While people in Pakistan were expected to have been content with the admission on the part of the military authorities of inadequacies and shortcomings in the Osama affair, ISI chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha has left for Washington to give more satisfying explanations to the Obama administration. Meanwhile, opposition leader in the NA, Ch Nisar Ali Khan, has demanded the rolling of a few heads at the top maintaining that no individual or institution was bigger than the honour and dignity of the country.
The urgent departure of Gen Pasha and the statement by Ch Nisar both indicate that the statement issued after the corps commanders’ meeting has satisfied neither the outside world nor the Pakistanis. The intelligence lapse and the subsequently revealed vulnerabilities in defence are too glaring to be covered up through simplistic explanations or unexecutable threats. With more evidence appearing after the US operation in Abbottabad two questions need satisfactory answers. First, why should OBL choose a small cantonment city constantly under the watch of the intelligence agencies instead of a larger city like Karachi and Lahore which are much harder to monitor? Secondly, how could he stay undetected for almost seven years, from 2003 to 2005 in a village near Haripur and for the next five years in Abbottabad, along with three wives and a busload of children, grandchildren and the families of the two couriers?
There are rumours about the ISI chief having been persuaded to tender his resignation. Turning Gen. Pasha into the fall guy won’t satisfy any one. It would raise more disturbing questions. What is needed is a thorough enquiry into the affair by an independent body appointed by parliament. The nation spends a huge chunk of budget on defence. What is required is that the policy guidelines including the security paradigm are determined by Parliament. Checks have to be introduced to stop the recurrence of gross inadequacies of the type that can have serious consequences for the country. For this, a civilian oversight of military affairs and the working of the ISI have to be institutionalised by bipartisan committees of the Parliament which should also devise a mechanism of holding military and agency personnel accountable.