Daily Times

The Al Jazeera news network has
published the leaked report of the Abbottabad Commission probing the circumstances around the killing of the al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (OBL). The four-member independent commission of inquiry had been appointed as a result of the unanimous resolution of the joint session of Pakistan’s parliament held in the immediate aftermath of OBL’s killing in May 2011 in a US special operation in Abbottabad where he had been holed up for years. The 336-page report has received praise for its painstaking work during which the commission members interviewed over 200 people and visited various relevant sites including the OBL home next door to the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul.

The thrust of the Commission’s findings is that gross negligence and incompetence at every level of the Pakistani security establishment and a level of indifference in the political establishment led to the debacle, which it describes as the “greatest humiliation visited upon Pakistan since its break up in 1971.” Poring over the report, it is hard not to think of then president General Pervez Musharraf’s verbal and near-physical altercation with the former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh circa 2007. Saleh had told the Pakistani dictator that OBL was hiding somewhere in the Mansehra area. Banging his fist on the table, Musharraf is said to have taken umbrage at the charge and responded: “Am I the president of a banana republic?” Unfortunately, reading through the OBL dossier, banana republic is exactly what Pakistan comes across as. From the land records keeper to the air and army chiefs, no one appeared to have any clue. From politicians and police to military intelligence, all seemed to believe that the supposedly omnipresent and omnipotent ISI had got it all under control, only to discover that the mother of all agencies did not have its act together. At least, this is what the Commission concludes, i.e. the ISI had apportioned itself responsibilities that were legally and constitutionally not theirs and then failed miserably to carry those out. The report seems to err on the side of caution and while abundantly blaming the Pakistani state’s civil and military arms for monumental ineptitude, it clearly stops short of a pronouncement on their connivance and complicity, especially on the latter’s part.

The report alludes to the prospect of rogue elements of the security establishment, perhaps ex-servicemen, harbouring or facilitating sanctuary to OBL but is really skimpy on how it excluded such a possibility. The civilians are really taken to the cleaners with the Commission going through the number of visas issued at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, DC with a fine-toothed comb but it fails to ask about the visas issued by the Defence Attaché at the same embassy. The Commission seems to have taken at face value the Adjutant General’s word that the “visas for foreign nationals working with the Pakistan Army were processed by the Joint Services Headquarters, which issued No Objection Certificates.” Much fuss is made about the “backstabbing Americans violating Pakistan’s sovereignty” and the CIA gaining a foothold allegedly due to the visa regime approved by the civilian prime minister. The Commission did not bother to ask who those foreign nationals were that the Adjutant General had referred to. Similarly, no questions were asked about how efficient and effective the security agencies vetting processes were, which the civilians supposedly bypassed.

The Adjutant General’s account casually mentions the potential of retired armed forces personnel being part of OBL’s support network but then rules it out summarily. The Commission did not seem to have pressed him on this. Some have argued that the Commission’s terms of reference did not include probing OBL’s links with the domestic jihadists in Pakistan. However, the Commission itself had identified that the very first objective of its mandate was to “ascertain the full facts regarding OBL’s presence in Pakistan” and it was imperative for it to look at the jihadist milieu of the military and society, which could have assisted the al Qaeda leader to hide in plain sight. The ISI in particular has had a distinct Islamist bent that reflected in the words and conduct of several of its former directors from General Hamid Gul’s verbose jihadism to his course-mate General Javed Nasir’s visibly radical Islamisation of the ISI a la Tablighi Jamaat to which he belonged. Some of the radicalised officers might have left their parent outfit but are unlikely to have abandoned their jihadist creed. The Commission either did not find it relevant to probe the role of such former officers in providing safe haven to OBL or opted to remain reticent if it did.

The former ISI director General Ahmed Shuja Pasha however was anything but reticent in his testimony. He castigated anyone and everyone from the politicians to his former boss General Musharraf. General Pasha vacillated between paranoia and grandeur in content but his words were ominous nonetheless. He seems to think that both the Pakistani civilians and the US are out to get the Pakistani Army and, perhaps Pakistan, and only his former outfit has the wherewithal to counter that. That is a dangerous drift and perhaps not an aberration but a reflection of how the ISI views things. It becomes more alarming given that the ISI has been ascendant within the army establishment over the last several years with some corps commanders now coming from within its ranks. It is pertinent to recall that when asked about why he was unwilling to apprehend the Quetta-based Taliban leadership, General Pasha had infamously told Der Spiegel: “Shouldn’t they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn’t that freedom of opinion?” Was there a similar thinking at work vis-à-vis OBL? The Commission failed to inquire that despite knowing that the current al Qaeda and Taliban chiefs are still at large.

At the time of the OBL assassination a window of opportunity existed for the then government to try to assert civilian supremacy over the military that was on the ropes then but it squandered it for assorted reasons. Perhaps not of the same magnitude but a chance exists for Mian Nawaz Sharif today. The first step in that direction would be for the current government to officially publish the Abbottabad Commission Report. But given the way Mr Sharif’s government has handled the issue it seems that he might just be following his predecessors.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki