Posted on 01/20/2002 9:25:53 AM PST by CreekerFreeper
MAG: SECRET PAKISTANI AIRLIFT AIDED TALIBAN, AL QAEDA FIGHTERS
Sun Jan 20 2002 12:15:41 ET
American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers say that Pakistani Army military and intelligence advisers who had been working with the Taliban in Afghanistan were flown to safety in Pakistan during the siege of Kunduz last November, in a series of nighttime airlifts by the Pakistani Air Force!
Controversial Seymour Hersh returns to the pages of the NEW YORKER, according to publishing sources, in the January 28, 2002 edition, hitting racks Monday.
The airlifts "were approved by the Bush Administration," Hersh reports.
The evacuation, which had been conceived of as a limited operation, "apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus."
MORE
One American defense adviser tells Hersh, "Everyone brought their friends with them. You're not going to leave them behind to get their throats cut."
As one senior intelligence official puts it, "Dirt got through the screen."
Indian intelligence officials tell Hersh that they number the escaped officials and fighters at four or five thousand; American intelligence officials put the total far lower. But "the Bush Administration may have done more than simply acquiesce in the rescue effort," Hersh reports.
"At the height of the standoff, according to both a C.I.A. official and a military analyst who has worked with the Delta Force...the Administration ordered the United States Central Command to set up a special air corridor help insure the safety of Pakistani rescue flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of Pakistan."
The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.
Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf won American support for the evacuation, Hersh reports, by warning that losing a large number of Pakistanis would jeopardize his political survival.
In India, a recently retired Indian diplomat tells Hersh, the feeling is that "Musharraf has two-timed you. What have you gained? Have you captured Osama bin Laden?"
A senior Indian intelligence official says, "Musharraf can't afford to keep the Taliban in Pakistan. They're dangerous to his own regime. Our reading is that the fighters can go only to Kashmir."
Kashmir remains the flashpoint. "The situation is bloody explosive," a senior Pakistani diplomat says, suggesting that Musharraf has not been given enough credit by the Indian government for the "sweeping changes" he's brought to Pakistan.
A retired C.I.A. officer who served as a station chief in South Asia tells Hersh he found it especially disturbing that each country had "imperfect intelligence" about the other. "Couple that with the fact that these guys have a propensity to believe the worst of each other, and have nuclear weapons, and you end up saying, 'My God, get me the hell out of here.'"
Developing...
Hold all countries that harbor these terrorist thugs accountable and kill all those leaders who assist them in any way, including that two-faced Pakistani President.
Rumsfeld specifically denied this report this morning on Meet The Press.
oh, c'mon. its politics silly...
That was the only cliche George Bush could remember when he was with his speech writer.
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Exactly right Creeker
From the Meet the Press transcript:
MR. RUSSERT: The New Yorker magazine revisited the subject that we talked about in December, and they insist that in November—and this is the article—that: “In interviews, however, the American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush Administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended consequence, and unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus.” The point being, in November, Pakistan was able to airlift people out of Afghanistan. Did that happen?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I do not believe it happened. I can’t prove a negative, but our people have checked to the extent that it is possible to check. We have had enormous numbers of aircraft and intelligence sensors in various ways watching that area. No one, that I know, in—connected with the United States in any way, has saw any such thing as a major air exodus out of Afghanistan into Pakistan. I have read these stories, I’ve heard these stories, I’ve never been able to run them down. No one has ever been able to run them down and prove them, and I doubt them. I think they’re not true.
Yeah, never mind that this story is false. Just kill the Pakistani President, right?
Sheesh, I am so glad that grownups run our government instead of some of the people here.
b) Hersch's source says 4,000 to 5,000 people were airlifted. That's 50 to 200 flights.
c) There has been one previous story about this activity. Are we to believe that no one saw or reported 50 to 200 Pakistani flights leaving Kunduz airfield, or that the only people who know about are the Indians (who had no known military observers on the ground)?
d) Hersch's story is simply implausible on the face of it.
Musharraf is walking a knife edge, and India chooses this time to up the ante, knowing he has his hands full. Classic opportunistic foreign policy, classic "world's largest democracy".
I watched the Rumsfeld interview on MTP. He clearly was holding back on fully answering the question (which is understandable). Parse his answer ... he said he was not aware of a MAJOR air exodus ... a tacit admission, in my book, that they were aware of (and did nothing to stop) a "MINOR" air exodus out.
I'm sure everyone recalls the sketchy news reports at the time. I think it's best to fess up that they agreed to very limited evacuation of Pakistanis, but that it got out of hand.
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