Of the NID and ‘strategic depth’

It is excellent news that the government is firm on establishing an organisation to oversee intelligence-gathering so that the many spooks under the 26 various organisations and institutions and sub-institutions will report their ‘findings’ about terrorism activities in the country to a central office, the Nacta-headed National Intelligence Directorate, which will then disseminate them to the concerned provinces/organisations for action.

It is also great news that all the ‘stakeholders’, read the army and the elected government, are on (to use a much-abused term) ‘the same page’ on this. But the question is, just how much the various ‘agencies’ will let out to the NID, part as it will be of Nacta, a subordinate office of the Ministry of Interior.

It is of interest to note that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) of the United States does not get the level of support he should from, say the CIA for one, which considers itself the cat’s whiskers amongst the US intelligence community. Indeed, the president of the United States himself, has been known to personally ensure the exchange of information.

Now then, if even in the United States where the Secretary of the Air Force (no, not the president; not the defence secretary) can sack a four-star general at the drop of a hat, the important intelligence agencies do not share full information with others, how can we expect our agencies to do so in Pakistan where, even though the times are changing as I write this, the agencies have ruled supreme?

It is imperative then, is it not, that the NID be supervised by the chief executive himself, by receiving bi-weekly detailed intelligence briefings by the chiefs of the agencies whichever they be, and not just “a wing of the military-run agency (ISI) dealing with issues relating to counterterrorism” reporting to the NID. This is critical now because of the gathering dangers around our country as 2014 draws to a close and US/Nato/Isaf wind down their stay in Afghanistan.

And now to the excerpt from Carlotta Gall’s book to be published next month The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014, published in the New York Times magazine on March 19, 2014. The ISPR has rubbished claims and allegations that some highly placed people in our intelligence community knew where Osama Bin Laden was holing up, even naming the officer who allegedly arranged that awfully ugly house for him in Abbottabad Cantonment.

I have written much on this matter in years past and will not go there: all I want to say to my compatriots who serve in the ‘agencies’ that oversee not only strict adherence to its ‘ideology’, but are also the ‘first line of defence against internal and external threats’ to our dear country, is that the time is definitely here that we are never again even accused of harbouring this or that terrorist. The time is here when we should stand tall and face the world like a country that has some of the finest human resources and most diligent workforces in the world: just go to Hafeez Centre on the Gulberg main boulevard in Lahore and see young men working out of tiny spaces repairing every cell phone/computer/virtually every gadget under the sun and that, too, in record time and at most reasonable cost.

Go to Sialkot and see some of the finest surgical instruments of every kind being made in every household, which are then finished beautifully in the most modern plants; the finest cutlery and knives sold in the West under fancy trade-names and designer labels. Go to Faisalabad or to any of the hundreds of textile units all over the country and see the quality of the cloth manufactured there.

Go to schools in DI Khan and Bannu, riven though they be with militancy, and see fine teachers, both women and men, who have moved there from Fata (where education lies at the whim of the ‘non-state actors’) take pride in their own hard work and in the results their pupils produce. I wept when I saw a photograph in the papers recently that showed Dir schoolchildren sitting outdoors on sodden ground under a heavy drizzle, holding an umbrella with one hand and trying to write their exam with the other, the clipboard balanced on their laps. The caption said the school was bombed to the ground by certain ‘non-state actors’ some months ago (are you listening Imran Khan?). Note that their teachers were invigilating the exam under umbrellas too.

The time definitely is here, gentlemen when we build on our strengths, and what could be braver than a teacher who teaches despite daily threats to his life — or 15-year old boys taking an exam outdoors in the rain in the cold of Dir?

As said before in this space, our good people are our strategic depth: ordinary Pakistanis, and not some foreign country whose people do not look kindly upon us according to a most senior friend who knows the Afghan Pakhtun extremely well.

Incidentally, let me stick my neck out and make a short prediction: All US/Nato troops will not exit Afghanistan, leaving enough forces behind to ensure Kabul does not fall into Taliban hands; who and their cousins, ‘our’ Taliban will then consolidate their hold on the Waziristans with FR Bannu as their ‘strategic depth’. Which might be prevented if we even now realise the monumental mistakes we have made in the past and box in our own weight. Go figure.

Curiously, I was hearing the magnificent Adele sing the heart-stopping “Skyfall” while I was writing this piece. I will end with the following words from her song which fit my piece down to the ground: “Let the Sky fall, When it crumbles, We will stand tall, Face it all together.” As we shall, my friends. So help us, Lord.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2014.

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