Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
February 12, 2009
Pg. 16
By Jane Perlez
LAHORE, Pakistan — The American special envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, wound down his whistle-stop tour of Pakistan on Wednesday with a brief visit to the lawless tribal areas, and then dinner with liberal intellectuals at a rooftop restaurant here in Lahore.
He had come to listen, not to lecture, Mr. Holbrooke said. What he heard was a familiar list of requests for more money and arms from Pakistan’s top leadership, as well as a litany of complaints about American airstrikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas using Predator drones.
Mr. Holbrooke’s trip to Pakistan, and his four-day tour of Afghanistan, which is scheduled to begin Thursday, was part of a top-to-bottom review of American policy in the region ordered by President Obama.
The challenge for the new administration is how to persuade a Pakistani military fixated on its archenemy India to reorient its troops to fight the Qaeda and Taliban insurgency that is engulfing the country.
Washington also wants to convince the poorly organized and almost bankrupt civilian government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, that it must support the military in its counterinsurgency efforts by providing proper governance and development.
As part of his tour in the capital, Islamabad, Mr. Holbrooke met with Mr. Zardari; the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani; and the head of Inter-Services Intelligence, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha.
Officials familiar with the conversations say Mr. Holbrooke was faced with universal opposition to the Predator strikes, which American officials say have helped disrupt the Qaeda network.
The Pakistanis insist that the drone strikes have killed civilians, further turned public feeling against the United States, and represent an infringement of their sovereignty.
What, if anything, the Obama administration plans to do about the protests over the missile attacks was not clear, officials said.
A retired Pakistani general, Talat Masood, who attended a dinner in honor of Mr. Holbrooke at the American Embassy on Tuesday night, said he got the impression that there may be some effort by the Americans to make the drone strikes more palatable by conducting them as a joint operation.
The foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, called the attacks “counterproductive” and said that Pakistan and the United States would form a joint team of officials to review policy differences, including the missile attacks.
As well as voice opposition to the missile strikes, General Kayani asked for more equipment for the army’s counterinsurgency efforts, which the Pakistanis have long asserted they have been denied by Washington. “We are crying hoarsely,” General Kayani’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said of the request that was made to Mr. Holbrooke.
Mr. Zardari, who is presiding over a crumbling economy on life support from the International Monetary Fund, made a major pitch for immediate American economic assistance, officials said.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Holbrooke flew in a helicopter over the mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where supplies for American and NATO troops in Afghanistan have come under attack from militants in recent months.
He was then flown over the Bajaur and Mohmand areas of the tribal belt, where the Pakistani Army is fighting the Taliban.
He landed at Ghalanai, the small town that serves as the capital of Mohmand, and heard from the government’s chief representative, Amjad Ali Khan, how the civilian authorities were using the persuasion of local tribes to bring young men who had joined the Taliban back into the fold.
But as the government was showing Mr. Holbrooke its best efforts against the insurgents, a car bomb killed a popular provincial legislator in Peshawar, the chaotic capital of the North-West Frontier Province. The politician, Alam Zeb Khan, was driving to inspect a development project in the city, his supporters said, when a remote-controlled bomb blew up his car.
For a sense of how the insurgency is affecting people, Mr. Holbrooke met in Peshawar with a group of women from nongovernment organizations.
A young woman who lived in Swat, an area where the army has virtually lost control to the Taliban, told Mr. Holbrooke how the Taliban had killed her husband. The women of Swat, she told him, were confined to their houses, were not allowed to go shopping, and lived in fear of the Taliban, who spread their message through FM radio.
Though Mr. Holbrooke was accompanied by the deputy commander of the United States Central Command, Maj. General John R. Allen, the high-profile visit by a civilian envoy could change the tone of the conversation with Pakistan, said Ahmed Rashid, the author of a recent book on Pakistan and Afghanistan, called “Descent into Chaos,” who attended the dinner with Mr. Holbrooke in the old town in Lahore.
“This is a complete sea change in what Pakistan is used to,” said Mr. Rashid, who was invited to Washington just before the inauguration to attend a small foreign policy dinner with Mr. Obama.
“There is a suspicion in the American establishment that the Pakistani Army has found it easier to pull the wool over the eyes of the American military. It will be harder to do that with the civilians.”
On Thursday, before leaving for Afghanistan, Mr. Holbrooke is scheduled to meet Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N who served as prime minister twice in the 1990s.
Mr. Sharif holds some sympathies with the Islamic parties, and, as a rival of Mr. Zardari’s, he is considered an important figure for the Americans because he would like to maneuver his way to power in the coming year.
February 12, 2009
Pg. 16
By Jane Perlez
LAHORE, Pakistan — The American special envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, wound down his whistle-stop tour of Pakistan on Wednesday with a brief visit to the lawless tribal areas, and then dinner with liberal intellectuals at a rooftop restaurant here in Lahore.
He had come to listen, not to lecture, Mr. Holbrooke said. What he heard was a familiar list of requests for more money and arms from Pakistan’s top leadership, as well as a litany of complaints about American airstrikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas using Predator drones.
Mr. Holbrooke’s trip to Pakistan, and his four-day tour of Afghanistan, which is scheduled to begin Thursday, was part of a top-to-bottom review of American policy in the region ordered by President Obama.
The challenge for the new administration is how to persuade a Pakistani military fixated on its archenemy India to reorient its troops to fight the Qaeda and Taliban insurgency that is engulfing the country.
Washington also wants to convince the poorly organized and almost bankrupt civilian government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, that it must support the military in its counterinsurgency efforts by providing proper governance and development.
As part of his tour in the capital, Islamabad, Mr. Holbrooke met with Mr. Zardari; the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani; and the head of Inter-Services Intelligence, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha.
Officials familiar with the conversations say Mr. Holbrooke was faced with universal opposition to the Predator strikes, which American officials say have helped disrupt the Qaeda network.
The Pakistanis insist that the drone strikes have killed civilians, further turned public feeling against the United States, and represent an infringement of their sovereignty.
What, if anything, the Obama administration plans to do about the protests over the missile attacks was not clear, officials said.
A retired Pakistani general, Talat Masood, who attended a dinner in honor of Mr. Holbrooke at the American Embassy on Tuesday night, said he got the impression that there may be some effort by the Americans to make the drone strikes more palatable by conducting them as a joint operation.
The foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, called the attacks “counterproductive” and said that Pakistan and the United States would form a joint team of officials to review policy differences, including the missile attacks.
As well as voice opposition to the missile strikes, General Kayani asked for more equipment for the army’s counterinsurgency efforts, which the Pakistanis have long asserted they have been denied by Washington. “We are crying hoarsely,” General Kayani’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said of the request that was made to Mr. Holbrooke.
Mr. Zardari, who is presiding over a crumbling economy on life support from the International Monetary Fund, made a major pitch for immediate American economic assistance, officials said.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Holbrooke flew in a helicopter over the mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where supplies for American and NATO troops in Afghanistan have come under attack from militants in recent months.
He was then flown over the Bajaur and Mohmand areas of the tribal belt, where the Pakistani Army is fighting the Taliban.
He landed at Ghalanai, the small town that serves as the capital of Mohmand, and heard from the government’s chief representative, Amjad Ali Khan, how the civilian authorities were using the persuasion of local tribes to bring young men who had joined the Taliban back into the fold.
But as the government was showing Mr. Holbrooke its best efforts against the insurgents, a car bomb killed a popular provincial legislator in Peshawar, the chaotic capital of the North-West Frontier Province. The politician, Alam Zeb Khan, was driving to inspect a development project in the city, his supporters said, when a remote-controlled bomb blew up his car.
For a sense of how the insurgency is affecting people, Mr. Holbrooke met in Peshawar with a group of women from nongovernment organizations.
A young woman who lived in Swat, an area where the army has virtually lost control to the Taliban, told Mr. Holbrooke how the Taliban had killed her husband. The women of Swat, she told him, were confined to their houses, were not allowed to go shopping, and lived in fear of the Taliban, who spread their message through FM radio.
Though Mr. Holbrooke was accompanied by the deputy commander of the United States Central Command, Maj. General John R. Allen, the high-profile visit by a civilian envoy could change the tone of the conversation with Pakistan, said Ahmed Rashid, the author of a recent book on Pakistan and Afghanistan, called “Descent into Chaos,” who attended the dinner with Mr. Holbrooke in the old town in Lahore.
“This is a complete sea change in what Pakistan is used to,” said Mr. Rashid, who was invited to Washington just before the inauguration to attend a small foreign policy dinner with Mr. Obama.
“There is a suspicion in the American establishment that the Pakistani Army has found it easier to pull the wool over the eyes of the American military. It will be harder to do that with the civilians.”
On Thursday, before leaving for Afghanistan, Mr. Holbrooke is scheduled to meet Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N who served as prime minister twice in the 1990s.
Mr. Sharif holds some sympathies with the Islamic parties, and, as a rival of Mr. Zardari’s, he is considered an important figure for the Americans because he would like to maneuver his way to power in the coming year.