OPINION:
It may be too early to assess the security ramifications and political fallout in Pakistan of the killing of Osama bin Laden by a clandestine American assault mission. But what is widely seen as a failure of the entire system has already shaken public confidence in the country’s security arrangements and damaged the credibility of its managers. The government’s inept handling of the aftermath has left the nation adrift and in a state of bewilderment.
What happened on May 2 was not just a failure of intelligence. To construe it in these narrow terms is to miss the bigger picture, draw the wrong conclusion and squander the means of fixing the fundamental problem.
This was a failure of state institutions, leadership and imagination. Not to have envisaged that such an intervention could occur if the United States had the world’s most wanted man in its sights points to an inability to recognize - much less take steps to avert - a predictable scenario.
The covert U.S. raid marked a systemic breakdown in which the national security apparatus was tested and found wanting. Two telling vulnerabilities were exposed: an incapacity to protect the country from external intrusion and the inability to defend against the terrorist threat, which bin Laden’s long and undetected presence in a garrison town signified.
Unless all the dimensions of this failure are identified and addressed in a wide-ranging review of national security procedures and structures, the country’s risk of defense breaches will continue. Nor will people have any credible assurance that Pakistan’s strategic capability is secure from the possibility of penetration from outside.
The crisis of credibility at home can only be resolved by a full disclosure of the facts leading up to the Abbottabad raid and assumption of responsibility for the security fiasco.
I was in the United States and then the United Kingdom as news of the raid unfolded. The hostile media coverage of Pakistan was unlike anything I had seen before. Fanned by official briefings and “expert” commentaries, the media’s questioning of Pakistan, its government, military and security agencies assumed a tone of indicting - even demonizing - the entire country.
Official Pakistani silence in the first 24 hours exacerbated the situation and enabled the Western media to ramp up its accusations and all but hold the state responsible for complicity in harboring bin Laden. The lack of any serious or timely official attempt to reframe the issue meant that Pakistan’s case lost by default.
This provided open season to Pakistan-bashers. Accusations flew fast and furious. Some opinion writers rejoiced over President Obama’s decision not to take Islamabad into confidence until the assault team had successfully concluded its mission. In so doing, a columnist suggested Mr. Obama caused Pakistan “to be exposed and humiliated in front of the world.”
Much official comment abroad revolved around the “support system” bin Laden “evidently had” to be able to live for five years “in plain sight” in Abbottabad. Among the more fanciful suggestions in the Western media was this: “How do we know that officers in the military or intelligence would not help al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to gain access to sensitive nuclear material?”
More important than the criticism outside the country are the doubts raised within. Public questioning of the competence of the authorities has focused on the two dimensions of the May 2 incident mentioned earlier: How did a U.S. covert operation undertaken deep inside Pakistani territory go undetected until it was over? And how did bin Laden’s presence in a place like Abbottabad for five years escape the attention of the authorities?
In the days following the clandestine operation, the official response that emerged was so incoherent that it heightened rather than assuaged public anxiety on these counts. On an overseas trip at the time, the prime minister was in no rush to return home and took a week to make a statement.
The piecemeal release of information and shifting posture laid bare the utter disarray in the government. The paralysis of the first 24 hours was one thing, but the inability to marshal a credible explanation intensified the national outrage. The scramble to control the damage remained just that - a scramble with no direction and little thought.
Then came the acknowledgment in a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) following a corps commanders conference of “shortcomings in developing intelligence on the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan” and the army leadership’s promise of “an investigation.” But no details are yet available about the scope of this inquiry and who will conduct it.
The inquiry obviously will have to examine how and why leads that the security agencies, by their own admission, provided to the United States and that ultimately led the CIA to bin Laden’s home were not vigorously investigated by the Pakistani authorities themselves. Arguments that America has technical capabilities that Pakistan lacks are spurious on this count when all our authorities needed was on-the-ground surveillance and human intelligence in the very town that saw the arrest just a few months ago of Umar Patek, one of the Bali bombers with close connections to al Qaeda.
The inquiry also must look into reports that the CIA maintained a safe house in Abbottabad for a team of spies who conducted surveillance over several months on the compound where bin Laden was found and killed. How did such an active and prolonged intelligence-gathering mission elude Pakistan’s many security agencies?
The question uppermost in the Pakistani public mind relates to the bigger security failure rather than just that of intelligence. How was it that helicopters entered Pakistan’s airspace, an assault team conducted a 40-minute operation in Abbottabad - not some remote borderland - and authorities were only alerted when one of the helicopters crashed into a compound wall?
The official explanation heard so far of superior “stealth” technology trumping the country’s radar and early-warning systems misses the point. If our defenses can be breached in this manner and we do not possess the capability to overcome this vulnerability, how can a repeat of such intrusions be deterred in the future?
The ISPR statement in which a warning was issued that Pakistan would not tolerate a repeat of any action that violated “the sovereignty of Pakistan” is not backed by any credible assurance that the country has the ability to deter such transgressions. The only response the statement contained was a promise of a “review of intelligence and military cooperation with the U.S.” if such a covert operation recurs. Can a review of cooperation serve as a deterrent to another intrusion?
These questions necessitate a full and comprehensive review of the country’s security policy and procedures. For the review to be meaningful, it must be undertaken in an independent and objective manner by credible figures with knowledge and expertise of the issues at hand. Its aim should be to address the obvious security weaknesses laid bare by the recent developments. It should have a time-sensitive and result-oriented mandate, resulting in recommendations. Its objective should be to identify the necessary steps to ensure that the gaps in Pakistan’s security and intelligence are effectively and promptly plugged.
Only by pursuing this course will the authorities also be able to assure our people - and the world - that the country has the capability to protect its strategic capabilities and assets.
Maleeha Lodhi is special adviser to the Jang Group/Geo and a former Pakistani envoy to the United States and the United Kingdom.
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