ISI, CIA agreement required to carry forward coop: Pasha

From Rezaul H Laskar
Islamabad, May 15 (PTI) The Pakistani military has
asked the US to finalise a formal agreement between CIA and
ISI to carry forward their cooperation, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja
Pasha, facing fire over failure to locate Osama bin Laden in
Pakistan, has told Parliament.
ISI chief, Pasha told the in-camera joint session of
the Senate and National Assembly on Friday that he had
stressed the need to formalise the relationship through an
agreement during a recent meeting with CIA head Leon Panetta.
"It is not possible to carry forward the cooperation
without a formal agreement duly approved by parliament," Pasha
was quoted as saying by an unnamed lawmaker who spoke to Dawn
newspaper.
Several media accounts of the joint session have said
that Pasha had described his meeting with Panetta as stormy.
One report quoted lawmakers as saying that Pasha had
claimed he had a "shouting match" with Panetta during the
recent meeting in the US.
Pasha said his agency had always cooperated with the
CIA and the American spy agency's successes in the war against
terrorism were made possible because of vital information
passed on to it by the ISI, the Dawn reported.
He denied the ISI had concealed anything from the CIA.
"In fact, it is the other way round," Pasha was quoted as
saying.
Citing an example of the CIA's "withholding" of
information, Pasha said the ISI had provided information about
Abu Ahmad Al-Kuwaiti, the courier who led the US to bin Laden.
When the CIA, acting on this lead, arrested one of
Al-Kuwaiti's friends in Kuwait, it did not share the
development with the ISI, Pasha reportedly said.
Pasha said Pakistan would have taken appropriate
measures to kill or arrest Taliban leaders who entered the
country through the porous border with Afghanistan after the
massive bombing of Tora Bora mountains had advance information
been provided by the CIA.
Rejecting allegations that bin Laden was brought to
the garrison city of Abbottabad by the ISI, Pasha said: "Why
would the ISI keep him at a place without escape route and
proper security cover?"
"The fear that we cannot live without America has
taken away our self-respect. Are we to live in humiliation out
of the US fear forever," Pasha was quoted as saying.
In an apparent response to statements from New Delhi
that India too can carry out strikes inside Pakistan, Pasha
said any attack from the east would invite a befitting
response.
He said a contingency plan is in place and targets
inside "India had already been identified".
Pasha told the lawmakers: "We have also carried out
rehearsal for it."
Another report in The News daily quoted PML-N lawmaker
Mushahidullah Khan as saying that Pasha told the joint session
that CIA contractor Raymond Davis was handed over to the US on
the orders of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Khan said Pasha stated: "We advised the government to
resolve the issue. But we did what we were finally asked by
the President and the Prime Minister to do."
"Pasha initially tried to evade the questions but
later said the ISI has acted on the advice of the Prime
Minister and the President," another unnamed lawmaker told the
newspaper.
Pasha did not reveal who paid blood money to the two
men killed by Davis, where the deal was finalised and the
whereabouts of the families of the two dead men.
Khan said he had stated during the joint session that
the ISI should not make or break political parties or create
favourites in any political force.
Pasha responded by reportedly sayings: "On our own, we
have decided to stay away from politics; and when I meet the
army chief, he too says there will be no derailing of the
democratic system."