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India-Pakistan
The state’s secrets
2017-05-04
[DAWN] SIX years from the shocking episode, and in the midst of today’s turmoil over national security, Minister of State for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb has bluntly rejected the possibility of making public the Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
 Commission report. Ms Aurangzeb did suggest that, at some indeterminate point in the future, a government may decide to release the commission report, but made it clear that the so-called sensitive nature of the report would have to be kept in mind before publication. The minister’s remarks appear to be in line with official thinking on the matter and are highly regrettable. There were two questions at the heart of the Abbottabad episode. One, how was the world’s most-wanted terrorist, leader of Al Qaeda, the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse...
, able to live undetected in Abbottabad for many years?
A very good question, indeed.
Two, how was the US military able to insert troops deep inside Pakistain; conduct an operation on the ground in a major town far from an international border; and withdraw its troops several hours later without being detected or challenged by the Pak security forces at any stage, in any place, on ground or in the air?
That one is easy. American Special Forces are like unto ghosts in the night -- unseen, unheard, and unfelt until they choose to make their presence known. When you see nothing to trouble or concern you, at that moment you know you have been outflanked and encircled, your next breath to be allowed or withheld as they choose. Who but they (or the Indians) could have outmaneuvered the Army of the pure so completely?
To those two fundamental questions, a third must be added: was anyone held responsible for the sanctuaries Bin Laden was able to find in Pakistain for many years and for the inability to detect or stop a major US incursion on Pak soil?

With the first two questions unanswered, or perhaps with the answers buried in the secret Abbottabad Commission report, the question of public accountability is impossible to answer. Therein lies the real threat to national security: how can Pakistain be made more secure and its people safer if the state is unwilling to acknowledge its failures, explain what went wrong, determine who was at fault, identify who is to be held responsible and clarify what steps have been taken to prevent a repetition of a convulsive episode? In the US, the events of Sept 11 led to a 9/11 commission report that exhaustively detailed both the attacks and the institutional failures that allowed the attacks to happen. As a result, wide-ranging intelligence and security changes were made in the US, including the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. Fifteen and a half years later, there has not been another attack inside the US that has remotely approached the scale of the 9/11 destruction.

Can any reasonable citizen of Pakistain or observer of the state claim with any degree of confidence that the country has been secured from a repeat of an episode like May 2, 2011? The problem is really of institutional culture and a resistance to change and censure. From the Hamoodur Rehman commission to the inquiry into the Salala attacks, a culture of secrecy has dominated. If Pakistain is to have stronger institutions, transparency and accountability must be embraced.

Posted by:Fred

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