NEW YORK, Jan 27: President Pervez Musharraf rebuffed the Bush administration’s proposals to expand any American combat presence in Pakistan, either through unilateral covert CIA missions or by joint operations with Pakistani security forces, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
In an exclusive report, the newspaper quoting unnamed officials as saying that two top American intelligence officials travelled secretly to Pakistan early this month to press President Musharraf to allow the Central Intelligence Agency greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups were active.
The American officials were identified as Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Gen Michael V. Hayden, the CIA director.
Instead, the Times said Pakistan and the United States were 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 could provide information about people suspected of being militants to Pakistani security forces, the officials told the paper.
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 paper inquired about the secret trip. While the officials confirmed some details of the discussion, much remains unknown about the continuing dialogue between Islamabad and Washington.
The trip by Mr McConnell and Gen 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.
“The purpose of the mission,” a senior official told the newspaper, “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.
