Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Frontline Pakistan
It was General Mahmood’s second visit to Washington as the ISI
chief. His previous trip in April 2000 followed President Clinton’s short
stopover in Islamabad. The visit was arranged by the CIA with a view to
cultivating Pakistan’s new chief spymaster. He was hugely pampered
as the CIA officials tried to win his confidence. 2 At the General’s
request, the agency had arranged a private tour of Gettysburg, the
venue of a crucial battle during the American Civil War in 1863. General
Mahmood had a special interest in the battle of Gettysburg and had
done his thesis on the subject at the National Defence College. He
would talk endlessly on the tactics and other aspects of the battle.
The CIA officials, however, were not sure whether all that effort won
his cooperation. The trip went sour at the end when he received a
dressing-down from Thomas Pickering, the US Under-Secretary of
State, for helping the Taliban regime. He went back home angry and
humiliated. 3 The incident did not help improve relations between the
USA and Pakistan, which had already become strained after the return
of military rule and imposition of democratic sanctions. Pakistan’s
patronage of the orthodox Taliban regime, which had provided a base
for bin Laden and thousands of other militants from different countries,
was a serious concern for the Bush administration.
General Mahmood was the second-most-powerful man in the
Pakistani military junta. after General Musharraf. A stocky man with
a long handlebar moustache, he was ruthless and highly ambitious.
Because of his brashness and arrogance he was not very popular
among his fellow officers. As the commander of the key 10 th Corps
based in Rawalpindi, he was one of the two coup-makers who brought
Musharraf to power on 12 October 1999. His troops seized control
of Islamabad and arrested the Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. He was
rewarded for his loyalty when Musharraf appointed him director
general of the ISI. During his tenure as head of the country’s premier
intelligence agency he had accelerated support for Islamic militant
groups. The jihadist activities in Kashmir saw an unprecedented rise
and Pakistan got much more deeply involved with the Taliban’s efforts
to expand their control in Afghanistan.
During his second stay in Washington, General Mahmood had met
with senior CIA, Pentagon and National Security Council officials.
Terrorism coming out of Afghanistan was the central issue of their
discussions. He defended Pakistan’s policy of engagement with the
Tailban and told George Tenet and other CIA officials that Mullah
Omar was a pious and religious person, not a man of violence. The