(Reuters) – In the end it was a meeting in a nondescript conference room in Chicago that finally set in motion the long-awaited U.S. apology to Pakistan last week ending a seven-month impasse over NATO supply routes for the Afghan war.
The meeting in late May followed months of clamoring by Islamabad, images of flag-draped coffins on TV, and widespread outcry from Pakistanis incensed by the U.S. air attack that killed 24 of their soldiers on the Afghan border last November.
The breakthrough, in which Islamabad reopened supply routes into Afghanistan and Washington yielded to months of Pakistani demands to apologize for the border deaths, was praised as a prelude to improved ties between two nations whose security alliance had lapsed into mutual suspicion and hostility.
After U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s discussions with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in the cavernous Chicago conference center where world leaders met for a NATO summit, Clinton instructed Thomas Nides, a top deputy back in Washington, to do what it took to find a solution ensuring NATO could once again supply the war in Afghanistan via Pakistan.
At the heart of last week’s denouement was a carefully worded statement that allowed the United States to accommodate Pakistani indignation without opening President Barack Obama up to criticism months before presidential polls.
Just as importantly, it aimed to avoid alienating those within Obama’s government who had resisted apologizing to a country many in Washington see as acting to subvert U.S. goals in the region, even while accepting massive U.S. aid.
“A lot of people were holding their nose at the White House and the Pentagon at the notion of an apology,” a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
“The logic was that this was not a full-throated apology but that it was enough of a statement of regret, using terms associated with an apology, to get us across the GLOC finish line,” the official said, using the acronym used for the supply routes – or Ground Lines of Communications – that Pakistan shut down after the November 26 border attack.
“It was a semantic high-wire act.”
TAKING IT TO THE TOP
Clinton’s talks in Chicago with Zardari proved pivotal because, for the first time, they elevated months of efforts to hammer out a solution on technical issues, including proposed fees on NATO supplies, to the senior political level.
Nides and his Pakistani counterpart, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, then spent weeks crafting language that would be acceptable to both sides, sealing the deal during Nides’ visit to Islamabad just days before an internal U.S. deadline of the July 4 independence holiday.
Without a deal, U.S. officials believed, fed-up lawmakers might act to clamp down on U.S. aid to Pakistan after then.
In her statement, issued after a call last Tuesday with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Clinton did not use the word “apology.”
“Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives,” Clinton said. “We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military,” she said.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the deal was aided by signals from the Pakistani side that parliamentary demands for an “unconditional” apology would not necessitate stronger language than Clinton ultimately used. Pakistan also dropped demands for extra fees on NATO supplies.
In what may have been another instrumental element, Pakistani officials said the linguistic hair-splitting in Washington would fade when Clinton’s statement was translated into Urdu.
After months of rejecting an apology, the White House appears to have embraced the final arrangement in the latter part of June as bipartisan support emerged in Washington for striking a deal.
U.S. officials saw political reaction to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s June 13 congressional testimony – in which he said that the supply route closure was costing an extra $100 million a month – as a meaningful sign that an apology wouldn’t trigger a political storm for Obama.
There were also suggestions that patience was growing short among Washington’s NATO allies, who began to signal interest in unilateral arrangements of their own with Pakistan.
Another U.S. official said that while France and Britain – British Foreign Secretary William Hague made a visit to Islamabad in mid-June – expressed eagerness to have the ground routes open, there was never any suggestion that fellow NATO nations would break ranks with the United States.
RESERVATIONS AT PENTAGON
Clinton’s language appeared to have been crafted with one eye on the U.S. Defense Department, where officials for months had refused to apologize for a confused nighttime incident that they saw as a case of legitimate self-defense: the Pakistanis, they said, fired first.
A U.S. investigation into the incident – in which Pakistan refused to take part – found that both sides were to blame and said the deaths were the result of a “misunderstanding.” Pakistan called it an unprovoked assault.
Importantly, Pakistan’s military could scarcely afford to be seen as bowing to the United States just months after coming under unprecedented public pressure for the 2011 U.S. raid, conducted without Islamabad’s knowledge, that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Pakistani territory.
While the State Department advocated some sort of apology from the start, resistance by many officials at the Pentagon and White House was magnified by widespread frustration at Pakistan’s perceived unwillingness act against militants, something seen as a top impediment to stability in Afghanistan as NATO nations withdraw their troops.
Pakistan vehemently denies turning a blind eye to insurgents and points out that many of its own soldiers and civilians have died at the hands of various militant groups.
At the Pentagon, both Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were known to be strongly opposed to an apology. As late as June 21, Panetta suggested past expressions of regret and condolence were sufficient.
“We’ve made clear what our position is, and I think it’s time to move on,” Panetta said in an interview with Reuters, when asked if he would oppose a further apology.
Last week, Panetta welcomed the reopening of the supply routes in a two-sentence statement, saying the two countries would work together on security issues. There was no mention of the Pakistani soldiers who died.
Panetta “has acknowledged the regrets we expressed … and the mistakes made by both sides,” said Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman. “And he has been clear that it is time to move the relationship forward.”
While the position of the U.S. defense chief and others at the Pentagon many not have changed since November, they do not appear to be troubled by the wording of the message that broke the long impasse with Pakistan.
“Everyone at the end of the day can say they got what they wanted – the White House, the Pakistanis, the State Department, the Pentagon,” the first U.S. official said.
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Phil Stewart and Qasim Nauman; Editing by David Brunnstrom)
Embarrassed Pakistan says excluded from bin Laden raid
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari looks on as U.S. President Barack Obama makes a statement to reporters at the White House in Washington, in this May 6, 2009 file photo. The killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces was not a joint operation with Pakistan, the president of Pakistan said in an opinion column published on Monday. Zardari, writing in the Washington Post, also dismissed any notion that Pakistan was failing to take action against militants on its territory. The president said the whereabouts of the al Qaeda leader, killed in a town some two hours north of Islamabad, were not known to the Pakistani authorities.
(Reuters) – Pakistan’s president acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that his security forces were left out of a U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden, but he did little to dispel questions over how the al Qaeda leader was able to live in comfort near Islamabad.
The revelation that bin Laden had holed up in a compound in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, possibly for years, prompted many U.S. lawmakers to demand a review of the billions of dollars in aid Washington gives to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
“He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone,” Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, without offering further defense against accusations his security services should have known where bin Laden was hiding.
“Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world.”
It was the first substantive public comment by any Pakistani civilian or military leader on the airborne raid by U.S. special forces on bin Laden’s compound in the early hours of Monday.
Pakistan has faced enormous international scrutiny since bin Laden was killed, with questions over whether its military and intelligence agencies were too incompetent to catch him or knew all along where he was hiding.
White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan told a briefing that Pakistan was not informed of the raid until after all U.S. aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace.
Senior U.S., Pakistani and Afghan officials later held a previously scheduled meeting in Islamabad to discuss the fight against militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan but deflected questions about the bin Laden operation.
“Who did what is beside the point … This issue of Osama bin Laden is history,” Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir told a joint news conference.
Marc Grossman, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said both sides wanted to move beyond recriminations and finger-pointing.
But irate U.S. lawmakers earlier asked how it was possible for bin Laden to live in a populated area near a military training academy without anyone in authority knowing about it.
They said it was time to review aid to Pakistan. The U.S. Congress has approved $20 billion for Pakistan in direct aid and military reimbursements partly to help Islamabad fight militancy since bin Laden masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“Our government is in fiscal distress. To make contributions to a country that isn’t going to be fully supportive is a problem for many,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein.
The White House acknowledged there was good reason for U.S. lawmakers, already doubtful of Pakistan’s cooperation against al Qaeda, to demand to know whether bin Laden had been “hiding in plain sight” and to raise questions about U.S. aid to Islamabad.
“Certainly his location there outside of the capital raises questions. We are talking to the Pakistanis about this,” said Brennan, adding it was “inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time.”
There were no protests and there was no extra security in Islamabad on Tuesday, just a sense of embarrassment or indifference that bin Laden had managed to lie low for so long in Abbottabad.
“The failure of Pakistan to detect the presence of the world’s most-wanted man here is shocking,” the daily News said in an editorial, reflecting the general tone in the media.
Zardari has made no address to the people of a country where anti-American sentiment runs high, prompting one Twitter user to tweet: “Most wanted man is killed on Pakistani soil and the Pres doesn’t address his people, instead writes an op-ed for USA.”
Pakistan has a long history of nurturing Islamist militants in the interests of its strategic objectives, primarily facing up to what it sees as its biggest threat — India. Pakistan’s fear of India has been at the root of its support for the Afghan Taliban and separatist militants in Indian Kashmir.
WARNINGS OF REVENGE
In the first sign militants were attempting to strike back, Afghan forces killed and wounded 25 foreign fighters after they crossed the border from Pakistan, a government official said.
Jamaluddin Badr, governor of Afghanistan’s northeastern Nuristan province, said the fighters killed overnight included Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis.
Taliban, al Qaeda and other Islamist militants have long operated out of safe havens and training camps in Pakistan’s largely lawless northwest Pashtun tribal regions. Bin Laden was sheltered by the Afghan Taliban before the September 11 attacks.
The United States earlier issued security warnings to Americans worldwide. CIA Director Leon Panetta said al Qaeda would “almost certainly” try to avenge bin Laden’s death.
Bin Laden’s death had initially boosted the dollar and shares in the belief his killing reduced global security risks.
But shares dipped on Tuesday and the dollar struggled to pull away from a three-year low as markets refocused on a fragile global economy and corporate earnings prospects. Still, the threat of retaliatory attacks by al Qaeda could support oil prices, analysts said.
The body of the world’s most powerful symbol of Islamist militancy was buried at sea after he was shot in the head and chest by U.S. special forces who were dropped inside his sprawling compound by Blackhawk helicopters.
Bin Laden, 54, was given a sea burial after Muslim funeral rites on a U.S. aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson. His shrouded body was placed in a weighted bag and eased into the north Arabian Sea, the U.S. military said.
Analysts warned that objections from some Muslim clerics to the sea burial could stoke anti-American sentiment. The clerics questioned whether the United States followed proper Islamic tradition, saying Muslims should not be buried at sea unless they died during a voyage.
The U.S. administration was weighing whether to release a photo of bin Laden’s body as proof that he had been killed. There was also a video of the sea burial but it was not clear if it would be released, a U.S. official said.
NIGHT RAID NEAR ISLAMABAD
Americans clamored for details about the secret U.S. military mission.
A small U.S. strike team, dropped into bin Laden’s heavily fortified hideout under the cover of night, shot the al Qaeda leader to death with a bullet to the head. He did not return fire.
Bin Laden’s wife, originally thought killed, was wounded. Another woman was killed in the raid, along with one of bin Laden’s sons, in the tense 40 minutes of fighting.
President Barack Obama and his staff followed the raid minute-by-minute via a live video feed in the White House situation room, and there was relief when the commandos, including members of the elite Navy SEALs, stormed the compound.
“We got him,” the president said, according to Brennan, after the mission was over.
National Journal said U.S. authorities used intelligence about the compound to build a replica of it and use it for trial runs in early April.
Under bin Laden, al Qaeda militants struck targets from Indonesia to the European capitals of Madrid and London.
But it was the September 11 attacks, in which al Qaeda militants used hijacked planes to strike at economic and military symbols of American might and killed nearly 3,000 people, that brought bin Laden to global infamy.
(Reporting by Reuters bureau worldwide; Writing by Dean Yates; Editing by John Chalmers)
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