[NYTr] US Considers New "Covert Push" Within Pakistan

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

It's so covert it's being leaked to The New York  Times... The Times
routinely honors the requests from the US Regime to keep "Really Super
Secret Covert News" under wraps. More Pakistan Bullshit News.-NYTr]

The New York Times - Jan 6, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/washington/06terror.html


U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan

By STEVEN LEE MYERS, DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON  President Bush's senior national security advisers are 
debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence 
Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert
operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the 
Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani 
government, several senior administration officials said.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a 
number of President Bush's top national security advisers met Friday at 
the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad 
reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago
of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There was also talk
of how to handle the period from now to the Feb. 18 elections, and the 
aftermath of those elections.

Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to
the government of President Pervez Musharraf was now so grave that both
Mr. Musharraf and Pakistan's new military leadership were likely to
give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions
were made, said the officials, who declined to speak for attribution
because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions.

Many of the specific options under discussion are unclear and highly 
classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the 
C.I.A. working with the military's Special Operations forces.

The Bush administration has not formally presented any new proposals to 
Mr. Musharraf, who gave up his military role last month, or to his 
successor as the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who the White 
House thinks will be more sympathetic to the American position than Mr. 
Musharraf. Early in his career, General Kayani was an aide to Ms.
Bhutto while she was prime minister and later led the Pakistani
intelligence service.

But at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity
in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the 
expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. "After years
of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance
for the big prize  creating chaos in Pakistan itself," one senior
official said.

The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening 
restrictions on the C.I.A. to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in 
some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources, officials 
said. Most counterterrorism operations in Pakistan have been conducted 
by the C.I.A.; in Afghanistan, where military operations are under way, 
including some with NATO forces, the military can take the lead.

The legal status would not change if the administration decided to act 
more aggressively. However, if the C.I.A. were given broader authority, 
it could call for help from the military or deputize some forces of the 
Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency.

The United States now has about 50 soldiers in Pakistan. Any expanded 
operations using C.I.A. operatives or Special Operations forces, like 
the Navy Seals, would be small and tailored to specific missions, 
military officials said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was on vacation last week and
did not attend the White House meeting, said in late December that "Al
Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and
attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people."

In the past, the administration has largely stayed out of the tribal 
areas, in part for fear that exposure of any American-led operations 
there would so embarrass the Musharraf government that it could further 
empower his critics, who have declared he was too close to Washington.

Even now, officials say, some American diplomats and military
officials, as well as outside experts, argue that American-led military
operations on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan could
result in a tremendous backlash and ultimately do more harm than good.
That is particularly true, they say, if Americans were captured or
killed in the territory.

In part, the White House discussions may be driven by a desire for 
another effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman 
al-Zawahri. Currently, C.I.A. operatives and Special Operations forces 
have limited authority to conduct counterterrorism missions in Pakistan 
based on specific intelligence about the whereabouts of those two men, 
who have eluded the Bush administration for more than six years, or of 
other members of their terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, hiding in or 
near the tribal areas.

The C.I.A. has launched missiles from Predator aircraft in the tribal 
areas several times, with varying degrees of success. Intelligence 
officials said they believed that in January 2006 an airstrike narrowly 
missed killing Mr. Zawahri, who had attended a dinner in Damadola, a 
Pakistani village. But that apparently was the last real evidence 
American officials had about the whereabouts of their chief targets.

Critics said more direct American military action would be ineffective, 
anger the Pakistani Army and increase support for the militants. "I'm 
not arguing that you leave Al Qaeda and the Taliban unmolested, but I'd 
be very, very cautious about approaches that could play into hands of 
enemies and be counterproductive," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism 
expert at Georgetown University. Some American diplomats and military 
officials have also issued strong warnings against expanded direct 
American action, officials said.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani military and political analyst, 
said raids by American troops would prompt a powerful popular backlash 
against Mr. Musharraf and the United States.

In the wake of the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, many 
Pakistanis suspect that the United States is trying to dominate
Pakistan as well, Mr. Rizvi said. Mr. Musharraf  who is already widely
unpopular would lose even more popular support.

"At the moment when Musharraf is extremely unpopular, he will face more 
crisis," Mr. Rizvi said. "This will weaken Musharraf in a Pakistani 
context." He said such raids would be seen as an overall vote of no 
confidence in the Pakistani military, including General Kayani.

The meeting on Friday, which was not publicly announced, included 
Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Adm. Mike 
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and top intelligence 
officials.

Spokesmen for the White House, the C.I.A. and the Pentagon declined to 
discuss the meeting, citing a policy against doing so. But the session 
reflected an urgent concern that a new Qaeda haven was solidifying in 
parts of Pakistan and needed to be countered, one official said.

Although some officials and experts have criticized Mr. Musharraf and 
questioned his ability to take on extremists, Mr. Bush has remained 
steadfast in his support, and it is unlikely any new measures,
including direct American military action inside Pakistan, will be
approved without Mr. Musharraf's consent.

"He understands clearly the risks of dealing with extremists and 
terrorists," Mr. Bush said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. 
"After all, they've tried to kill him."

The Pakistan government has identified a militant leader with links to 
Al Qaeda, Baitullah Mehsud, who holds sway in tribal areas near the 
Afghanistan border, as the chief suspect behind the attack on Ms. 
Bhutto. American officials are not certain about Mr. Mehsud's
complicity but say the threat he and other militants pose is a new
focus. He is considered, they said, an "Al Qaeda associate."

In an interview with foreign journalists on Thursday, Mr. Musharraf 
warned of the risk any counterterrorism forces  American or Pakistani  
faced in confronting Mr. Mehsud in his native tribal areas.

"He is in South Waziristan agency, and let me tell you, getting him in 
that place means battling against thousands of people, hundreds of 
people who are his followers, the Mehsud tribe, if you get to him, and 
it will mean collateral damage," Mr. Musharraf said.

The weeks before parliamentary elections  which were originally 
scheduled for Tuesday  are seen as critical because of threats by 
extremists to disrupt the vote. But it seemed unlikely that any 
additional American effort would be approved and put in place in that 
time frame.

Administration aides said that Pakistani and American officials shared 
the concern about a resurgent Qaeda, and that American diplomats and 
senior military officers had been working closely with their Pakistani 
counterparts to help bolster Pakistan's counterterrorism operations.

Shortly after Ms. Bhutto's assassination, Adm. William J. Fallon, who 
oversees American military operations in Southwest Asia, telephoned his 
Pakistani counterparts to ensure that counterterrorism and logistics 
operations remained on track.

In early December, Adm. Eric T. Olson, the new leader of the Special 
Operations Command, paid his second visit to Pakistan in three months
to meet with senior Pakistani officers, including Lt. Gen. Muhammad
Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in
northwest Pakistan. Admiral Olson also visited the headquarters of the
Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited
from border tribes that the United States is planning to help train and
equip.

But the Pakistanis are still years away from fielding an effective 
counterinsurgency force. And some American officials, including Defense 
Secretary Gates, have said the United States may have to take direct 
action against militants in the tribal areas.

American officials said the crisis surrounding Ms. Bhutto's 
assassination had not diminished the Pakistani counterterrorism 
operations, and there were no signs that Mr. Musharraf had pulled out 
any of his 100,000 forces in the tribal areas and brought them to the 
cities to help control the urban unrest.

[Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Islamabad, and David Rohde
from New York.]