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The US-Pakistan rift appears to be widening as Washington suspects the hand of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in leaking the name of CIA’s station chief in apparent retaliation for the unilateral American operation against Osama bin Laden.
US officials view the outing of the name of the top official as an effort to complicate CIA’s functioning following the raid by demonstrating the leverage that Pakistan has over American interests in the country.
The CIA station chief in Islamabad runs one of the largest operations of the US intelligence agency and is thought to have played a major role in overseeing efforts to confirm bin Laden’s location before last week’s raid.
A Pakistani television station first aired the CIA official’s name, a misspelled version of which appeared the next day in The Nation, a newspaper regarded as close to Pakistan’s security establishment.
This is the second time that the name of the CIA’s top man in Pakistan has been outed. The first one less than a six months ago is also suspected here to be the ISI’s handiwork.
A US official cited by the Washington Post said the suspicion was “based on past history”, indicating that evidence had accumulated in recent months that the ISI was behind the exposure of the station chief last year. The outing that time led the CIA to shift the officer out of Pakistan.
The Obama administration is apparently dismayed by Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s sharp criticism of the US’s unilateral strike on the Osama compound instead of focusing on how bin Laden managed to hide in plain sight in Pakistan for nearly eight years.
However, on record, the White House opted not to join issues, except to say that it would not apologise for the operation. When asked to comment on Gilani’s speech to Pakistan’s National Assembly, spokesman Jay Carney commented: “We obviously take the statements and concerns of the Pakistani Government seriously, but we also do not apologize for the action that we took.”
Carney recalled once again that Obama during his election campaign had stated that “if there is an opportunity to bring Osama bin Laden to justice and he is on Pakistani soil and this is the only way we can do it, do it unilaterally, he will take that chance and do it -- and he did. It’s simply beyond a doubt in his mind that he had the right and the imperative to do this”.
The spokesman, however, hastened to add that the relationship with Pakistan remains very important to the US. “We will work with the Prime Minister and the President and other Government leaders in Pakistan to work through our differences and continue the cooperation that we’ve had in the past that has led to so many successes in the fight against terrorism and terrorists,” Carney said.
US officials view the outing of the name of the top official as an effort to complicate CIA’s functioning following the raid by demonstrating the leverage that Pakistan has over American interests in the country.
The CIA station chief in Islamabad runs one of the largest operations of the US intelligence agency and is thought to have played a major role in overseeing efforts to confirm bin Laden’s location before last week’s raid.
A Pakistani television station first aired the CIA official’s name, a misspelled version of which appeared the next day in The Nation, a newspaper regarded as close to Pakistan’s security establishment.
This is the second time that the name of the CIA’s top man in Pakistan has been outed. The first one less than a six months ago is also suspected here to be the ISI’s handiwork.
A US official cited by the Washington Post said the suspicion was “based on past history”, indicating that evidence had accumulated in recent months that the ISI was behind the exposure of the station chief last year. The outing that time led the CIA to shift the officer out of Pakistan.
The Obama administration is apparently dismayed by Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s sharp criticism of the US’s unilateral strike on the Osama compound instead of focusing on how bin Laden managed to hide in plain sight in Pakistan for nearly eight years.
However, on record, the White House opted not to join issues, except to say that it would not apologise for the operation. When asked to comment on Gilani’s speech to Pakistan’s National Assembly, spokesman Jay Carney commented: “We obviously take the statements and concerns of the Pakistani Government seriously, but we also do not apologize for the action that we took.”
Carney recalled once again that Obama during his election campaign had stated that “if there is an opportunity to bring Osama bin Laden to justice and he is on Pakistani soil and this is the only way we can do it, do it unilaterally, he will take that chance and do it -- and he did. It’s simply beyond a doubt in his mind that he had the right and the imperative to do this”.
The spokesman, however, hastened to add that the relationship with Pakistan remains very important to the US. “We will work with the Prime Minister and the President and other Government leaders in Pakistan to work through our differences and continue the cooperation that we’ve had in the past that has led to so many successes in the fight against terrorism and terrorists,” Carney said.
