Blackwater in Pakistan: But What Did The I.S.I. Know?

By Steve Hynd

Our good friend Jeremy Scahill broke a truly massive story yesterday at The Nation.

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

...A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."

Read, as they say, the whole thing. The story involves not just Blackwater - using its subsiduary Total Intelligence Solutions which is run by former Bush counter-terrorism czar J. Cofer Black - but also General Stan McChrystal,  Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney.

Jeremy quotes another friend, Pakistani journalist Mousharraf Zaidi, on what it means to Pakistanis.

In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the military intelligence source.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious questions about the norms of international relations. "The immediate question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?" asks Zaidi, who is currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language daily in Pakistan. "Let's forget Blackwater for a second. What this is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan that aren't about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force inside of Pakistani territory."

Jeremy's story seems to confirm some of the worst Pakistani news reports about Blackwater/Xe's involvement there - stories that have been labelled as "conspiracy theories" until now. Pakistani Interior Minister Rehamn Malik even went so far as to promise he'd resign if Blackwater were working in Pakistan - which he now won't do, of course.

And while Jeremy's piece will doubtless cause further waves in the U.S., where Blackwater's continued use by the Obama administration has been questioned by the likes of Representatives Henry Waxman and Jan Schakowsky, that's as nothing compared to the political tsunami this story might unleash once Pakistanis absorb the implications.

For instance, according to Jeremy Scahill's sources, Blackwater's involvement in Pakistan began in 2006: "the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission." General Musharraf, Bush's staunch ally, was in charge of Pakistan at the time. But the head of Pakistan's I.S.I. intelligence agency during that period was none other than current head of the army and power behind Zardari's throne, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. It's inconcievable that Kayani wasn't in the loop, that he didn't have knowledge of all this - or in the unlikley circumstance that Musharraf didn't tell the spymaster he later personally hand-picked to head the military that the vaunted I.S.I. didn't find out in short order.

So the questions will be tough ones. What did Kayani know and what did he tell the civilian government that replaced Musharraf's dictatorship? What did his own hand-picked I.S.I. head, Gen. Pasha, know and did he tell the civilian leadership?  Exactly who has been leaking all those Blackwater stories to the Pakistani press: was it an I.S.I. leak, either official or unofficial? And worst of all - have President Zardari and his ministers been snowing the Pakistani public all along?

My guess is that Kayani is untouchable - his position as kingmaker is too secure. But Gen Pasha might get flung under the bus, along with Rehman Malik and possibly even President Zardari himself. Still, yet again a dumb Cheney bit of bloodthirst perpetuated by the Obama administration will destabilize a foreign nation and America's standing.