Comment: CIA operations in Pakistan will continue despite DoD involvement

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last week, when news emerged that the US will be expanding its unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan, I received several reader emails arguing that the CIA air operations inside Pakistan will soon be over. These expectations are unrealistic. Washington has decided to deploy a separate fleet of drones under military command, which will be deployed alongside, not in replacement of, CIA Predator drones. There appear to be at least three reasons –perhaps as many as four– for this development. First, the expanded use of unmanned predators in Afghanistan and Pakistan reflects a similar tactical modification in Iraq under Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, who was previously the senior US commander in Iraq and has just been appointed to the same post in Afghanistan. Second, by deploying a separate drone fleet along the Afghan-Pakistani border, this time under military command, Washington will be able to accommodate the Pakistanis’ demand that they be given partial control over the unmanned airstrikes, without compromising CIA operational intelligence. Thirdly, by shifting the command of some of the air operations inside Pakistan to the Pentagon, the Obama administration hopes to pacify several of its critics in the United States, who argue that the clandestine and obviously illegal nature of the CIA operations inside Pakistan should be placed under diplomatic or military command, so that international legal standards may be respected. In reality, the CIA air operations inside Pakistan will continue mostly unaffected by the new Pentagon program. Moreover, many security officials in Pakistan fear that the existence of two mostly separate air operations in the country aims to confuse critics of the expansion of the so-called “war on terrorism” into Pakistan, by blurring the lines between US military and intelligence operations in the country.