Musharraf quit army post on my advice: George Bush

SLAMABAD: Former US president George W Bush has disclosed, after exactly three years, that former Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf resigned from the post of chief of army staff, lifted the emergency and held free elections upon his “strong suggestion” in the fall of 2007.

Bush also confirmed for the first time that he authorised his military’s use of drone attacks within Pakistan after the Taliban exploited the worsening political situation in the country and heightened their operation in Afghanistan which led to an increase in violence and forced many Afghans to turn against their government and Nato forces. Bush has also alleged that “some” in the Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI) retained ties with Taliban officials despite making a commitment with Washington to side with American forces.

The former US president made these and other disclosures in his autobiography titled “Decision Points” which hit the stalls in the United States last week.

In an exclusive chapter on “Afghanistan”, which also deals with Pakistan, Bush revealed how he had made the decision to invade Kabul post 9/11 and how over just one telephone call from his Secretary of State Colin Powell, Musharraf had agreed to cooperate in the American war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and to accept a list of “non-negotiable” demands handed over to Islamabad.

Narrating the role of Musharraf in his war against the Taliban, Bush has written that on September 13, Colin Powell called Musharraf and made clear that the former president had to decide whose side he was on. He was presented with a list of non-negotiable demands, including condemning the 9/11 attacks, denying al Qaeda a safe haven in Pakistan, sharing intelligence, granting the US over-flight rights and breaking diplomatic ties with the Taliban.

Musharraf was facing intense internal pressure at the time. Turning against the Taliban was unthinkable for hardliners in his government and the intelligence service. Bush wrote that he called Musharraf from Camp David during a break in the war council meeting. “I want to thank you for listening to our sad nation’s requests and I look forward to working with you to bring these people to justice,” I said. “The stakes are high. We are with you,” Musharraf had told the American president.

Providing a background of the nature of relationship with Pakistan and how he had made the former military leadership of the country fall in line, Bush wrote in his book, “Our relationship with Pakistan proved complex. But within four days of the 9/11 attacks, we had turned Afghanistan’s pivotal neighbour from a supporter of the Taliban to a partner in removing them from power. The primary cause of trouble did not originate from Afghanistan or as some suggested from Iraq. It came from Pakistan. For most of my presidency, Pakistan was led by president Musharraf. I admired his decision to side with the Americans after 9/11. He held parliamentary elections in 2002, which his party won and spoke about “modern enlightenment” as an alternative to Islamic extremism. He took a serious risk to battle al Qaeda. Terrorists tried to assassinate him at least four times. In the months after we liberated Afghanistan, I told Musharraf I was troubled by reports of al Qaeda and Taliban forces fleeing into the loosely governed tribal areas of Pakistan an area often compared to the wild west. I would be more than willing to send my special forces across the border to clean out the areas, I said.”

“Musharraf told me that sending Americans troops to combat in Pakistan would be viewed as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. A revolt would likely ensue. His government would probably fall. Extremists would take over the country including his nuclear arsenal. In that case, I told him his soldiers needed to take the lead. For several years, the arrangement worked. Pakistani forces netted hundreds of terrorists including al Qaeda leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Abu Zubaydah and Abu Faraj al Libbi. Musharraf also arrested Dr AQ Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2010.

Musharaf for Anyiam-Osigwe lecture

Former Pakistan President, Mr. Pervez Musharraf, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s 12th session of the Anyiam-Osigwe annual lecture series.

As part of efforts to further subject the development philosophy of the late sage to academic scrutiny, the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, will host an international conference from Monday 22nd to Wednesday 24th November, with academics from different universities in Nigeria, Philippines, United Kingdom, Poland, Australia, Jamaica, Netherlands, Ghana and Cameroun presenting papers.

Pervez Musharraf Biography ( 1943 – ) @ biography.com

Political leader, military officer. Born August 11, 1943, in Mohallah Kacha Saad Ullah, Old Delhi. The son of a diplomat, Pervez Musharraf was raised in Karachi, Pakistan, and Istanbul, Turkey. He was a member of the Pakistan Military Academy's elite Artillery Regiment in the 1960s and fought in the 1965 war against India. Musharraf served as company commander of the Special Service Group Commando Battalion in the 1971 war with India. He worked his way up through the military and political ranks to become general and chief of army staff in 1998. Musharraf took over as Pakistan's president in a bloodless coup in 1999 and led the country until his resignation in 2008.

Pervez Musharraf was born into a family of civil servants. His father, Syed Musharraf Uddin, was a member of the Pakistani Foreign Service and later, retired as secretary of foreign affairs. His mother, Zarin, worked for the United Nations Organization. Shortly after the India-Pakistan division in 1947, Syed moved his wife and three children, Musharraf, older son Javed, and youngest son, Naved from Old Delhi, India, to Pakistan.

The family spent seven years, from 1949 to 1956, in Istanbul, Turkey, where his father was a diplomat. Pervez Musharraf became fluent in Turkish and gained an appreciation for Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Later the family moved back to Pakistan, and Musharraf attended St. Patrick's School in Karachi and graduated in 1958. He later attended Forman Christian College in Lahore and was said to be a good math student.

In 1961, Musharraf attended the Pakistan Military Academy and graduated 11th in his class. He was commissioned in April 1964 to an artillery regiment and later joined the Special Service Group. Musharraf continued his military education at the Command and Staff College and the National Defense College in Pakistan. He also attended the Royal College of Defense Studies in the United Kingdom. In 1965, he was charged with taking unauthorized leave and was about to be court-martialed when war broke out with India. The charges were dropped and Musharraf reported for duty.

Musharraf saw action in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery Regiment. He was part of a major offensive against the Indian army in the Khemkaran sector, in which Pakistan advanced 15 miles into India. Despite the initial success and possessing superior advantage in armor, the Pakistani 1st Armored Division suffered a major defeat and had to pull back. Later, Musharraf was sent to the Sailkot front in India. During the war, Musharraf showed bravery in the line of fire as Indian artillery guns shelled his unit. He received an award for gallantry and was promoted to captain.

Pervez Musharraf moved up the ranks as Pakistan continued to battle with India over territory. Throughout his military career, Musharraf would serve on several appointments. By the 1980s, Musharraf was commanding an artillery brigade. In the 1990s, he was promoted to major general and assigned an infantry division and later commanded an elite strike force. Later he served as deputy military secretary and director general of military operations. As his rank and notoriety rose, Musharraf was also making inroads in the political arena. In 1998, he was personally promoted over other senior officers by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to be the Army chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

biography.com

EXCLUSIVE: Don’t mess with Pakistan —By Pervez Musharraf

Sporadic and superficial global support has made Pakistanis feel dangerously betrayed

The world is watching Pakistan, and rightly so. It’s a happening place. Pakistan is at the center of geostrategic revolution and realignments. The economic, social and political aspirations of China, Afghanistan, Iran, and India turn on securing peace, prosperity, and stability in Pakistan. Our country can be an agent of positive change, one that creates unique economic interdependencies between central, west and south Asian countries and the Middle East through trade and energy partnerships. Or there’s the other option: the borderless militancy Pakistan is battling could take down the whole region.

Recently, terrorists on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border have plotted, unsuccessfully, to unleash terror as far away as Copenhagen and New York City. Pakistan’s role in a safe, secure world cannot be overemphasized. To appreciate the complex history of Pakistan’s internal and external challenges is to understand how the 21st century could well play out for the world.

Our country was born of violence, in August 1947. Just months after the partition of the subcontinent and the creation of the Dominion of Pakistan, we were at war with India over Kashmir. Pakistan and India’s mutual animosity and history of confrontation remain powerful forces in South Asia to this day. Because of its sense of having been wronged by India—and feeling that it faced an existential threat from that country—Pakistan cast its lot with the West. We became a strategic partner of the U.S. during the Cold War, signing on to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in the 1950s, while India tilted toward the Soviet Union. As part of our inalienable right to self-preservation, we formulated a “minimum defensive deterrence” strategy to maintain Army, Navy and Air Force numbers at levels proportional to India’s.

In 1965 we again went to war over Kashmir, and in 1971 over East Pakistan (I fought in both). Our suspicions about India were proved right when it became clear that the creation of Bangladesh was only made possible through Indian military and intelligence support. Among Pakistanis in general, and the Army in particular, attitudes against India hardened. The adversarial relationship between our Inter Services Intelligence and their Research and Analysis Wing worsened, both exploiting any opportunity to inflict harm on the other.

India’s “Smiling Buddha” nuclear tests in 1974 changed everything. Pakistan was forced to resort to unconventional means to compensate for the new imbalance of power. Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto initiated Pakistan’s atomic program, and thus began the nuclearization of the subcontinent. India’s pursuit of nuclear weapons was an effort to project power beyond its borders; Pakistan’s was an existential and defensive imperative.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 presented Pakistan with a security threat from two directions: Soviets to the west, who wanted access to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan, and Indians to the east. Once again Pakistan joined hands with the United States to fight Moscow.

We called it jihad by design, this effort to attract mujahideen from all over the Muslim world. And from Morocco to Indonesia, some 25,000 of them came. We trained and armed Taliban from the madrassahs of the then North West Frontier Province, and pushed them into Afghanistan. By this time, the liberal and intellectual Afghan elite had left for the safer climes of Europe and the U.S., leaving behind a largely poor, religious-minded population to fight the 10-year jihad. We—Pakistan, the U.S., the West, and Saudi Arabia—are equally responsible for nourishing the militancy that defeated the Soviet Union in 1989, and which seeks now to defeat us all.

The Soviets quit Kabul, and the Americans abandoned Islamabad. Washington rewarded its once indispensable ally by invoking the Pressler Amendment and imposing military sanctions, and by choosing to foster a strategic relationship with India. Pakistan was left alone to deal with the nearly 4 million Afghans who had streamed into our country and became the world’s largest refugee population. The people of Pakistan felt betrayed and used. For Pakistan, the decade of disaster had begun. No efforts were made to deprogram, rehabilitate, and resettle the mujahideen or redevelop and build back war-ravaged Afghanistan. This shortsightedness led to ethnic fighting, warlordism, and Afghanistan’s dive into darkness. The mujahideen coagulated into Al Qaeda. The Taliban, who would emerge as a force in 1996, eventually would occupy 90 percent of the country, ramming through their obscurantist medievalism. It was also in 1989 that the freedom struggle reignited in India-administered Kashmir. This started out as a purely indigenous and peaceful uprising against Indian state repression. The people who led this first intifada were radicalized by the Indian Army’s fierce and indiscriminate crackdowns on locals. The Kashmir cause is a rallying cry for Muslims around the world. It is more so for Pakistanis. The plight of Kashmiri Muslims inspired the creation of new mujahideen groups within Pakistan who then sent thousands of volunteer fighters to the troubled territory. In terms of identity politics, the boundaries were clearer: the mujahideen set their sights on India; Al Qaeda and the Taliban were focused largely on Afghanistan. With the Taliban to our west and the mujahideen in the north, this arc of anger rent our social fabric. Pakistan found itself awash in guns and drugs.

Nine years later, there was bad news from Pokhran. In May 1998, India again tested its bomb. Almost two weeks later, Pakistan responded by “turning the mountain white” at Chaghai. For Pakistanis, our own tests became a symbol of our power in the world, a testament to our resolve and innovation in the face of adversity, and a source of unmitigated pride in our streets. We became a nuclear power and an international pariah at the same time, but furthering and harnessing our nuclear potential remains and must remain our singular national interest. Of course, the U.S. views India’s nuclear program differently from Pakistan’s. Even our pursuit of nuclear power for civilian purposes, for electricity generation, is viewed negatively. India’s pursuit is assisted by the U.S. In Pakistan, people see this as yet another instance of American partiality, even hostility. Many even believe that the U.S. wants to denuclearize Pakistan—by force if necessary—because it fears the weapons could come into the hands of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or any of the myriad militant organizations who have loosed mayhem in Pakistan. Our nuclear weapons are secure.

Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government of Afghanistan. We did this because of our ethnic, historical, and geographical affinity with Afghan Pashtuns who comprised the Taliban. In 2000, when I led Pakistan, I had suggested to the U.S. and other countries that they, too, should recognize the Taliban government and collectively engage Kabul in order to achieve moderation there through exposure and exchange. This was shot down. Continued diplomatic isolation of the Taliban regime pushed it into the embrace of the Arab-peopled Al Qaeda. Had the Taliban government been recognized, the world could have saved the Bamiyan Buddhas, and unknotted the Osama bin Laden problem thereby preventing the spate of Al Qaeda-orchestrated attacks around the world including on September 11, 2001, in the U.S.

When America decided to retaliate, we joined the international coalition against Kabul by choice so we could safeguard and promote our own national interests. Nobody in Islamabad was in favor of the religious and governmental philosophy of the Taliban. By joining the coalition, we also prevented India from gaining an upper hand in Afghanistan from where it could then machinate against Pakistan. The Taliban and Al Qaeda were defeated in 2001 with the help of the Northern Alliance, which was composed of Uzbeks, Hazarans, and Tajiks—all ethnic minorities. The Pashtuns and Arabs of Afghanistan fled to the mountains and fanned out across Pakistan. This was the serious downside of joining the global coalition: the mujahideen who were fighting for Kashmir formed an unholy nexus with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban—and turned their guns on us. While I was president, they made at least four attempts on my life.

In 2002, the allies installed a largely Pashtun-free government in Afghanistan that lacked legitimacy because it did not represent 50 percent of the Afghan population, Pashtuns. This should not have happened. All Taliban are Pashtun, but not all Pashtuns are Taliban. Pashtuns were thus isolated, blocked from the mainstream, and pushed toward the Taliban, who made a resurgence in 2004.

Today, the Taliban rule the roost in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are ensconced in our tribal agencies, plotting and launching attacks against us and others. The twin scourge of radicalism and militarism has infected settled districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and beyond. Mujahideen groups are operating in India-administered Kashmir and seem to have public support in Pakistan.

After nine long years, and a longer war for the U.S. than Vietnam, the world wants to negotiate with “moderate” elements in the Taliban—and from a position of apparent weakness. Before the coalition abandons Afghanistan again, it must at least ensure the election of a legitimate Pashtun-led government. Pakistan, which has lost at least 30,000 of its citizens in the war on terror, should be forgiven for wondering whether it was all worth it. Pakistanis should not be left to feel that it was not.

The writer is former president and army chief of Pakistan