Gen Kayani foiled US plan for civilian control over Army

WikiLeaks says General using parliament, govt while staying in background; Hamid Gul accused of ordering suicide bombings in Afghanistan; King Abdullah proposed implanting tracking chips on Guantanamo detainees; Mubarak told US to allow dictator in Iraq
WASHINGTON: Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani used the Pakistani civilian government for military purposes from behind the scenes and very effectively foiled the US plan to ensure civilian control over the military under the Kerry-Lugar Bill, according to a confidential diplomatic dispatch of the US embassy in Paris to the State Department on January 22, released by Wikileaks.
The dispatch, while referring to a correspondence from the head of France’s Pak-Afghan Inter-Agency Cell Jasmine Zerinini, stated that General Kayani’s opposition led to the conflict on the Kerry-Lugar Bill as it was going to result in greater civilian control on the military.
According to the released documents, General Kayani has learnt from the mistakes made by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf. He is using parliament and the government while staying in the background, the documents allege. In this way, he is becoming an obstacle to any major change in the country’s policy pertaining to Fata.
Zerinini’s correspondence also stated that the West had lost the opportunity to crush the Afghan Taliban with Pakistan’s help. The correspondence stated that with aid coming in from the Gulf states, the Haqqani network has grown too strong, that defeating it will not be easy for the Pakistani military.
Meanwhile, Hamid Gul, the former chief of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has been accused in several of the leaked documents of regularly meeting al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders to order suicide attacks in Afghanistan.
Hamid Gul, while responding the allegation, said that the United States orchestrated the mass leak of war files to scapegoat him for its imminent withdrawal from Afghanistan. He told the Financial Times that the US had a hidden role in the publication of thousands of classified reports through the Wikileaks website.
“I am a very favourite whipping boy of America. They can’t imagine the Afghans can win wars on their own. It would be an abiding shame that a 74-year-old general living a retired life manipulating the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan results in the defeat of America,” he said.
The Financial Times said Hamid Gul’s name appears in about 10 of roughly 180 classified US files that blame the ISI supported Afghan militants fighting Nato forces. The former ISI chief told the newspaper the US had lost the war in Afghanistan, and that the leak of the documents would help the Obama administration deflect blame by suggesting that Pakistan was responsible.
Another leaked cable revealed that Saudi King Abdullah proposed implanting Guantanamo detainees with electronic chips to monitor their movements after their release. “I’ve just thought of something,” Abdullah blurted during a March 2009 meeting with the White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan.
The two were discussing the fate of 99 Yemenis still held at the time in the controversial US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The king proposed the prisoners be implanted with electronic microchips so that after their release they can be tracked “with Bluetooth” technology, a leaked US embassy report on the meeting said.
Abdullah explained that “this was done with horses and falcons,” according to the memo. But “horses don’t have good lawyers,” Brennan replied. Some Chinese officials do not regard North Korea as a useful ally and would not intervene if the reclusive state collapsed, according to leaked US State Department cables.
In one cable by the US ambassador to Seoul, a top South Korean official is described as saying North Korea has already collapsed economically and would fall apart politically within two or three years of the death of leader Kim Jong-il.
Chun Yung-woo, then the vice foreign minister for South Korea, made the assessments in February, according to The Guardian and The New York Times. US Ambassador Kathleen Stephens wrote that Chun cited private conversations with two high-level Chinese officials who “believed Korea should be unified under ROK (South Korea) control,” said The Guardian.
Chun said the younger generation of Communist leaders in China did not regard North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk a renewal of armed conflict on the Korean peninsula, it reported.
China voiced concern to the United States about “momentum” to reform the Security Council and warned it would not accept Japan in an expansion, according to another leaked cable. In a secret cable obtained by Wikileaks, Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told a US diplomat that China “was concerned by ‘momentum’ that was building on UN Security Council reform.”
Another leaked cable revealed that China was “scared to death” over a visit by US Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is outspoken on human rights, and rejected her request to visit to Tibet. Egypt’s spy master revealed his service recruited agents in Iraq and Syria to counter Iranian support for militants in his country, revealed US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks.
Omar Suleiman told US top military commander Admiral Michael Mullen in a 2009 meeting that Iran had tried to recruit Bedouins to smuggle weapons into Hamas-controlled Gaza and that Egyptian security had rounded up a cell of Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
“‘Iran must pay the price’ for its actions and not be allowed to interfere in regional affairs,” the US Cairo embassy cable published this week, dated April 30, 2009, quoted Suleiman as telling Admiral Michael Mullen.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak advised the United States in 2008 to “forget” about democracy in Iraq and allow a dictator to take over.
Mubarak made the comments during talks with visiting US congressmen to whom he also admitted that he was “terrified” by the possibility of a nuclear Iran, in the cable sent home from the US embassy.
Another interesting leak reveals that Britain’s Prince Charles “does not command the same respect” as Queen Elizabeth II. Amitav Banerji, political affairs director at the Commonwealth secretariat, was quoted on the question of whether Charles would succeed his mother to the head of the 54-country organisation upon her death.
According to the leaked memo from the US political officer in London, dated June 11, 2009, Banerji “acknowledged that heir-apparent to the British Crown, Prince Charles, does not ‘command the same respect’ as the Queen.”
Another leak showed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton questioned the mental health of Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez, asking US diplomats to investigate whether she was under medication.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez criticised Clinton’s comments on state television and expressed his “solidarity with the president of Argentina”. “Someone should study Mrs Clinton’s mental health ... She feels superior to Obama... Because she is white, she feels superior to the black president,” Chavez said.