Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
November 13, 2008
Pg. 1
By Jane Perlez
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — For the six months he helped execute the “hearts and minds” outreach of the United States on one of the most dangerous front lines of the American battle against militants, Stephen D. Vance had to balance a strategic mission with nearly daily concerns about his personal safety.
On Wednesday, as he was arriving at his office in a residential area of turbulent Peshawar, he was shot and killed by gunmen, becoming the most prominent casualty of an increasingly troubled effort to use economic aid to undercut the hold of Al Qaeda and the Taliban on Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The assassination of Mr. Vance, 52, highlighted the problems inherent in the effort to bring development to one of the most underdeveloped and volatile regions of the world. It also raised new doubts about American efforts to undermine a major adversary in a stronghold that has proved largely impervious to political and military pressure.
The United States Agency for International Development, or Usaid, is spending $750 million to support economic development in the tribal areas of Pakistan. But critics of the program in Congress, which is debating whether to extend more aid to Pakistan, have already questioned how the money could be effective, or even monitored, if Americans could not visit the areas where the projects were under way.
“He was worried about his security, he was always talking security with me,” said Khalid Aziz, a Pakistani development expert who worked with Mr. Vance.
The dangers in Peshawar were reinforced on Thursday morning, when an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped and his guard was shot dead, according to the city’s chief police investigator, Safwat Ghayyur.
The diplomat, Asar Zada, is the commercial counselor at the Iranian Consulate. He was taken about 9 a.m. as he was leaving his house in the Hayatabad section of the city, which is adjacent to the Khyber section of the tribal belt.
No further details about the attack and the abduction were immediately available.
Mr. Vance, a contractor hired by the development agency, was forbidden for safety reasons to travel to the tribal region that was the focus of his efforts, colleagues said. He was confined to Peshawar, where he lived with his wife and five children, ages 1 to 13. But he traveled in a car not protected by armor, unlike diplomats working at the United States Consulate in Peshawar, who are required to be driven in bulletproof vehicles.
Lynne Tracy, the top American diplomat in Peshawar, narrowly escaped a similar attack in August as she was being driven in an armored vehicle in the same neighborhood, University Town.
Though colleagues described Mr. Vance as committed to bringing American aid to trouble spots, they said he felt frustrated that he could not go out and meet people, and instead had to glean his knowledge by inviting people to his office. “He was committed but questioned the wisdom of doing it here,” said a colleague who knew Mr. Vance well but who did not want to be identified for fear of endangering his job. “He was aware of the danger. We talked about it often.”
Mr. Vance’s death comes as a vigorous debate is under way in Washington over whether more American military effort or more American development assistance — or more of both — is necessary to combat the growing power of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal belt. Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the author of legislation that calls for $15 billion in civilian assistance over the next decade for Pakistan, a significant increase over the level of American civilian aid under the Bush administration.
Despite the questions about the effectiveness of the aid to the tribal region, there was a feeling in Washington that such assistance had to be tried, said Craig Cohen, the author of a study on United States and Pakistan relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There is a sentiment that we need to be out there, but we know its danger,” he said. “There’s a belief we want to do something more than military. We need an aid presence.”
In Mr. Vance’s case, that presence was quiet, yet still conspicuous. To blend in, he at times wore a shalwar kameez, the long tunic and baggy pants that Pakistani men commonly wear.
But there was barely rudimentary security at his office, associates said. It appeared his assailants were waiting for him, an American colleague said.
The killing of such an experienced aid worker stunned American and Pakistani officials in Peshawar but did not surprise some of them. Security had collapsed to such an extent in the city, and anti-American sentiment had become so high, American officials and aid workers were often kept in “lockdown” by the American Consulate, meaning they had to work at home or get permission to move from home to office.
“Ever since the Taliban started targeted assassinations against politicians a few months ago, it was almost inevitable that they would target U.S. aid efforts,” said Joshua White, a research fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a specialist in Pakistan.
Among the several dozen Americans who came to Peshawar this year to work on the Usaid projects — some of them relatively young and inexperienced, others warhorses of the Vietnam era — Mr. Vance appears to have been a standout. “He was very pleasant, a good conversationalist with a refined demeanor — he certainly wasn’t an ugly American,” said Robert La Porte, a development expert, who had been hired for a job on the project in Peshawar.
Mr. Vance, who had a degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a degree in Slavic and Eastern European history from the University of Paris, worked in what is known in the international aid trade as some of the toughest hellholes.
He was a project manager for Usaid in Zaire from 1986 to 1991. He went to East Timor after it was ravaged by the Indonesian military in 1999. But he found his métier in Mongolia, where from 1999 to 2002 he established microfinancial services for the rural poor under the auspices of the nongovernmental organization Mercy Corps. As well, he helped herders in the Gobi Desert predict disasters.
“He was a visionary,” said Joy Portella, the communications director of Mercy Corps.
In Mongolia, he met a local woman whom he married. Some of his children were from a previous marriage of Mr. Vance’s, associates said. Perhaps because of his unusual background, his assignment here centered on the most hazardous and remote area of the tribal region: North and South Waziristan, the base of the most hard-core elements of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Given the constraints of not being able to travel much beyond his house and his office, a 15-minute ride away, how much Mr. Vance had managed to accomplish since arriving was not clear.
His immediate employer was Cooperative Housing Foundation in Silver Spring, Md., a firm hired to put in place a $140 million part of the overall $750 million project.
For Mr. Aziz, the extraordinary thing about Mr. Vance was his desire to do things the Pakistani way. So for his job creation projects, Mr. Aziz said, he wanted to use existing Pakistani institutions rather than create a parallel American universe as was often the case with American aid workers. “This shouldn’t have happened, he was a good chap, he was a humanist, he could get on with anyone,” Mr. Aziz said.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
November 13, 2008
Pg. 1
By Jane Perlez
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — For the six months he helped execute the “hearts and minds” outreach of the United States on one of the most dangerous front lines of the American battle against militants, Stephen D. Vance had to balance a strategic mission with nearly daily concerns about his personal safety.
On Wednesday, as he was arriving at his office in a residential area of turbulent Peshawar, he was shot and killed by gunmen, becoming the most prominent casualty of an increasingly troubled effort to use economic aid to undercut the hold of Al Qaeda and the Taliban on Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The assassination of Mr. Vance, 52, highlighted the problems inherent in the effort to bring development to one of the most underdeveloped and volatile regions of the world. It also raised new doubts about American efforts to undermine a major adversary in a stronghold that has proved largely impervious to political and military pressure.
The United States Agency for International Development, or Usaid, is spending $750 million to support economic development in the tribal areas of Pakistan. But critics of the program in Congress, which is debating whether to extend more aid to Pakistan, have already questioned how the money could be effective, or even monitored, if Americans could not visit the areas where the projects were under way.
“He was worried about his security, he was always talking security with me,” said Khalid Aziz, a Pakistani development expert who worked with Mr. Vance.
The dangers in Peshawar were reinforced on Thursday morning, when an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped and his guard was shot dead, according to the city’s chief police investigator, Safwat Ghayyur.
The diplomat, Asar Zada, is the commercial counselor at the Iranian Consulate. He was taken about 9 a.m. as he was leaving his house in the Hayatabad section of the city, which is adjacent to the Khyber section of the tribal belt.
No further details about the attack and the abduction were immediately available.
Mr. Vance, a contractor hired by the development agency, was forbidden for safety reasons to travel to the tribal region that was the focus of his efforts, colleagues said. He was confined to Peshawar, where he lived with his wife and five children, ages 1 to 13. But he traveled in a car not protected by armor, unlike diplomats working at the United States Consulate in Peshawar, who are required to be driven in bulletproof vehicles.
Lynne Tracy, the top American diplomat in Peshawar, narrowly escaped a similar attack in August as she was being driven in an armored vehicle in the same neighborhood, University Town.
Though colleagues described Mr. Vance as committed to bringing American aid to trouble spots, they said he felt frustrated that he could not go out and meet people, and instead had to glean his knowledge by inviting people to his office. “He was committed but questioned the wisdom of doing it here,” said a colleague who knew Mr. Vance well but who did not want to be identified for fear of endangering his job. “He was aware of the danger. We talked about it often.”
Mr. Vance’s death comes as a vigorous debate is under way in Washington over whether more American military effort or more American development assistance — or more of both — is necessary to combat the growing power of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal belt. Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the author of legislation that calls for $15 billion in civilian assistance over the next decade for Pakistan, a significant increase over the level of American civilian aid under the Bush administration.
Despite the questions about the effectiveness of the aid to the tribal region, there was a feeling in Washington that such assistance had to be tried, said Craig Cohen, the author of a study on United States and Pakistan relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There is a sentiment that we need to be out there, but we know its danger,” he said. “There’s a belief we want to do something more than military. We need an aid presence.”
In Mr. Vance’s case, that presence was quiet, yet still conspicuous. To blend in, he at times wore a shalwar kameez, the long tunic and baggy pants that Pakistani men commonly wear.
But there was barely rudimentary security at his office, associates said. It appeared his assailants were waiting for him, an American colleague said.
The killing of such an experienced aid worker stunned American and Pakistani officials in Peshawar but did not surprise some of them. Security had collapsed to such an extent in the city, and anti-American sentiment had become so high, American officials and aid workers were often kept in “lockdown” by the American Consulate, meaning they had to work at home or get permission to move from home to office.
“Ever since the Taliban started targeted assassinations against politicians a few months ago, it was almost inevitable that they would target U.S. aid efforts,” said Joshua White, a research fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a specialist in Pakistan.
Among the several dozen Americans who came to Peshawar this year to work on the Usaid projects — some of them relatively young and inexperienced, others warhorses of the Vietnam era — Mr. Vance appears to have been a standout. “He was very pleasant, a good conversationalist with a refined demeanor — he certainly wasn’t an ugly American,” said Robert La Porte, a development expert, who had been hired for a job on the project in Peshawar.
Mr. Vance, who had a degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a degree in Slavic and Eastern European history from the University of Paris, worked in what is known in the international aid trade as some of the toughest hellholes.
He was a project manager for Usaid in Zaire from 1986 to 1991. He went to East Timor after it was ravaged by the Indonesian military in 1999. But he found his métier in Mongolia, where from 1999 to 2002 he established microfinancial services for the rural poor under the auspices of the nongovernmental organization Mercy Corps. As well, he helped herders in the Gobi Desert predict disasters.
“He was a visionary,” said Joy Portella, the communications director of Mercy Corps.
In Mongolia, he met a local woman whom he married. Some of his children were from a previous marriage of Mr. Vance’s, associates said. Perhaps because of his unusual background, his assignment here centered on the most hazardous and remote area of the tribal region: North and South Waziristan, the base of the most hard-core elements of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Given the constraints of not being able to travel much beyond his house and his office, a 15-minute ride away, how much Mr. Vance had managed to accomplish since arriving was not clear.
His immediate employer was Cooperative Housing Foundation in Silver Spring, Md., a firm hired to put in place a $140 million part of the overall $750 million project.
For Mr. Aziz, the extraordinary thing about Mr. Vance was his desire to do things the Pakistani way. So for his job creation projects, Mr. Aziz said, he wanted to use existing Pakistani institutions rather than create a parallel American universe as was often the case with American aid workers. “This shouldn’t have happened, he was a good chap, he was a humanist, he could get on with anyone,” Mr. Aziz said.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.