U.S. Considering New Covert Push Within Pakistan

[cal04]

Source: NYTimes

President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There was also talk of how to handle the period from now to the Feb. 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections.

Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to the government of President Pervez Musharraf was now so grave that both Mr. Musharraf and Pakistan’s new military leadership were likely to give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions were made, said the officials, who declined to speak for attribution because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/washington/06terror.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1199597781-c48Fs1Thvfed7abh2P5Wqg

[tom_paine]

1. LOL. Look at the Bushies crying their crocodile tears and playing the show to the bitter end

Oh yes, the Bushies are VERY upset that they lured Benazir Bhotto to her death. VERY upset indeed.

Funny thing is, as with every Bushies assisted or engineered "surprise tragedy", they will use Bhutto's bloody corpse to solidiy her own and Busharraf's power.

What this equals, I believe, is more Bushie BlackOps money funneled to Busharraf, ISI and al-Qaeda.

[lovuian]

2. Wow Bush & Company just might as well say We are in charge

I guess US troops are going to Pakistan now

[badgervan]

3. Six Plus Years Too Late

And Mush is living on borrowed time. Everything bush touches turns to crapola.

[monktonman]

4. Just in time for our elections is more like it.

Pakistan has how many missiles?
How convienient for dick and his men.
They're not debating whether to expand authority, but how to do it.
Now that Iran has turned out to be a dud for them, for now,
A nuclear crisis in Pakistan would be a great excuse to either scare people to the right
or postpone elections altogether.
Pretty cool huh?

[ohio2007]

5. Actually, their "horse" in the Pakistani race was assassinated for planning to

implement just this plan.
I doubt Shariff is anti insurgent as much as Bhutto was.

But what other horses are running in that rescheduled for Feb Pak pres race ?
Only groups that want to sever all ties with the west?
ok

[monktonman]

6. To believe that you'd have to believe the pukes want to kill OBL

[librechik]

7. sshhh! They'll never know we're on the way!

:rofl:

[Robbien]

8. This is worrisome. Cheney pushing for bombing of Pakistan

The CIA has launched missiles from Predator aircraft in the tribal areas several times, with varying degrees of success.

Under current US laws, most counterterrorism operations in Pakistan have to be conducted by the CIA. In Afghanistan the military can take the lead.

The legal status would not change if the administration decided to act more aggressively. However, if the CIA were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military, or deputise some Special Operations forces to act under the authority of the agency.

That sounds not like a new covert activity but a full on direct bombing assault of Pakistan. They are just hiding behind the fact that it is a CIA led warlike activity therefore can call it covert.