08-11-2008, 10:35 PM
Op-Ed. Pioneer, 11 August, 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>ISI, state within a state </b>
Abhijit Bhattacharyya
The ISI is the most openly covert arm of the Pakistani military sustained by the generals. Irrespective of who is the President or Prime Minister of Pakistan, the ISI is likely to remain as powerful as ever. At least for the foreseeable future.
National Security Adviser MK Narayanan publicly suggested in July that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence needed to be "destroyed" while US President George W Bush wondered as to "who controls the ISI!" Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused the ISI of being at the root of the violence in his country. Two Prime Ministers of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif, have lost their jobs after tinkering with the ISI's established norms and conventions.
A lot of stuff is well-known to the world and the modus operandi of the ISI too is pretty obvious - it does things clandestinely, surreptitiously and through agents of all variety. <b>What needs to be analysed is: Why is the ISI doing what it is doing? And, how did it become adept at taking on everyone whom it thinks worth confronting?</b>
The ISI draws its personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force. <b>Its mandate is to provide strategic intelligence - including external intelligence, as well as work on threat perceptions and covert operations - to the Prime Minister, the military and the Joint Services Headquarters. It is also engaged in counter-intelligence activities vis-Ã -vis 'adversary' countries like India.</b>
<b><i>{So its both MI6 (military manned) for strategic intelligence and MI5(still military manned) for counter-intelligence with respect to some countries. Comparing it to IB and RAw and CIA is incorrect.}</i></b>
<b>When Gen Zia-ul-Haq was in power, the ISI's mandate was expanded to keep an eye on political developments within Pakistan as it began to actively participate in politics and supported preferred groups.</b> The ISI currently functions with a 65:35 ratio of military and civilian staff; almost 90 per cent are serving officers from the forces.
<b><i>{So it has IB kind of role inside TSP}</i></b>
Seen against this backdrop, <b>Mr Bush's query, as to who controls the ISI, though relevant and interesting, also betrays his innocence of a complex sector of Pakistan.</b> To understand this sector, <b>one needs to about the chiefs of the Pakistani Army who have ruled that country for 33 of its 61 years. Of 12 Pakistani Generals, four have been coup masters - which makes a third of the Pakistani Army's top brass capable of destroying civilian rule. Thus the basic philosophy of Pakistan's rulers is premised on the theory and practice of might is right.</b>
<b><i>{The author does not show understanding of the role of the military in an Islamic State. It is the basis of the Sultan's/Prseident's power. It asserts itself when it feels that the Sultan is not being Islamic enough and not keeping faith. Go read about the Sultanate period in Indian history}</i></b>
It began with the founding of the Muslim League in 1906, which gained ideological momentum in 1940, attained the apogee of lethality in 1946 and forced the creation of Pakistan in 1947, <b>only to get trapped in the net of recklessly ambitious officer corps and an inept and squabbling political class.</b>
<b><i>{See my above comment. Again shows not enough appreciation of a Modern Islamic state. TSP is the first new Islamic state created in the modenr era. It has the trappings of modernity but all its structures at the core are Islamist in prinicple. Contemporary analysts are fooled by its modern trappings as Islamic states are new and not enough is known about them and what was known is forgotten.}</i></b>
Not surprisingly, therefore, one comes across the <b>Rawalpindi conspiracy of 1951 </b>when senior officers were caught planning to overthrow Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and install a military-style nationalist Government. Major General Akbar Khan, Brigadier Abdul Latif Khan, Air Commodore MK Janjua, Major General Nazir Ahmed, Brigadier Sadiq Khan, Lt Colonel Ziauddin, Lt Colonel Niaz Mohammed Arbab, Captain Khizar Hayat, Major Hassan Khan, Major Ishaq Mohammad and Captain Zafarullah Poshni were arrested for hatching the conspiracy.
<b><i>{How many of these officers were in the INA?}</i></b>
The seeds of civil-military confrontation were thus sown early. This was strengthened by the arrival, and rule, of <b>Gen Ayub Khan for 18 years - first as the Army Chief from 1951 to 1958 and later as dictator from 1958 to 1969. He bequeathed the mantle of dictatorship to Gen Yahya Khan, who managed the break-up of his country and the defeat of his Army in 1971.</b>
<b>While Gen Yahya Khan remained the Army Chief and later dictator from 1966 to 1971, the next two military rulers, Gen Zia-ul-Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf remained Army chief for 12 years and nine years respectively, thereby making a mockery of the promotion prospects of the officer corps</b>.
<b><i>{I submit Ayub Khan was of different mettle than the Rawalpindi case folks. Just as Zia was different than Ayub and Yahya Khan.}</i></b>
Hence, a large number of officers' career ended prematurely, thereby allowing them to retire after serving as one of the nine corps commanders at best or as director-general of ISI, which was the second best possibility to fulfil their ambition of shaping the destiny of Pakistan. Inevitably the Army chief decided who got to head the ISI and ensured it reported directly to him. The claimed subservience of the ISI to the Prime Minister sounds good in theory but is not applicable in reality.
The spectacular rise of the ISI began with <b>Gen Zia's regime, which inculcated the conviction that only soldiers were capable of ruling Pakistan and gave credence to the view that while all countries have armies, in Pakistan the Army has a country.</b> During the Zia years, the ISI served as the conduit for American arms and funds meant for the Afghan mujahideen.
<b>With the US as the backseat driver, the ISI managed the Afghan jihad against Soviet troops. The war came as a windfall for the corrupt ISI, courtesy the CIA arms supplies and the Afghan drug trade. It also provided covert funds for Pakistan's nuclear and conventional weapons programme and Islamic insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir. The tradition was revived during Gen Musharraf's reign as America focussed its attention on the region after 9/11.</b>
<b><i>{So US asking who runs ISI is a very naive question and worrisome to boot!}</i></b>
But whereas the ISI could escape scrutiny after organising the murder of Soviet soldiers, Afghans and Indians in the 1980s, it cannot do so today. <b>This is because the ISI's activities are resulting in the deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan and jeopardising US strategic interest. So, the US is irked and Mr Bush is provoked.</b>
The ISI is the most openly covert arm of the Pakistani military sustained by the generals. Irrespective of who is the President or Prime Minister of Pakistan, the ISI is likely to remain as powerful as ever. It may, in theory, report to the Prime Minister, but it will continue to be accountable to the Army chief.
<b>No serving Lt General can violate the chain of command by not reporting to the General. Moreover, while Prime Ministers and Presidents will come and go, the Pakistani military will continue to be seen as the most able and stable institution to run that country in the foreseeable future because of its location and tradition</b>.
-- The writer is an alumnus of the National Defence College and a member of International Institute for Strategic Studies, London.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There are some good insights but no earth shattering disclosures here. The important fact not mentioned is ISI was setup by the Australian Maj Gen Cawthorne and he was prior to that the Director of Military Intelligence for British Indian Army and more iportantly he was a prominent member of the Olaf Caroe's Viceroy Study Group and latter became the Aussie High Commissoner and SIS head. So he was intimately nurturing the agency he created even after he returned to his native country. And Olaf Caroe was the expert/intellectual father of the modern Great Game which led to CENTO and SEATO. So the early origns are British and Australian. Australia was ion one of the power circles that Olaf Caroe sketched in his Roundtable paper quoted in Brobst's book. This power circle includes India and Aussies were hedging against a possible antagonist India.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>ISI, state within a state </b>
Abhijit Bhattacharyya
The ISI is the most openly covert arm of the Pakistani military sustained by the generals. Irrespective of who is the President or Prime Minister of Pakistan, the ISI is likely to remain as powerful as ever. At least for the foreseeable future.
National Security Adviser MK Narayanan publicly suggested in July that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence needed to be "destroyed" while US President George W Bush wondered as to "who controls the ISI!" Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused the ISI of being at the root of the violence in his country. Two Prime Ministers of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif, have lost their jobs after tinkering with the ISI's established norms and conventions.
A lot of stuff is well-known to the world and the modus operandi of the ISI too is pretty obvious - it does things clandestinely, surreptitiously and through agents of all variety. <b>What needs to be analysed is: Why is the ISI doing what it is doing? And, how did it become adept at taking on everyone whom it thinks worth confronting?</b>
The ISI draws its personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force. <b>Its mandate is to provide strategic intelligence - including external intelligence, as well as work on threat perceptions and covert operations - to the Prime Minister, the military and the Joint Services Headquarters. It is also engaged in counter-intelligence activities vis-Ã -vis 'adversary' countries like India.</b>
<b><i>{So its both MI6 (military manned) for strategic intelligence and MI5(still military manned) for counter-intelligence with respect to some countries. Comparing it to IB and RAw and CIA is incorrect.}</i></b>
<b>When Gen Zia-ul-Haq was in power, the ISI's mandate was expanded to keep an eye on political developments within Pakistan as it began to actively participate in politics and supported preferred groups.</b> The ISI currently functions with a 65:35 ratio of military and civilian staff; almost 90 per cent are serving officers from the forces.
<b><i>{So it has IB kind of role inside TSP}</i></b>
Seen against this backdrop, <b>Mr Bush's query, as to who controls the ISI, though relevant and interesting, also betrays his innocence of a complex sector of Pakistan.</b> To understand this sector, <b>one needs to about the chiefs of the Pakistani Army who have ruled that country for 33 of its 61 years. Of 12 Pakistani Generals, four have been coup masters - which makes a third of the Pakistani Army's top brass capable of destroying civilian rule. Thus the basic philosophy of Pakistan's rulers is premised on the theory and practice of might is right.</b>
<b><i>{The author does not show understanding of the role of the military in an Islamic State. It is the basis of the Sultan's/Prseident's power. It asserts itself when it feels that the Sultan is not being Islamic enough and not keeping faith. Go read about the Sultanate period in Indian history}</i></b>
It began with the founding of the Muslim League in 1906, which gained ideological momentum in 1940, attained the apogee of lethality in 1946 and forced the creation of Pakistan in 1947, <b>only to get trapped in the net of recklessly ambitious officer corps and an inept and squabbling political class.</b>
<b><i>{See my above comment. Again shows not enough appreciation of a Modern Islamic state. TSP is the first new Islamic state created in the modenr era. It has the trappings of modernity but all its structures at the core are Islamist in prinicple. Contemporary analysts are fooled by its modern trappings as Islamic states are new and not enough is known about them and what was known is forgotten.}</i></b>
Not surprisingly, therefore, one comes across the <b>Rawalpindi conspiracy of 1951 </b>when senior officers were caught planning to overthrow Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and install a military-style nationalist Government. Major General Akbar Khan, Brigadier Abdul Latif Khan, Air Commodore MK Janjua, Major General Nazir Ahmed, Brigadier Sadiq Khan, Lt Colonel Ziauddin, Lt Colonel Niaz Mohammed Arbab, Captain Khizar Hayat, Major Hassan Khan, Major Ishaq Mohammad and Captain Zafarullah Poshni were arrested for hatching the conspiracy.
<b><i>{How many of these officers were in the INA?}</i></b>
The seeds of civil-military confrontation were thus sown early. This was strengthened by the arrival, and rule, of <b>Gen Ayub Khan for 18 years - first as the Army Chief from 1951 to 1958 and later as dictator from 1958 to 1969. He bequeathed the mantle of dictatorship to Gen Yahya Khan, who managed the break-up of his country and the defeat of his Army in 1971.</b>
<b>While Gen Yahya Khan remained the Army Chief and later dictator from 1966 to 1971, the next two military rulers, Gen Zia-ul-Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf remained Army chief for 12 years and nine years respectively, thereby making a mockery of the promotion prospects of the officer corps</b>.
<b><i>{I submit Ayub Khan was of different mettle than the Rawalpindi case folks. Just as Zia was different than Ayub and Yahya Khan.}</i></b>
Hence, a large number of officers' career ended prematurely, thereby allowing them to retire after serving as one of the nine corps commanders at best or as director-general of ISI, which was the second best possibility to fulfil their ambition of shaping the destiny of Pakistan. Inevitably the Army chief decided who got to head the ISI and ensured it reported directly to him. The claimed subservience of the ISI to the Prime Minister sounds good in theory but is not applicable in reality.
The spectacular rise of the ISI began with <b>Gen Zia's regime, which inculcated the conviction that only soldiers were capable of ruling Pakistan and gave credence to the view that while all countries have armies, in Pakistan the Army has a country.</b> During the Zia years, the ISI served as the conduit for American arms and funds meant for the Afghan mujahideen.
<b>With the US as the backseat driver, the ISI managed the Afghan jihad against Soviet troops. The war came as a windfall for the corrupt ISI, courtesy the CIA arms supplies and the Afghan drug trade. It also provided covert funds for Pakistan's nuclear and conventional weapons programme and Islamic insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir. The tradition was revived during Gen Musharraf's reign as America focussed its attention on the region after 9/11.</b>
<b><i>{So US asking who runs ISI is a very naive question and worrisome to boot!}</i></b>
But whereas the ISI could escape scrutiny after organising the murder of Soviet soldiers, Afghans and Indians in the 1980s, it cannot do so today. <b>This is because the ISI's activities are resulting in the deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan and jeopardising US strategic interest. So, the US is irked and Mr Bush is provoked.</b>
The ISI is the most openly covert arm of the Pakistani military sustained by the generals. Irrespective of who is the President or Prime Minister of Pakistan, the ISI is likely to remain as powerful as ever. It may, in theory, report to the Prime Minister, but it will continue to be accountable to the Army chief.
<b>No serving Lt General can violate the chain of command by not reporting to the General. Moreover, while Prime Ministers and Presidents will come and go, the Pakistani military will continue to be seen as the most able and stable institution to run that country in the foreseeable future because of its location and tradition</b>.
-- The writer is an alumnus of the National Defence College and a member of International Institute for Strategic Studies, London.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There are some good insights but no earth shattering disclosures here. The important fact not mentioned is ISI was setup by the Australian Maj Gen Cawthorne and he was prior to that the Director of Military Intelligence for British Indian Army and more iportantly he was a prominent member of the Olaf Caroe's Viceroy Study Group and latter became the Aussie High Commissoner and SIS head. So he was intimately nurturing the agency he created even after he returned to his native country. And Olaf Caroe was the expert/intellectual father of the modern Great Game which led to CENTO and SEATO. So the early origns are British and Australian. Australia was ion one of the power circles that Olaf Caroe sketched in his Roundtable paper quoted in Brobst's book. This power circle includes India and Aussies were hedging against a possible antagonist India.