Yet another chapter is being started in the saga of Pakistan, a country Washington grew closere to and greatly upset India in the 1970s when Henry Kissinger and Nixon “tilted” to it to achieve the “opening” in China. In recent years it has seemingly played both sides of the fence on the issues of terrorism and being an ally. And the latest could be the nail in its coffin in terms of getting the money it wants from Washington — and the U.S. Congress.
How can this be spun as the actions of a trustworthy country:
Pakistan gave China access to the previously unknown U.S. “stealth” helicopter that crashed during the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May despite explicit requests from the CIA not to, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
The disclosure, if confirmed, is likely to further shake the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, which has been improving slightly of late after hitting its lowest point in decades following the bin Laden killing in a Pakistani garrison city.
During the raid, one of two modified Black Hawk helicopters, thought to employ unknown stealth capability, malfunctioned and crashed, forcing the commandos to abandon it.
“The U.S. now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI, gave access to the Chinese military to the downed helicopter in Abbottabad,” the paper quoted a person “in intelligence circles” as saying on its Web site.
The ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, is Pakistan’s top spy agency.
The report said Pakistan, which enjoys a close relationship with China, allowed Chinese intelligence officials to take pictures of the crashed aircraft as well as samples of its special “skin,” which allowed the helicopter to evade Pakistani radar.
One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that there was reason to believe that Pakistan had let the Chinese inspect the aircraft. But the official could not confirm whether it had happened.
As someone who reported overseas and often talked to U.S. officials for my stories in New Delhi, Dacca and Madrid this likely means: the official has info but does not want to reveal the sources of the info. So it’s presented in a fuzzier manner.
No one from the Pakistani army was available for comment, but the ISI denied the report. The paper said Pakistan’s top general, army chief Ashfaq Kayani, denied that China had been given access to the aircraft.
This comes amid too many negative tidbits about Paksitan’s behavior — in particular the behavior of the ISI.
Whether accurate or not, expect Pakistan to be treated by the Obama administration and future administrations in the near future as a kind of security risk. And expect that when the country’s aid package comes up in Congress it increasingly becomes a POLITICAL ISSUE as to whether American money should be spent on a country peppered with officials who seem to be working the other side of the terrorism and military streets.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.