In the dimly-lit Islamabad living room on a recent evening, the discussion was focused on who might have leaked the Abbottabad Commission Report to Al-Jazeera. Theories abounded. Everyone who was least likely to know the source had the most elaborate theory about who might have done it, how and to what end. There was hardly any reference to what the report contained, except occasional remarks that veered back to the juicy question of the source of the leak.
Three days later the government ordered the Intelligence Bureau to find out who might have leaked the document that wasn’t supposed to see the light of day. Nothing, as expected, on what the report contained.
It is of course good to find out the person who leaked the report because (s)he didn’t do it out of a desire, Snowden-like, to place the facts before a beleaguered nation. Word has it that (s)he was looking for a lot of money and first approached the BBC which didn’t show much interest, probably because (s)he was asking for USD100 million for it! It is somewhat ironic that AJE might ultimately have got it for USD10,000!
Titillating the story about the leak might be, and is, it nonetheless takes away from the substance, the contents of the report itself and the question of why it was shelved.
It ‘disappeared’ because it spoke the bitter truth. An inquiry that was supposed to find out how Osama bin Laden could live undetected in Pakistan for nine years ended up discovering how the state of Pakistan is dysfunctional at every level of governance; how its military and political leadership is criminally inept and how over the years Pakistan has been turned into a client state of the United States simply because of the lack of spine and the greed of its extractive elites.
The Abbottabad Commission Report is a fascinating read, albeit terribly depressing. The DG-ISI, the man in charge of national intelligence tells the Commission: “...we are a failing state even if we are not yet a failed state.” (page 207; paragraph 496) And again on the same page and in the same paragraph of the report: “...we are a very weak state and also a very scared state. We will take anything and not respond. It all boils down to corrupt and low grade governance.” And why did he carry on, and even get extensions?
Almost similar statements come from the DG-Military Intelligence (MI). These two officers headed, at the time, the two premier intelligence agencies. But while they talk about lack of governance, it doesn’t seem that either of the two, while faulting the civilians, gave a thought to why Pakistan might have reached where it is – or was on the night of the American raid.
Take another example: the DG-MI told the Commission that the “intelligence agencies were now more focused and had put a lot of pressure on the CIA. All their personnel were kept under strict surveillance. The CIA had ‘betrayed’ Pakistan and ‘tarnished its image’. This could not be tolerated.” This is more like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. The DG-ISI was angry that the CIA did not trust the ISI. But when the Commission asked him if the ISI coordinated with the local police and other agencies, he said it did not because it could not trust them. Bingo!
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The report’s observations deal with civilian incompetence, military hubris, the civil-military imbalance, and the woeful functioning of state institutions. It observes that Pakistan suffers from a “Governance Implosion Syndrome”.
The report was shelved, of course, another example of the covenant among the thieves that have governed this country whether in uniform or in civvies. Instead of releasing the report and having an informed debate on it, given the May 2 humiliation and the state of the rot, it was locked away to gather dust.
What is required now is for this government to officially release this report and have an open debate on it. The government is in the process of formulating a security policy under which its counterterrorism strategy is to unfold. Anyone who has read the Abbottabad Commission Report would know that without reading that report the government’s security policy is likely to be half-baked and narrow. The report should be the bedrock of any security policy. Not only does the present government need to restructure the intelligence set-up, it also needs to understand that security in today’s threat environment extends to departments which, ostensibly, deal with non-security functions.
Example: bin Laden’s presence could have been detected at various stages if petty officials did not help him, unwittingly though, to stay below the radar. The dealings of Ibrahim, one of the Kuwaiti brothers, with the functionaries of the state were all illegal. This is how he managed to keep himself and his master outside of the digital database the state has created to trace every citizen’s footprint. Any security policy must therefore, in addition to taking other important measures like intelligence and police reforms, focus on sensitising officials who seem still to be living in an old, staid world.
Moreover, the civilian principals, at every level, must fulfil their responsibilities under the rules of business. Here’s another example. When the Commission met with then Defence Minister, Ch Ahmed Mukhtar, he seemed to be clueless about his remit. He told the Commission he didn’t know anything about his ministry and that they should talk to the Defence Secretary. His constant excuse was that the Ministry of Defense was an extension of the military and a civilian defence minister was kept outside the loop.
This is only partially true. As the Commission noted in its observations, the defence minister took this for granted and never attempted to exercise the powers granted him by law. One such is that he happens to be Chairman of the Defence Council. That body had never met because the minister had never convened it.
The Commission notes that while the ISI and the military’s reluctance to accept civilian control and oversight is unacceptable, “the lack of any interest of the civilian leadership to exercise such control and oversight is even more deplorable.”
This, in many ways, forms the crux of the report. And it highlights the fact that both the military and the civilian government are responsible for perpetuating the structural problems that are weighing down this country and which, unless they are corrected, will likely drown us in the choppy waters we find ourselves in.
The writer is Editor, National Security Affairs, at Capital TV and a Visiting Fellow at SDPI. He tweets @ejazhaider
