'ISI aids and abets terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan'

Washington, Jul 1 (PTI) Pakistan spy agency ISI not only
aids and abets terrorist sanctuaries in the country, but also
provides training and intelligence inputs to extremist
outfits, a former top Pentagon General said.
Gen (rtd) Jack Keane also charged that Pakistan Army
headed by General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, who once headed ISI,
has been repeatedly lying to the United States on the matter.
But still, the retired American General argued that the
US has no other option but to have strategic partnership with
Pakistan, given its significance in the war against terrorism.
"The truth is, the ISI aids and abets the sanctuaries in
Pakistan that the Afghan operate out of. They provide training
for them, they provide resources for them and they provide
intelligence for them. From those sanctuaries, every single
day Afghan fighters come into Afghanistan and kill and maim
us," Keane, said at a discussion on Afghanistan organized by
the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based
think-tank.
"There's a direct relationship of ISI's complicity and
the deaths of American soldiers and the catastrophic wounding
of those soldiers. The chief of staff of the Pakistani
military is complicit. He used to be the director of ISI. He
put the guy in there who is in charge now and he has full
knowledge of what I'm just describing," Keane alleged.
He said: "This partnership has got to be based on that
harsh reality. There are two ammonium nitrate factories in
Pakistan. 80 per cent of the explosive devices that are used
to kill our soldiers, kill Afghan security forces and kill
Afghan people come from Pakistan."
"All of what I just said to you, when we confront them
with this, they lie to us. They lie to us just like the Soviet
Union used to lie to us. But we have to have a relationship,
in my judgment, that is based on the harsh reality and the
truth and we go from there in developing this relationship,"
Keane said.
The retired US general said Pakistan is a country of
strategic consequence - much more so than Afghanistan is -
given the size of that population and the growing nuclear
arsenal and the fact that there is a raging insurgency inside
the country to destabilize it. "This is radical Islam who
wants to take over that country, would have that nuclear
arsenal. None of that could we permit to have happen."
"So we have to have a strategic partnership of some sort
with Pakistan. But I think it got to be grounded, once and for
all, on the truth. That’s got to be the basis for this
relationship. And sometimes, I'm not sure it is," he added.
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