With Zardari busy in survival, national security issues ignored

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Mistrust between the Presidency and the establishment is growing with every passing day as President Asif Ali Zardari is embroiled in his survival battles and top priority national security matters are being ignored.

A top military general is said to have shared with his politician friend the view that some top security issues are not getting the kind of attention they deserve from the Presidency and the government.

The politician friend confided to The News that the general’s response conveys the military’s concerns over the indifference of the present political dispensation towards some serious security matters.

He said the meetings of the National Command and Control Authority and that of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet have not been convened for months, despite requests by the military establishment. The last meeting of the DCC was held on March 21, 2009, whereas the NC&CA last met on December 14, 2007.

President Zardari’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar, when contacted, said there is no reason for the non-convening of the National Command and Control Authority, which is headed by the president. He said he is not aware of any request made to the president to convene its meeting. Babar said the Strategic Planning Division (SPD) is the relevant authority to initiate proposal for the NC&CA meeting.

Babar, however, said the president would call the Authority meeting if the SPD seeks it. He did not agree that the NC&CA did not meet for several months and insisted that as per his memory, the NC&CA met a few weeks back.

The DCC is headed by the prime minister. According to a news report, a set of ministers recently expressed their aversion to convening the DCC to discuss and formulate a policy on the then Kerry-Lugar Bill (now law).

The report said that the prime minister was inclined to convene a DCC meeting, but he did not do that because of some ministers’ objections. Apart from defence, foreign affairs, interior and finance ministers, services chiefs, chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) director-general usually attend the DCC meetings, which are rarely held.

Last time, the DCC met in March this year when it reviewed the war against terrorism, Pakistan’s investigation into the Mumbai attacks and the Indian reply. The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore also came under discussion.

It is also said that the defence authorities are also seeking the government’s permission to test its new ballistic missile as India is all set to do the same anytime during the current month. Will Pakistan test its ballistic missile is not yet clear.

Meanwhile, it is also learnt that President Asif Ali Zardari had recently assured some key members of the establishment that he would sack some of his close political associates and bureaucratic aides for their stinking reputation and suspicious connections with foreign intelligence agencies.

A credible source said President Zardari has himself confided to some of his visitors, including a senior journalist, that he had committed, in his meeting with some important members of the establishment, to sacking a federal minister, his chief bureaucratic aide, an adviser, a couple of his confidants in the Foreign Ministry.

The source said that the president was frankly told about the doubtful role being played by these red-flagged individuals. About the federal minister, it was said that he had strong connections with some foreign intelligence agencies, which are conspiring against Pakistan.

The president, the source said, was also informed of the role of a Foreign Ministry official, who had manoeuvred and later publicly endorsed anti-Pakistan moves of a foreign country. It is not yet clear as to why the president has not yet removed those, who are considered as “security risk” and are the reason for widening gap between the Presidency and the country’s establishment.

However, the source believed that in view of the NRO fiasco (for its beneficiaries), the expected opening up of the corruption and criminal cases against most of these political and bureaucratic aides of President Zardari in the near future might become the apparent ground for rolling some unwanted heads.