakistani military getting between $ 20 to 80 millions monthly for anti-Taliban operating expenses, Leon Panetta is sure that the U.S. has tied all the control knots on the Pakistani government and can publicly brag that the CIA Predator strikes will continue without a hitch.
Is that a good long term policy for the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Well, George Bush did it for 6 years, and he left a mess behind. Obama's vision of "applying soft power"
to win Afghans and Pakistanis sound like an oxymoron because U.S. killing of civilians with airstrikes has diminished U.S support in both countries, according to a February 18, 2009 Chicago Tribune report. And more killing by CIA Predators will raise the hatred against the U.S. - not win public support for the war. Nikos Retsos, retired professor
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