LAHORE: Lt Gen (r) Javed Nasir, former director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), said on Sunday the ISI was “not answerable to anybody because of its authority, but the perception that it was a state within a state was wrong”.
| And who would ever think otherwise? |
Talking on Geo TV’s programme ‘Jwabdeh’, Nasir said, “The ISI should keep itself away from politics, but rulers usually don’t know the real job of the intelligence agency, which is to present a crystal clear threat evaluation after coordinating all intelligence activities. It’s not the ISI’s job to see whose wife is going out with whom, and who is making money, but unfortunately all intelligence agencies are engaged in similar activities these days. I turned down former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s offer to me to become the ISI chief because I couldn’t pass on reports of people’s personal activities to the government,” Nasir said, adding that the ISI should only work on the prime minister’s directives. |