Pervez PervMusharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
allowed the CIA to conduct Drone strikes in Pakistain's tribal areas as long as the United States kept away from the country's nuclear facilities and mountain camps where faceless myrmidons were being trained for attacks on India, according to explosive new disclosures that break the wall of silence from both sides on the controversial Predator attacks, and if accurate, again exposes U.S duplicity on terrorism.
The breakthrough moment reportedly occurred in 2004 when Pakistain, which had till then resisted pressure from the US to allow it to conduct Drone strikes, was humiliated militarily by a tribal warlord named Nek Mohammad.
"Muhammad's rise to power forced them to reconsider," the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
related in an account of the deal in Sunday. "The CIA had been monitoring the rise of Mr. Muhammad (in South
Wazoo) but officials considered him to be more Pakistain's problem than America's. In Washington, officials were watching with growing alarm the gathering of Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas, and George Tenet, the CIA director, authorized officers in the agency's Islamabad station to push Pak officials to allow armed drones." According to the report, negotiations were handled primarily by the Islamabad station of the CIA, with the station chief calling on then ISI Director General Ehsan ul Haq to discuss terms of the deal: The CIA would kill Mohammad if ISI allowed armed Drone flights over tribal areas. Pakistain's terms: they should be allowed to approve each drone strike, giving them tight control over the list of targets; and nuclear facilities and terror camps directed against India would be no-go areas.
Implicit in the report is Washington's acceptance of the terms, considering that India-specific terror camps remain untouched by Drones.
The report says the ISI and the CIA agreed that all drone flights in Pakistain would operate under the CIA's covert action authority - meaning that the United States would never acknowledge the missile strikes and that Pakistain would either take credit for the individual killings or remain silent. As it turned out, Pakistain did take credit for killing Nek Mohammad, even though the CIA had done the job.
The deal also had the stamp of approval from Musharraf, who the NYT says, did not think that it would be difficult to keep up the ruse.
"In Pakistain, things fall out of the sky all the time," it cites him as telling a CIA officer, in a callous remark that is certain to make his already torrid situation in Pakistain even more difficult.