The leaked report, authored by a British intelligence official with a military background, is based on interviews with Pakistani Army officers and academics. BBC News has flagged-up one of the most important sections of the document, which says:
"The Army's dual role in combating terrorism and at the same time promoting the MMA and so indirectly supporting the Taliban (through the ISI) is coming under closer and closer international scrutiny. Pakistan is not currently stable but on the edge of chaos.
[The West has] turned a blind eye towards existing instability and the indirect protection of Al Qaeda and promotion of terrorism.
The US/UK cannot begin to turn the tide until they identify the real enemies from attacking ideas tactically - and seek to put in place a more just vision. This will require Pakistan to move away from Army rule and for the ISI to be dismantled and more significantly something to be put in its place.
Musharraf knows that time is running out for him..."
The instrumental role that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has played in formenting international terrorism is well-documented. This paper from an MoD-run think-tank shows clearly that senior intelligence officials are privately so concerned about this problem, that they are leaking the material at this time precisely to counter Musharraf's latest round of PR exercises in the USA and elsewhere.
In The War on Freedom (2002), The War on Truth (2005), and The London Bombings (2006), I've described in some detail Pakistan's role in supplying military, intelligence and logistical support to terrorist networks linked to 9/11, 7/7, and even Iraq. What's most disturbing about it, is that this is hardly a ground-breaking revelation. On pages 102-3 of The London Bombings, I quote from two US Defence Intelligence Agency documents dated from two weeks after 9/11, which I had obtained after their declassification in September 2003.
Five years ago, these intelligence reports had noted how "bin Laden's Al Qaeda network was able to expand under the safe sanctuary extended by Taliban following Pakistan directives." Bin Laden's camp, for example, located on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, "was built by Pakistani contractors, funded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate." The Taliban regime "was created, imposed and recognised by Pakistan in pursuit of its own interests', and under its jurisdiction, al-Qaeda was "able to grow unmolested inside Afghanistan."
But what about after 9/11? The Pentagon agency continues:
"Pakistan's goals are simple, the continuance of the policy they have always demonstrated regarding Afghanistan... In Islamabad, they have tried to ignore or bury the evidence for some time. It must be a deeply troubling period for General [Musharraf] in Pakistan, who is asked to help hunt down the culprits that he helped to establish and supported. Not to support the US invites trouble and to assist the US to their aims also presents problems to Pakistan. The quandary leaves the Pakistanis confused as to how they might be absolved without permanently shattering their regional aspirations or their Government."
Five years later, it seems that little has changed. So what's been the response from the British and American governments? Instead of taking the drastic action advised by the Defence Academy report -- such as investigating and even dismantling the Pakistani ISI -- Blair and Bush, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, continue not only to actively attempt to conceal the ISI's criminal complicity from public understanding, but worse still also to escalate the provision of financial, military and intelligence support to the ISI. The record is almost absurd, with Musharraf rounding up thousands of militants one day, and then releasing them without charge the next, meanwhile continuining to provide covert financial and military assistance.
There's a lot of history here that needs to be recalled to grasp the significance of this. Such as the oft-ignored fact that former ISI Director, Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, had ordered al-Qaeda finance chief Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed to wire at least $100,000 to chief 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta prior to the terrorist attacks on the WTC and Pentagon. This is one of those awkward, deeply uncomfortable stories that the mainstream tried to ignore, revealed at first by Indian intelligence officers cited in the Times of India (who obviously have the motive to dish the dirt on their Pakistani neighbours), but subsequently confirmed repeatedly by American (e.g. Wall Street Journal) and even Pakistani government and intelligence officials (e.g. Dawn). Extensive documentation and analysis is in The War on Truth. I can repost some of my analysis on that episode later on perhaps, if people really want me to (although I'd much prefer you go get a copy of the book, hint hint); but in the meantime you can get an online glimpse of some the relevant data and issues from Paul Thompson's timeline here.
The thrust of the matter is that neither al-Qaeda veteran Sheikh Saeed -- a British Muslim by the way -- nor Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad been indicted or even remotely officially investigated for their complicity in the financial organization of the 9/11 attacks. Former Labour Minister Michael Meacher MP pointed out the huge and dangerous ramifications of the Pakistani connection in a Guardian piece published just over a year before 7/7. "It is extraordinary", he observes, "that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and brought to trial on this count [of financing 9/11]. Why not?"
Ironically, Musharraf has provided an inkling of an answer to this question recently, in the wake of the Defence Academy leak, apparently in an attempt to launch his own PR counter-offensive by leaking confidential and embarrasing information available to the ISI. The Gulf Times reports one of the particularly interesting, and damning tid-bits from Musharraf's new book In the Line of Fire:
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