Joint operation with US ruled out
By Our Defence Correspondent

ISLAMABAD—The Pakistani military reacted angrily on Sunday to reports that US President George W. Bush is considering covert military operations in the country’s volatile tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. “It is not up to the US administration, it is Pakistan’s government who is responsible for this country,” ISPR Spokesperson Major General Waheed Arshad told French news agency.
“There are no overt or covert US operations inside Pakistan. Such reports are baseless and we reject them.” The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday that under a proposal being discussed in Washington, CIA operatives based in Afghanistan would be able to call on direct military support for counter-terrorism operations in neighbouring Pakistan. Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said the proposal called for giving Central Intelligence Agency agents broader powers to strike targets in Pakistan. Pakistan’s western tribal belt is seen as a safe haven for Taleban and Al Qaeda militants who carry out attacks in Afghanistan, as well as the most likely hideout for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The new plan was reportedly discussed by Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security aides in the wake of the December 27 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. President Pervez Musharraf had not been consulted, the New York Times reported. Arshad also dismissed comments from US White House hopeful Hillary Clinton that she would propose a joint US-British team to oversee the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if she was elected president. “We do not require anybody’s assistance. We are fully capable of doing it on our own,” he said.
Senior U.S. officials, concerned over intelligence reports that al Qaeda and the Taliban are more intent on destabilizing Pakistan, are considering expanding the authority of the CIA and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations there, the New York Times said on Sunday. Citing senior Bush administration officials who spoke off the record, the Times said that while no decisions had been made, the options under discussion included the CIA working with the military’s Special Operations forces. Several participants in a meeting on Friday argued that the threat to President Pervez Musharraf’s government was now so acute that Musharraf and the country’s military leadership were likely to grant Washington more latitude, the Times said.
Among those reported at the meeting were Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and top national security advisers to President George W. Bush. Spokesmen for the White House, the CIA, and the Pentagon declined to discuss the meeting, but one official said the discussion reflected concerns that a new al Qaeda haven was solidifying in parts of Pakistan and needed to be countered, the Times said.
While no new options had been formally presented by Washington to Musharraf, the newspaper said that officials from the White House to the Pentagon saw an opening in Pakistan’s changing political structure for Washington’s expanding authority in the nuclear-armed country. “After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize — creating chaos in Pakistan itself,” the Times quoted a senior official as saying.