Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairwoman Benazir Bhutto has charged that elements of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) “continue the alliance with both the Taliban and Al Qaeda to this very day” on the premise that Pakistan’s security requires “strategic depth” in the shape of a friendly or pliant Afghanistan.In an interview with Nayan Chanda of YaleGlobal, a publication of the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation, Bhutto said that the ISI was continuing to adhere to the old arrangement, “even if it means supporting fanatics”. She said it was not a premise she or her party shared. “We believe it is essential for Pakistan to support democracy in Afghanistan. We want an end to that policy of strategic depth. Afghanistan has traditionally been viewed either as a buffer state or as a forward policy state where there is strategic depth ... I think for us it is much better to have an Afghanistan that is peaceful, that allows us to trade with it, that has good relations with all its neighbours,” she added.
Asked about the US criticism that President Musharraf was not doing enough to capture the Al Qaeda suspects hiding in Pakistan and if it was fair criticism, she replied, “As a Pakistani, it certainly hurts me very much when I see that inevitably the trail of terrorists leads back to my country ... We don’t want to make our country hospitable to such elements. My party, the PPP, severely criticised the peace agreement that was signed in 2006 with the Taliban elements in the tribal regions of Pakistan. We feel that our tribal areas have been ceded to the foreign elements, to Afghan Taliban and Arab and Chechen militants. And now those groups actually administer parts of our territory, holding our people hostage. They dispense their own form of justice. They teach little 12-year-old boys to behead those they accuse of being spies.”
Bhutto said the Musharraf government had verbally expressed sentiment for the right cause of eliminating terrorism and extremism in Pakistan, but unfortunately it had not been able to assert the rule of law in the country.
A government under her control, she promised, would move swiftly to assert law and order in the tribal areas of Pakistan, hunt down the Al Qaeda leaders who were trying to take advantage of the lack of law and order there, stop the drug trade, which was actually funding and fuelling terrorism, and reform the political madrassas that were actually militant headquarters using women and children as human shields.
Asked about the US incursion threats to Pakistan, Bhutto replied, “Well, I can understand why they say that, because they feel that Islamabad has failed to stop the terrorists and that is why they would like to move in. But I will really urge against that. I believe that the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty through unauthorised military action will have very adverse consequences. When under attack, all Pakistanis will forget their differences and will unite. So any unauthorised action would pit NATO against all the people of Pakistan, and I do not think that is advisable. But I think what is advisable is to have a close working relationship. Certainly, when the PPP is elected to power, we intend to restore law and order in our tribal areas and prevent the militants from attacking NATO.”