• Military
• WMD

• Intelligence Menu               

• Systems
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Imagery
• Links

• Homeland Security
• Space

Pakistan PM says ties with CIA break down

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, May 13, IRNA -- Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has said that cooperation between the county’s main spy agency and the American CIA has been broken after the US Special Forces raid in Abbotabad to kill Osama bin Laden.

“Cooperation between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), had broken down, and that Washington and Islamabad differed on how to fight terror and forge an exit strategy in Afghanistan,” the Prime Minister told TIME magazine in an exclusive interview.

He did, however, for the first time publicly offer to support US drone strikes inside Pakistan, provided that Pakistan was in the decision making.

He warned that continuing to work with the United States could imperil his government, unless Washington takes drastic steps to restore trust and win over 180 million Pakistanis.

Despite the clamor of criticism in Washington alleging Pakistani duplicity over the fact that the al-Qaeda leader had been hiding out in the sleepy garrison town of Abbottabad, Gilani claimed the role of aggrieved party in a deteriorating relationship.

He complained repeatedly throughout the 45-minute breakfast interview about the widening 'trust deficit' between the two allies.

Speaking of the Abbottabad raid, Gilani said, 'Naturally, we wondered why they went unilaterally. If we're fighting a war together, we have to work together. Even if there was credible and actionable information, then we should have done it jointly.'

'Traditionally, the ISI worked with the CIA,' he said. Now, 'what we're seeing is that there's no level of trust.'

Gilani said the drone war weakens his efforts to rally public support for the fight against extremism.

'No one can win a war without the support of the public,' he said.

'I say that this is my war, but when drones strike, the people ask, 'Whose war is this, then?' ' Still, Gilani said — for the first time, publicly — that he was open to renegotiating the terms of the CIA's program.

'A drone strategy can be worked out,' Gilani said. 'If drone strikes are effective, then we should evolve a common strategy to win over public opinion. Our position is that the technology should be transferred to us.'

Still, he added, he would countenance a policy in which the CIA would continue to operate the drones 'where they are used under our supervision.'

That statement marks a departure from Pakistan's frequent public denunciations of drone strikes as intolerable violations of sovereignty, The TIME said.