For an insider account of the challenges to developing the CIA’s Predator program prior to 9/11, see Henry A. Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence (New York: Penguin, 2012), pp. 148–60.
62 “The Year of the Drone,” New America Foundation, http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/
drones/2010.
63 “The Drone Wars,” Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2010.
64 Christi Parsons and Michael A. Memoli, “Obama Opens Up about Drone Strikes in Pak-
istan,” Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/31/nation/
la-na-obama-drones-20120131.
65 “The Ethics and Efficacy of the President’s Counterterrorism Strategy,” Transcript of Remarks by John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, April 30, 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter
.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Sussex Library, on 05 Mar 2019 at 17:35:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107053755.005
154
No Exit from Pakistan
implications” such as “what effect, if any, an action might have on our rela-
tionships with other countries.”
Brennan’s 2012 speech was an important contribution to the American
policy debate. It reflected years of experience. Indeed, central to the history of
the drone campaign inside Pakistan was its evolution over time. At the outset,
neither Islamabad nor Washington could have anticipated where the use of
drones would lead.66 Both struggled to manage the public face of the program.
The first U.S. drone attack in Pakistan killed Taliban leader and al-Qaeda
affiliate Nek Muhammed in 2004. President Musharraf authorized it.67 Pub-
licly, Pakistan’s military took responsibility for the missile strike, calling it a
rocket attack even though eyewitnesses saw a drone overhead.68 Washington
stood by silently. Had drones remained a rarity, Pakistan’s official claims might
have been just plausible enough to get by. They would have offered the Ameri-
cans latitude to kill important terrorist leaders while maintaining the convenient
political fiction that Pakistan exercised full control over its sovereign territory.
In December 2005, however, a Pakistani journalist, Hayat Ullah Khan,
published photos of Hellfire missile fragments at the North Waziristan site of a
successful attack on a senior member of al-Qaeda.69 Other media accounts also
suggested that the U.S. drones were flying from Pakistani airbases – Jacobabad
and Shamsi.70 The cat was out of the bag. A month later, a drone strike in
Bajaur agency near the Afghan border sparked anti-U.S. protests by thousands
of tribesmen.
In October 2006, another drone killed some eighty people inside a Bajaur
madrasah. The Pakistani military tried to take credit for the attack, but the
intensity of the local and national backlash was impossible to contain. Tribes-
men dismissed out of hand the army’s claim that its own helicopters had
66 According to one of the top CIA officers charged with developing the Predator program, “By 2011 some pundits, in a vigorous defense of President Obama’s employment of armed Predators, noted that drone attacks have become a centerpiece of national security policy. Some experts would proclaim the armed Predator the most accurate weapon in the history of war. In 2001 we had no idea that would be the case. We just wanted verification of our HUMINT, a war to employ our intelligence and to eliminate UBL.” See Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, p. 158.
Also, for an excellent firsthand perspective from a reporter covering the drone war in Pakistan’s tribal areas, see Pir Zubair Shah, “My Drone War,” Foreign Policy (March/April 2012), http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/my drone war?page=full.
67 Author conversation with Pakistani official, Islamabad, May 2012. That conversation was confirmed by Musharraf’s subsequent statement to the press. See Nic Robertson and Greg Botelho,
“Ex-Pakistani President Musharraf Admits Secret Deal with U.S. on Drone Strikes,” CNN, April 12, 2013, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/11/world/asia/pakistan-musharraf-drones/.
68 Ismail Khan and Dilawar Khan Wazir, “Night Raid Kills Nek, Four Other Militants: Wana Operation,” Dawn, June 19, 2004, http://archives.dawn.com/2004/06/19/top1.htm.
69 There are reasons to suspect that Hayat Ullah Khan may have paid for this story with his life.
See “A Journalist in the Tribal Areas,” Front Line, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
taliban/tribal/hayatullah.html.
70 Williams, “The CIA’s Covert Predator Drone War in Pakistan,” pp. 874, 882.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Sussex Library, on 05 Mar 2019 at 17:35:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107053755.005
Great Expectations to Greater Frustrations
155
fired the missiles. Too many people had heard the drones circling overhead.
National Islamist politicians picked up the story and castigated the Ameri-
can drone strike as “an alien attack . . . tantamount to a declaration of war
on Pakistan.”71 Finally, and most painfully for the Pakistani army, a suicide
bomber retaliated for the Bajaur strike. He blew himself up and took forty
soldiers with him in the deadliest terror attack on the army to that point.
As a consequence, the Musharraf regime altered its public stance on
drones, but it did not tell the truth publicly about its tacit cooperation with
Washington.72 As new drone strikes took place, Pakistani leaders stayed mum
or bowed to public opinion and issued empty denunciations of U.S. incursions
on Pakistani territory. Without tangible signs that Islamabad was serious about
curtailing drone strikes, however, U.S. officials could only interpret Pakistan’s
stance as a wink and a nod.
By 2008, the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the FATA had
gotten out of hand. President Bush and members of his national security team
resolved to expand America’s counterterror campaign in the waning months
of his term. In a momentous July decision, the president authorized Special
Forces raids against terrorist compounds inside the FATA without prior con-
sent from the Pakistani government or army.73 This reflected concerns within
the U.S. government that providing advance warning to the Pakistanis would
too often translate into tipoffs to the terrorist targets. Those concerns could
only have been reinforced by the Haqqani network’s attack on the Indian
embassy in Kabul that summer, which U.S. officials publicly linked to the ISI.74
Nevertheless, given the relatively accommodating attitude that top leaders in
Islamabad had so far demonstrated about drone attacks, Washington assumed
there would be a similar response to its new escalation.75
That assumption was wrong. In September 2008, U.S. Special Forces in
Afghanistan launched a raid on a compound in Angoor Ada, South Waziristan.
American helicopters flew the commandos across the border from Afghanistan
and the mission was supported by an AC-130 gunship circling overhead.
71 Anwarullah Khan, “Pakistan Army kills Up to 80 at Qaeda-linked School,” Reuters, October 31, 2006, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c id=
2&objectid=10408444.
72 On the beginning of this Pakistani re-think, see Christina Lamb, “U.S. Carried out Madrasah Bombing,” Sunday Times, November 26, 2006.
73 On the Bush policy shift in July 2008, see Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign against Al-Qaeda (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), pp. 99–103.
74 Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, “Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say,” New York Times, August 1, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/asia/01pstan.html?
r=1.
75 On the U.S. miscalculation, see Sean D. Naylor, “Spec Ops Raids into Pakistan Halted,”
Army Times, September 26, 2008, http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/Army border ops 092608w/; also Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike, p. 123.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Sussex Library, on 05 Mar 2019 at 17:35:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107053755.005
156
No Exit from Pakistan
Two dozen militants were reported dead, none of them high-level terrorists.76
Musharraf’s successor as army chief, the chain-smoking, normally inscrutable
General Kayani, went through the roof. “No external force is allowed to con-
duct operations inside Pakistan,” Kayani declared, warning that Pakistan’s
sovereignty would be defended “at all costs.”77 The military’s spokesman,
Major General Athar Abbas, said the new orders to Pakistani forces were
clear: “In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant
detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or
in the air: open fire.”78 Pakistan’s parliament echoed these calls and threatened
to shut down U.S. supply routes into Afghanistan.79
In effect, Kayani was drawing a bright red line: U.S. commando raids were
unacceptable. Not only were they a more blatant violation of Pakistan’s terri-
tory, but they were more likely to be directed against Afghan Taliban groups
like the Haqqanis with which Pakistani generals did not want to pick a fight.
The Bush administration took the message and shelved plans for more cross-
border raids.
Drones, on the other hand, were another story. Between 2004 and 2007,
Washington launched nine drone attacks. In 2008 alone, it launched thirty-
three, and all but five of these took place after President Bush’s July policy
shift.80 President Obama accelerated the trend. If KLB was the new adminis-
tration’s carrot to dangle before the eyes of the Pakistani people, drones were
its biggest stick for hitting Pakistan-based terrorists. In this case, the stick was
much more effective than the carrot. The Obama team killed most of al-Qaeda’s
top leadership. The rest were forced to run for cover from the drones.
Groups like al-Qaeda are never defeated all at once. Terrorists can always
regenerate their ranks if given the time and space. But there should be no
question that by 2012 Washington had achieved major counterterror victories
in Pakistan. As White House counterterror chief John Brennan put it a year after
bin Laden’s death, “for the first time since this fight began, we can look ahead
and envision a world in which the al-Qaida core is simply no longer relevant.”81
The drone was the breakthrough tool that made such a vision possible.
76 Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, “Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan,” New York Times, September 11, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11policy
.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
77 Jane Perlez, “Pakistan’s Military Chief Criticizes U.S. over a Raid,” New York Times, September 10, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/world/asia/11pstan.html.
78 Mark Tran, “Pakistan Orders Troops to Fire on US Cross-Border Raids,” Guardian, September 16, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/16/pakistan.afghanistan.
79 Raja Asghar, “Outraged Parliament Wants Border Raids Repulsed,” Dawn, September 5, 2008, http://archives.dawn.com/2008/09/05/top1.htm.
80 “The Year of the Drone,” New America Foundation, http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/
drones/2007.
81 “The Ethics and Efficacy of the President’s Counterterrorism Strategy,” Wilson Center, April 30, 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Sussex Library, on 05 Mar 2019 at 17:35:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107053755.005
Great Expectations to Greater Frustrations
157
Pakistan’s Drone Debate
As the drone attacks increased in the waning days of the Bush administration,
Pakistan’s official indignation over the obvious “violations” of its sovereignty
remained muted. Over time, however, Pakistan’s domestic debate over drones
grew more complicated.
Inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, U.S. drones became increasingly discerning
about their targets, reducing civilian casualties and decimating the leadership
ranks of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In response, the terrorists took out their
aggressions on local tribesmen who they accused of spying for the Americans.
Their punishments were brutal. Beheaded corpses with “American spy” plac-
ards were strung up in the street for all to see. Squeezed between terrorists and
drones, many locals started to see drones as the lesser evil.82
Islamabad continued to issue pro forma statements against the drones, but
its position was transparently absurd. Behind closed doors, Pakistan’s civilian
leaders endorsed the American strategy.83 For their part, Pakistani military
officials negotiated with Americans about where armed drones were welcome
and where they were not, narrowing attacks to specific regions, or “boxes,”
inside the FATA.84
On a summer night in 2009, a drone-launched Hellfire missile decapitated
Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader responsible for the murder of
Benazir Bhutto, among many other atrocities. The CIA shared its video of the
attack with Pakistani officials who not only cheered the killing but also shared
their amazement about the feat with journalists.85 Some top Pakistani officials
(including the retired Musharraf) stopped complaining about the drones per se
and shifted their attention to the question of how Pakistan’s military could get
its own hands on armed drones.86
Even so, opposition leaders, including the increasingly popular cricket star-
turned-politician Imran Khan, drew large crowds to anti-drone protests. They
inveighed against America’s humiliating violation of Pakistani sovereignty.
However much drones might be appreciated in Washington, in Islamabad’s
highest offices, or even in the humble homes of many long-suffering tribesmen,
they came at some political cost with the rest of the Pakistani public. To drone
82 Mosharraf Zaidi, “The Consensus about Drones – Part I,” The News, May 11, 2010, http://www.mosharrafzaidi.com/2010/05/11/the-consensus-about-drones-part-i/.
83 Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “Washington’s Phantom War,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2011), p. 16.
84 Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Prepares for a Curtailed Relationship with Pakistan,” New York Times, Dece
mber 25, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/world/asia/us-preparing-for-pakistan-to-restrict-support-for-afghan-war.html?pagewanted=all; Zia Khan, “CIA likely to resume drone strikes,” The Express Tribune, January 9, 2012, http://tribune.com.pk/story/
318690/cia-likely-to-resume-drone-strikes/.
85 Mayer, “The Predator War.”
86 On these requests and Pakistan’s own effort to field drones, see Williams, “The CIA’s Covert Predator Drone War,” p. 886.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Sussex Library, on 05 Mar 2019 at 17:35:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107053755.005
158
No Exit from Pakistan
opponents, U.S. officials viewed Pakistan as little more than its battleground,
its leaders as stooges, and its people as pawns, or worse, as “collateral dam-
age.” In different ways, these arguments fit into many of Pakistan’s preexisting
anti-American narratives and rendered them all the more potent.
The Pakistani military was sensitive to these political costs. Even if the
generals had tried to shift the national debate away from the sovereignty issue,
they would have had trouble making the case effectively. The army’s claim
to being the sole defender of the nation and the fact that many rank-and-
file soldiers felt deep misgivings about U.S. counterterror policies would pose
real obstacles. Like Musharraf, Kayani was willing to push the bounds of his
cooperation with Washington in narrow ways where he felt the politics could
be managed and when the targets were not Pakistan’s proxies.87 Drone attacks
were acceptable as long as they were targeted against groups that had declared
war on the Pakistani state, like al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).
Even then, strikes were better if they remained relatively infrequent and inside
specified territorial limits so as to limit the public perception that Pakistan’s
sovereignty (and the army’s honor) was being violated.
But the Obama administration chose to push each of these limits. Kayani and
other senior officers grew more and more incensed by Washington’s cavalier
Daniel S Markey Page 33
