(CBS/AP) The top U.S. military officer on Thursday accused Pakistain's intelligence agency of supporting Haqqani fighters in planning and conducting last week's attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.The Haqqanis, keep in mind, profess fealty to Mullah Omar, but function as a branch of al-Qaeda. I'm pretty sure Zawahiri lives in North Wazoo, in a Haqqani safe house. The command structure of al-Qaeda in Pakistain is also in the same area and occasionally Haqqanis and al-Q-P bad boyz are bumped off in the same dronezap. Something I've never seen addressed is how many ISI functionaries are waxed at the same time.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pak duplicity puts in jeopardy not only the frayed U.S.-Pak partnership against terrorism but also the outcome to the decade-old war in Afghanistan.
I'm glad we're finally seeing the open use of the term "duplicity." It will elicit the predictable piggy squeals from the Paks, but it shows nobody's even pretending to be fooled anymore.
In his final congressional testimony before retiring next week, Mullen said success in Afghanistan is threatened by the Pak government's support for the Haqqani network of krazed killers, which he called a "veritable arm" of Pakistain's intelligence agency.
... which, in light of what I said above, brings into question the relationship between ISI and al-Qaeda: which is the horse (strong or otherwise) and which is the driver? Or are we looking at interlocking directorates? I suspect the latter.
A Pak government minister who spoke on condition of anonymity to CBS News' Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad said Mullen's accusation that the Pak agency, the ISI, has links to the Haqqani network "will not help to stop the ongoing slide in our relations. Any public bickering of this kind makes it much harder to overcome the damage."
This is the piggy squeal. When we actually comment on Pak perfidy it's not going to stop the ongoing slide in our relations. When they attack downtown Kabul or assassinate Rabanni it's just business, Mike. Don't rock the boat.