"Amid U.S. Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan"

[[R-MOD]Saobh]

Interesting article putting some context on the fight against Al-Queda, and on how politics, turf wars and the likes just adds layers on an already complex problem.

Keep it on-topic else your balls will get shredded then glued unto your sig

WASHINGTON — Late last year, top Bush administration officials decided to take a step they had long resisted. They drafted a secret plan to make it easier for the Pentagon’s Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda.

Intelligence reports for more than a year had been streaming in about Osama bin Laden’s terrorism network rebuilding in the Pakistani tribal areas, a problem that had been exacerbated by years of missteps in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, sharp policy disagreements, and turf battles between American counterterrorism agencies.

The new plan, outlined in a highly classified Pentagon order, was intended to eliminate some of those battles. And it was meant to pave a smoother path into the tribal areas for American commandos, who for years have bristled at what they see as Washington’s risk-averse attitude toward Special Operations missions inside Pakistan. They also argue that catching Mr. bin Laden will come only by capturing some of his senior lieutenants alive.

But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was “mounting frustration” in the Pentagon at the continued delay.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.

A recent American airstrike killing Pakistani troops has only inflamed tensions along the mountain border and added to tensions between Washington and Pakistan’s new government.

The story of how Al Qaeda, whose name is Arabic for “the base,” has gained a new haven is in part a story of American accommodation to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, whose advisers played down the terrorist threat. It is also a story of how the White House shifted its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.

Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States. Officials say the new camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001. However, despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one retired C.I.A. officer estimated that the makeshift training compounds now have as many as 2,000 local and foreign militants, up from several hundred three years ago.

Publicly, senior American and Pakistani officials have said that the creation of a Qaeda haven in the tribal areas was in many ways inevitable — that the lawless badlands where ethnic Pashtun tribes have resisted government control for centuries were a natural place for a dispirited terrorism network to find refuge. The American and Pakistani officials also blame a disastrous cease-fire brokered between the Pakistani government and militants in 2006.

But more than four dozen interviews in Washington and Pakistan tell another story. American intelligence officials say that the Qaeda hunt in Pakistan, code-named Operation Cannonball by the C.I.A. in 2006, was often undermined by bitter disagreements within the Bush administration and within the C.I.A., including about whether American commandos should launch ground raids inside the tribal areas.

Inside the C.I.A., the fights included clashes between the agency’s outposts in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Islamabad. There were also battles between field officers and the Counterterrorist Center at C.I.A. headquarters, whose preference for carrying out raids remotely, via Predator missile strikes, was derided by officers in the Islamabad station as the work of “boys with toys.”

An early arrangement that allowed American commandos to join Pakistani units on raids inside the tribal areas was halted in 2003 after protests in Pakistan. Another combat mission that came within hours of being launched in 2005 was scuttled because some C.I.A. officials in Pakistan questioned the accuracy of the intelligence, and because aides to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld believed that the mission force had become too large.

Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been sent to Iraq.

Some former officials say Mr. Bush should have done more to confront Mr. Musharraf, by aggressively demanding that he acknowledge the scale of the militant threat.

Western military officials say Mr. Musharraf was instead often distracted by his own political problems, and effectively allowed militants to regroup by brokering peace agreements with them.

Even critics of the White House agree that there was no foolproof solution to gaining control of the tribal areas. But by most accounts the administration failed to develop a comprehensive plan to address the militant problem there, and never resolved the disagreements between warring agencies that undermined efforts to fashion any coherent strategy.

“We’re just kind of drifting,” said Richard L. Armitage, who as deputy secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 was the administration’s point person for Pakistan.
...

Read the 5 page article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/wa...NA&oref=slogin

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

Don't worry.



We have a new tough guy in town remember ?


B. Hussein Obama will simply invade Pakistan in January if they don't toe the line.

You remember how the Dems taking control of the House and Senate stopped Al Queda in Iraq( according to Obama anyway ) so just imagine the fear that he will strike into them if he is elected President.

[M1126 Stryker]

Send in the special forces already. Give them full UAV and cruise missile support (Pakistan can't complain if they are not manned aircraft) and B-2A strikes (they could never confirm those) when needed.

[[R-DEV]Masaq]

Originally Posted by M1126 Stryker

Send in the special forces already. Give them full UAV and cruise missile support (Pakistan can't complain if they are not manned aircraft) and B-2A strikes (they could never confirm those) when needed.

Yes, because smoking craters and burnt-out buildings with no identifiable cause are tricky to explain when your chief ally in the war on terror can sling missiles or drop bombs with impunity... Mmm, don't think Pakistan would spend long working out what'd happened.

[gclark03]

What would they do, attribute those wrecked buildings and craters to Allah?

Anyway, the Coalition will probably be forced out of Afghanistan, somewhat like the Soviets, by 2020.

[Hotrod525]

Originally Posted by [R-MOD]Masaq

Yes, because smoking craters and burnt-out buildings with no identifiable cause are tricky to explain when your chief ally in the war on terror can sling missiles or drop bombs with impunity... Mmm, don't think Pakistan would spend long working out what'd happened.

Yeah and what Pakistan can do ? declare war to a nation who can walk over islamabad in less then a month ? Use nuclear device ? LOL.


"We are not a pro-terrorist countrie, but we let them train in our homeland whitout doing anything to stop them. Oh and since they only kill western people why should we care about them huh ?"

Anyway..That story just give me an other reason to laught at politic. If I was Mr.Bush I would say to pakistan to do something before i told to my Air force to do something whit or Whitout Pakis consent.

But i know nobody is courageous enought in this administration to do what they said. You want to combat terrorism effectively ? Fight them where ever they are, kill them to the last one if necessary. Just like we did for NaZi.

I will never understand the world geo-politic in which we live .. It's just, ridiculous.