Al Jazeera TV’s leak on July 8 of a classified report on the U.S. military raid in Abbottabad, which killed Osama bin Laden, has triggered a controversy in Pakistan. The report holds former President Pervez Musharraf – who was also the former army General who joined hands with the U.S. in the “war on terror” and its hunt for bin Laden after 9/11 – responsible for acceding to the U.S.’s demands, while ignoring Pakistan’s own security interests.
The revelations come at a time when Musharraf is scheduled to stand trial for treason. It also reopens an embarrassing chapter for the Army, whose credibility has suffered not only due to the raid at Abbottabad, but also because of the Salala incident – when, on 26 November 2011, U.S.-led NATO forces attacked Pakistani military check-posts in the Salala area along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
After the 2 May 2011 top-secret operation by U.S. Special Forces, which killed Osama bin Laden without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities, a parliamentary resolution demanded an investigation. A commission headed by a retired judge, Justice Javed Iqbal, was formed in June 2011. Over 18 months, it recorded the statements of representatives of military and civilian intelligence agencies, diplomats, government officials, and members of bin Laden’s family.
Amongst those who declined to appear before the commission were then Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and President Asif Ali Zardari – who was the last to be notified about the raid.
The 336-page report, submitted to the Pakistani Prime Minister in January 2013, calls the raid an “act of war” and “the greatest humiliation for Pakistan since 1971.” It reveals the extent to which the Pakistani establishment has acknowledged the degree of incompetence of civilian as well as military institutions; the inroads and control by the Army of the civilian state; and the army’s complicity with the U.S.
In examining two aspects – the failure of the military to detect the raid or the presence of bin Laden in Pakistan – the commission has severely indicted the political and the military leadership. The report points to the combination of U.S. military supremacy and the India-centric orientation of the Pakistani military as factors in its failure to detect the raid. With India as the only designated hostile country, Pakistan’s air defence capabilities on the western border were deployed in “peace time” mode despite a “growing U.S. threat.”
The failure to detect the bin Laden’s presence, the commission says, was due to the collective incompetence and negligence of various government agencies as well as their lack of coordination. The report unequivocally holds the army and the ISI responsible for not being able to locate High Value Targets (HVTs) such as bin Laden. In 2005, the ISI had called off its hunt for bin Laden based on the U.S.’s presumption that he was no longer alive. That was naive, says the commission, pointing out that the U.S. itself never called off its hunt for bin Laden. Instead, it expanded its already extensive network of operatives in Pakistan to trace him.
Bin Laden’s uninterrupted stay in Abbottabad for six years certainly gives credence to the possibility of complicity by the military establishment. In fact, the Pakistani army’s Adjutant General conceded to the commission that some retired officers could have been involved in sheltering bin Laden. But in the absence of definitive evidence, the commission’s report avoids making a conclusive statement.
Commenting on the dominance of the military in Pakistan’s politics, the commission strongly criticises the army and the ISI for denying the “space and resources” to civilian agencies. This, the report points out, has an adverse impact on governance. In his testimony to the commission, then ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, has justified the ISI’s taking over of most of the functions of the state; he points out the Pakistani state’s inability to establish its writ and the failure of civil institutions to perform their assigned tasks. In fact, he says that Pakistan is a “failing state” if not already a “failed state.”
The report also examines the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, and describes it as an alliance of convenience accompanied by extreme mutual distrust and divergent strategic interests. There have been moments, the report says, when, despite the patron-client relationship, the two countries have seen each other as adversaries, if not actual enemies. This tension is especially evident in the context of drone aircraft strikes by the U.S in Pakistan, on which both countries have a tacit political understanding. The discontent is evident in the military establishment over the extent to which the U.S. has sought to utilise drones to target HVTs. However, despite the embarrassment of Abbottabad, the ISI has not ruled out the possibility of other HVTs like Mullah Omar and al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri being in Pakistan and a similar raid against them.
Despite its extensive investigation, the commission does not give satisfactory answers on how bin Laden’s stay in Pakistan went unnoticed for almost a decade, how his support network worked, and the degree of complicity by the Pakistani establishment – a complicity that India has pointed out in the case of Pakistan-based anti-India groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The report will come in handy for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to discredit his political adversaries, Zardari and Musharraf, who in 1999 had displaced Sharif in a coup. However, it remains unclear to what extent Sharif can use this report to clip the military’s powers, or whether he can do so at all.
The Abbottabad raid was a watershed event for U.S.-Pakistan relations and many in the Pakistani political establishment were bitter about the way the U.S. treated Pakistani sensitivities. But the report is not expected to change the awkward reality that both countries require each other in the short term – the U.S. needs Pakistan to negotiate its way out of the Afghanistan quagmire, and Pakistan needs financial assistance from the U.S.
Sameer Patil is Associate Fellow, National Security, Ethnic Conflict and Terrorism, at Gateway House.
This article was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.
For interview requests with the author, or for permission to republish, please contact outreach@gatewayhouse.in.
© Copyright 2013 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited.