United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

In early January the New York Times reported that the White House was discussing "expand]ing] the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan,” where reports indicated “that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government," citing "several senior administration officials." -- And in late December, the Washington Post reported that Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers, who since July 2007 has been charged with “oversee[ing] the 54,000-strong Special Operations Command (SOCOM), based in Tampa, which is growing faster than any other part of the U.S. military,” has developed a "plan to build a global counterterrorist network" that is "focused on a list of 20 'high-priority' countries, with Pakistan posing a central preoccupation for Vickers, who said al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the country's western tribal areas are a serious threat to the United States." -- On Saturday, the New York Times reported that on Jan. 9 the CIA's Michael Hayden and DNI Mike McConnell, the two top U.S. intelligence officials, "traveled secretly to Pakistan early this month to press President Pervez Musharraf to allow the Central Intelligence Agency greater latitude to operate in [Pakistan's] tribal territories," particularly South Waziristan.[1] -- The American proposal was rebuffed. -- In a follow-up article, AP noted that two days after the secret meeting, "Musharraf told the Straits Times of Singapore that U.S. troops would 'certainly' be considered invaders if they set foot in the tribal regions. 'If they come without our permission, that's against the sovereignty of Pakistan,' he said. 'I challenge anybody coming into our mountains. They would regret that day.'"[2] -- Musharraf was in Davos for the World Economic Forum this week, and on Friday reiterated his opposition to U.S. forces in Pakistan, saying, in the words of AP reporter, that "U.S. troops cannot do a better job than his forces in routing the Taliban and al-Qaida, and the United States should increase its presence in Afghanistan instead to deal with the growing insurgency there."[3] -- His remarks were another rebuff to U.S. pressure, this time in the form of an offer on Thursday from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to send combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities ask for help. -- "'This cannot be done by any U.S. force,' Musharraf told several hundred VIPs at a breakfast on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. 'Please don't think that the U.S. forces have some kind of a magic wand and they'll come and lead to success.'" ...

PAKISTAN REBUFFS SECRET U.S. PLEA FOR C.I.A. BUILDUP
By Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger

WASHINGTON -- The top two American intelligence officials traveled secretly to Pakistan early this month to press President Pervez Musharraf to allow the Central Intelligence Agency greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups are all active, according to several officials who have been briefed on the visit.

But in the unannounced meetings on Jan. 9 with the two American officials -- Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director -- Mr. Musharraf rebuffed proposals to expand any American combat presence in Pakistan, either through unilateral covert C.I.A. missions or by joint operations with Pakistani security forces.

Instead, Pakistan and the United States are discussing a series of other joint efforts, including increasing the number and scope of missions by armed Predator surveillance aircraft over the tribal areas, and identifying ways that the United States can speed information about people suspected of being militants to Pakistani security forces, officials said.

American and Pakistani officials have questioned each other in recent months about the quality and time lines of information that the United States has given to Pakistan to use in focusing on those extremists. American officials have complained that the Pakistanis are not seriously pursuing Al Qaeda in the region.

The Jan. 9 meetings, the first visit with Mr. Musharraf by senior administration officials since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, also included the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the director of Pakistan’s leading military intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj. American officials said the visit was prompted by an increasing sense of urgency at the highest levels of the United States government that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts to destabilize the Pakistani government.

The C.I.A. has fired missiles from Predator aircraft in the tribal areas several times, with varying degrees of success. Intelligence officials said they believed that in January 2006 an airstrike narrowly missed killing Ayman al-Zawahri, the second-ranking Qaeda leader, who had attended a dinner in Damadola, a Pakistani village.

Pakistani authorities, in interviews, say they have more than 100,000 troops operating in the region, including a sizable force conducting what they said was a major offensive in South Waziristan. But in the White House, the Pentagon, and the C.I.A., frustrations remain high, and there is concern that Mr. Musharraf’s political problems will distract him from what the administration regards as its last chance to take aggressive action.

Despite the insistence of administration officials that the United States and Pakistan have a common goal in fighting Al Qaeda, Mr. Musharraf has made clear in public proclamations that it is far from his first priority. At the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week, Mr. Musharraf said several times that the 100,000 Pakistani troops that he said were now along the border were hunting for Taliban extremists and “miscreants,” but he also said there was no particular effort being put into the search for Qaeda fighters.

In Washington, however, the Bush administration has said that fighting terrorists, chiefly Al Qaeda, is the primary purpose of the $10 billion in American aid that has been sent to Pakistan, mostly for reimbursements for the cost of patrolling the tribal areas. President Bush has often praised Mr. Musharraf for fighting terrorism, pointing out that Al Qaeda has tried to kill the Pakistani leader. But White House officials were silent when Mr. Musharraf said this week that his efforts were focused on the Taliban, and that the main problem the United States faced was in Afghanistan, not Pakistan.

Accounts of the discussions between Mr. Musharraf and the intelligence officials were provided by American and Pakistani officials over the past two weeks after the *New York Times* inquired about the secret trip. While officials confirmed some details of the discussion, much remains unknown about the continuing dialogue between Islamabad and Washington.

The trip by Mr. McConnell and General Hayden, a 14,000-mile over-and-back visit for one day of discussions, occurred just five days after senior administration officials debated new strategies for dealing with Pakistan. No decisions were made at that meeting of the National Security Council, which gathered all of Mr. Bush’s top national security officials but not the president.

In the ensuing three weeks, however, the debate appeared to be intensifying, as senior American officials said they believed that American forces -- whether as combat troops or trainers -- could enhance the efforts of Pakistan’s military in the mountainous and lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

“The purpose of the mission,” a senior official said, “was to convince Musharraf that time is ticking away,” and that the increased attacks on Pakistan would ultimately undermine his effort to stay in office.

Other officials said that recent intelligence analysis indicated that Al Qaeda was now operating in the tribal areas with an impunity similar to the freedom that it had in Afghanistan before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The C.I.A. operatives in Afghanistan and the covert Special Operations forces there have made little secret of their desire to move into the tribal areas with or without Mr. Musharraf’s explicit approval. In the administration, there has been discussion of whether Mr. Bush should give orders to allow them more latitude. Mr. Musharraf has explicitly rejected that, and within days after Mr. McConnell and General Hayden’s departure, he told a Singapore newspaper that any unilateral action by the United States would be regarded as an invasion. In Davos, he dismissed the idea that Americans could be effective in the tribal areas.

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the United States was willing to send combat troops to Pakistan to conduct joint operations against Al Qaeda and other militants if the Pakistani government asked for American help. Mr. Gates said that Pakistan had not requested American assistance, and that any American troops sent to Pakistan would likely be assigned solely to train Pakistani forces. The top American commander in the region, Adm. William J. Fallon, visited Pakistan last Tuesday to discuss counterterrorism issues with senior Pakistani officials, including General Kayani.

American and Pakistani spokesmen confirmed that the meetings between Mr. Musharraf and American intelligence officials took place, but they declined to offer any details. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said in an interview that the meetings were about “improving coordination, discussing the war on terror, and filling the gaps between intelligence and operations,” but he declined to provide details.

Last Tuesday, the State Department’s counterterrorism chief, Lt. Gen. Dell L. Dailey, echoed some of those concerns, telling reporters that there were gaps in what the United States knew about the threat in the tribal areas. “We don’t have enough information about what’s going on there,” said General Dailey, who retired from the Army with extensive experience in military Special Operations. “Not on Al Qaeda. Not on foreign fighters. Not on the Taliban.”

In dealing with the American requests, Mr. Musharraf is conducting a delicate balancing act. American officials contend that now, more than ever, he recognizes the need to step up the battle against extremists who are seeking to topple his government. But he also believes that if American forces are discovered operating in Pakistan, the backlash will be more than he can control, especially because the Taliban and Al Qaeda are trying to cast him as a pawn of Washington. One result appears to be a compromise: Mr. Musharraf is willing, they say, to accept training, equipment, and technical help, but has insisted that no Americans get involved in ground operations.

Pakistani officials insist they are taking the militant threat seriously and have completed major operations in the Swat Valley to drive out extremists. In the past few days, about 1,000 Pakistan Army troops and Frontier Corps paramilitary forces have also begun a three-pronged attack against the South Waziristan stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader with links to Al Qaeda who is the main suspect in the assassination of Ms. Bhutto.

WASHINGTON -- The top two U.S. intelligence officials made a secret visit to Pakistan in early January to seek permission from President Pervez Musharraf for greater involvement of American forces in trying to ferret out al-Qaida and other militant groups active in the tribal regions along the Afghanistan border, a senior U.S. official said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity given the secret nature of the talks, declined to disclose what was said, but Musharraf was quoted two days after the Jan. 9 meeting as saying U.S. troops would be regarded as invaders if they crossed into Pakistan to hunt al-Qaida militants.

The New York Times -- which first reported on the secret visit by CIA Director Michael Hayden and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence -- said Musharraf rebuffed an expansion of an American presence in Pakistan at the meeting, either through overt CIA missions or by joint operations with Pakistani security forces.

Pakistan has been under growing U.S. pressure to crack down on militants in its tribal regions close to the Afghan border, a rugged area long considered a likely hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, as well as an operating ground for Taliban militants planning attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Several U.S. presidential candidates have hinted they would support unilateral action in the area.

In a Jan. 11 interview, Musharraf told the Straits Times of Singapore that U.S. troops would "certainly" be considered invaders if they set foot in the tribal regions. "If they come without our permission, that's against the sovereignty of Pakistan," he said. "I challenge anybody coming into our mountains. They would regret that day."

South Waziristan is a semiautonomous region where the central government has never had much control. It is home to scores of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, many of whom fled there from neighboring Afghanistan after the U.S-led invasion in 2001.

The border region emerged as a front line in the war on extremist groups after Musharraf allied Pakistan with the U.S. following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Washington has given Pakistan billions of dollars in aid to help government forces battle militants.

Musharraf, who toured Europe last week seeking support for his embattled government, rejected claims that the violence was a sign of a resurgent Taliban. More than 150 rebels and soldiers are reported to have been killed in the region this month alone.

Musharraf in the past has credited cooperation between Pakistani intelligence services and the CIA, both of whom believe that Pakistani militant leader Baitullah Mehsud was the mastermind of the Dec. 27 gun and suicide bomb attack that killed former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

But the State Department's counterterrorism chief, Dell Dailey, said Tuesday that the Bush administration was displeased with "gaps in intelligence" received from Pakistan about the activities of extremist groups in the tribal regions.

"We don't have enough information about what's going on there. Not on al-Qaida. Not on foreign fighters. Not on the Taliban," he said.

Dailey, a retired Army lieutenant general with extensive background in special operations, said Pakistan needs to fix the problem. However, said the U.S. wasn't likely to conduct military strikes inside Pakistan on its own, saying that would anger many Pakistanis.

Rather than allow an increased U.S. presence, the *Times* reported that Pakistan and the United States are discussing other joint efforts, such as increased use of armed Predator surveillance aircraft over the tribal areas, and identifying ways the U.S. can speed intelligence information to Pakistani security forces.

The paper said the Jan. 9 trip by McConnell and Hayden came five days after senior administration officials debated new strategies for dealing with Pakistan. It had reported previously that no decisions were made at that meeting of the National Security Council, which included top administration officials, but not President Bush.

The times quoted a senior officials as saying "the purpose of the mission (by McConnell and Hayden) was to convince Musharraf that time is ticking away" and that the increased attacks on Pakistan would ultimately undermine his effort to stay in office.

** Pakistani President Says US Should Beef Up Presence in Afghanistan, Not Pakistan **

Pakistan's president said Friday U.S. troops cannot do a better job than his forces in routing the Taliban and al-Qaida, and the United States should increase its presence in Afghanistan instead to deal with the growing insurgency there.

Pervez Musharraf reiterated that Pakistan opposes any foreign forces on its soil and said "the man in the street will not allow this -- he will come out and agitate."

Musharraf was responding to a question about reports that the U.S. government was considering far more aggressive covert operations in Pakistan, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's offer Thursday to send a small number of combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities ask for help.

"This cannot be done by any U.S. force," Musharraf told several hundred VIPs at a breakfast on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. "Please don't think that the U.S. forces have some kind of a magic wand and they'll come and lead to success."

"This environment is worse than what they're facing in Afghanistan. The mountains are higher, and there is no communications infrastructure," he said.

Musharraf said President Bush told him he respects Pakistan's sovereignty and "is not asking me, and he's the most important." He said he was sure the U.S. force commander "will say, please remain where we are by ourselves."

He stressed that there is "total" U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on military tactics and strategy on both sides of the border, and "good coordination" on intelligence.

"The problem is the media that keeps carrying on regarding the forces should go across the border. They wouldn't be able to achieve anything that we haven't been able to achieve, so let them handle Afghanistan," Musharraf said.

"They need more force there, by the way. So therefore, please add force there before you think of sending them across into our borders," he said.

"So there's no problem, and if . . . we need something that we can get from the United States to assist us in our operations, and which will make us stronger, let me tell you that we ask for it and we get it," Musharraf said.

Musharraf is on a tour of Europe seeking to convince leaders there he is in control of the country and is committed to restoring full democracy eight years after he seized control in a military coup. He gave up his position as army commander in December as part of that transition.

While he has been focusing on diplomacy, Pakistan's army is increasingly engaged in combat with pro-Taliban militants along the border with Afghanistan.