How Pakistan
was Forced to Accept 7 Demands
Bush feared al-Qaeda may use Pakistan
nukes to attack US
Chidanand Rajghatta
WASHINGTON:
Based on US intelligence reports, President Bush believed that
al-Qaeda operatives were planning a crude nuclear attack on Washington
last October-November after obtaining radioactive material from
Pakistan, a new book on the war on terrorism has revealed.
We
began to get serious indications that nuclear plans, material
and know-how were being moved out of Pakistan," President
Bush tells Washington Post Managing Editor Bob Woodward in his
latest book Bush at War that hit the book stores on Wednesday.
"It was the vibrations coming out of everybody reviewing
the evidence."
The
evidence of a radiological attack was presented to Bush at an
intelligence briefing on October 29 last year under the Top Secret/Codeword
Threat Matrix, when all kinds of signals gathered by the US suggested
an imminent follow-up to 9/11.
Some
of the intercepts revealed discussion of a radiological device-
the use of conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material.
Other intercepted discussions mentioned "making lots of people
sick." Some said that good news would be coming, perhaps
within a week, or thatthe good news would be bigger and better
than September 11.
In
spite of the threat, Woodward says Bush refused to move out of
Washington. "Those b******* are going to find me exactly
here," the US President is quoted as saying. "And if
they get me, they are going to get me right here."
In
the face of Bush's vehemence, it is vice-president Dick Cheney
who decides to move to a "secure, undisclosed location,"
to avert a leadership vacuum. "This isn't about you,"
Cheney tells the President. "This is about our Constitution."
Bush
later explains his stand to Woodward, who interviewed him for
nearly two and half hours (besides talking to many other US officials)
in writing a riveting book that is the talk of Washington. "Had
the President decided he too is going," Bush recalls, "you
would have had the vice-president going one direction and the
president going another, people are going to say, 'What about
me'' I wasn't going to leave. I guess I could have, but I wasn't."
However,
despite openly expressing doubts about the security of Pakistan's
nuclear assets, Bush later allays Pakistan military leader Pervez
Musharraf's fears that the US is going to take out that country's
nuclear weapons with help from Israel.
Woodward
writes that at a meeting with Bush on the sidelines of the UN
General Assembly, Musharraf brought up an article in the New Yorker
by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, saying such a plan is
in the works.
"Seymour
Hersh is a liar," Bush replies. Musharraf
also expresses his deep fear that the United States would in the
end abandon Pakistan, and that other interests would crowd out
the war on terrorism.
"Bush
fixed his gaze," Woodward writes, and quotes him as saying
to Musharraf, " 'Tell the Pakistani people that the President
of the United States looked you in the eye and told you we wouldn't
do that.'"
However,
top Bush administration officials press-ganged Pakistan's military
ruler into falling in line with Washington's war on terrorism
with strong-arm methods that did not brook any defiance or denial,
the book reveals.
The
book, formally released to wide advance acclaim, describes in
great detail how the US cracked the whip to get Islamabad to fall
in line at a time when Pakistan was a pariah country because of
its support for Taliban, and insisted on backing the fundamentalist
regime even after the 9/11 incidents.
In
doing so, Washington appears to have conformed to the often cited
American foreign policy dictum about tyrants and despots who serve
its purpose: He's a SOB but he is OUR SOB.
It
was Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Deputy Richard Armitage
who put Musharraf on notice by conveying Bush's "either you
are with us or against us" policy, which Woodward says was
arrived at by the President without consulting his cabinet colleagues
or their departments.
The
sequence of events related by Woodward suggests the Pakistani
General had little choice but to fall in line, so wrathful was
Washington's mood in the days immediately following 9/11.
Woodward
borrows from baseball lexicon to describe Powell's tactic to soften
up Musharraf. "Powell had in mind a pitcher's brushback pitch
to a particularly dangerous batter," he says. "High,
fast, and hard to the head."
In
cricketing terms, it would be a beamer or bouncer that bends back
into the batsman.
Woodward
says in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Powell decided that Pakistan
was bound to be the linchpin if the US was to take on the al-Qaeda
on its turf. He and his deputy Richard Armitage then draw up a
list of seven demands from Pakistan.
-
Stop al-Qaeda operatives at your border, intercept arms shipments
through Pakistan and end ALL logistical support for Bin Laden
-
Blanket overflight and landing rights
-
Access to Pakistan, naval bases, air bases and borders
-
Immediate intelligence and immigration information
-
Condemn the September 11 attacks and "curb all domestic expression
of support for terrorism against the United States, its friends
and allies
-
Cut off all shipments of fuel to the Taliban and stop Pakistani
volunteers from going into Afghanistan to join the Taliban
-
Break diplomatic relations with the Taliban and assist us to destroy
Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network
"In
so many words," says Woodward, "Powell and Armitage
would be asking Pakistan to help destroy what its intelligence
service had helped create and maintain: The Taliban."
Ironically,
the bearer of this bad news for Musharraf would be his intelligence
supremo Gen Mahmoud Ahmed. By sheer coincidence, the ISI chief
was visiting Washington at the time of the 9/11 attacks and was
called into to the CIA headquarters.
In
a meeting with CIA Director George Tenet and his deputies, Ahmed
defends Taliban leader Mullah Omar, saying he is a religious man,
"a man of humanitarian instincts, not a man of violence,
but one who had suffered greatly under the Afghan warlords."
"Stop!"
Tenet's Deputy Jim Pavitt says. "Spare me. Does Mullah Omar
want the United States military to unleash its force against the
Taliban' Do you want that to happen' Will you go and ask him'"
Later,
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage invites Mahmoud to
the State Department to crank up the heat. He begins by saying
it is not yet clear what the US would ask of Pakistan, but the
requests would force "deep introspection."
"Pakistan
faces a stark choice, either it is with us or it is not. This
is a black and white with no gray," Armitage tells him.
Mahmoud,
sounding utterly defensive, says his country had faced tough choices
in the past but "Pakistan was not a big or might power."
Pakistan is an important country, Armitage cuts in. Mahmoud returns
to the past.
"The
future begins today," Armitage says. "Pass the word
to General Musharraf ' with us or against us."
After
his deputy has softened up Musharraf through his emissary, Secretary
of State Powell calls him up in Islamabad. "As one general
to another we need someone on our flank fighting with us,"
he says, and then adds meaningfully. "Speaking candidly,
the American people would not understand if Pakistan was not in
this fight with the United States."
To
Powell's surprise, says Woodward, Musharraf promises to support
the US with each of the seven actions.
An
elated Powell then conveys his achievement at a National Security
Council meeting in the White House Situation Room, saying "I'd
like to tell you what we told the Pakistanis today," before
loudly and proudly reading out the seven demands. When he finishes,
he tells the meeting that Musharraf has already accepted them.
"It
looks like you got it all," Bush says. Others in the room
ask for a copy of the US charter of demands.
Woodward's
book also indicates that the US and Indian intelligence agencies
work closely and exchange information.
At
one point during the critical days after 9/11, White House Chief
of Staff Andrew Card draws Bush aside in the precincts of the
Presidential mansion and warns him of another threat to the White
House.
The
information, which the US deems as credible, had been sent to
the CIA from the Indian intelligence service that Pakistani jihadists
were planning an imminent attack on the White House. Woodward
says the threat was consistent with other intelligence that established
immediate danger. The Indian intelligence, he says, was well wired
into Pakistan.
Woodward's
narrative also reveals that the Bush administration was constantly
seized of the effect a collapse in Afghanistan would have on Pakistan,
Pakistan's own instability, and its tensions with India, and the
need to be sensitive to India's concerns. At one point in a cabinet
meeting, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says "We've got
to avoid the image of a shift to Pakistan."
Secretary
of State Colin Powell agrees, saying, "Whenever we talk about
the Paks, we have to talk about the Indians as well." - Courtesy
Times of India
