The top military leadership met with President Zardari and PM Gilani on Monday to seek their support. The meeting took place within days of CIA Chief Leon Panetta’s visit to Pakistan which failed to produce any agreement on joint operations against militants or on a time table for a military action in North Waziristan. There are reports of a consensus between the civilian and military leadership not to permit the US to carry out unilateral operations on Pakistan’s soil and over drone attacks being unacceptable. The military commanders also urged the government to take steps to neutralise what they considered the anti-armed forces’ propaganda by some political quarters in the country.
Had successive military leaderships ensured that Pakistan’s territory was not being used against any other country by terrorists, the situation the country faces today would not have arisen. To make certain that Abbottabad like operations do not recur, the intelligence agencies have to smoke out outlaws like Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and others in case they are hiding anywhere in Pakistan. To put an end to drone attacks, the sanctuaries in tribal areas providing shelter to terrorists operating across the Durand Line have to be dismantled. The terrorists ejected from South Waziristan and Swat have taken shelter in some of these havens from where they continue to crisscross between different agencies. Unless the havens are finished, there is a likelihood of the areas where the army has established the writ of the state falling once again under the militants’ sway.
The criticism from domestic quarters should encourage the army to set its house in order. A succession of events followed by the budget session has led politicians, human rights organisations and the media to criticise the working of certain military institutions. The government’s failure to set up an independent commission on the Abbottabad debacle has caused apprehensions. To allay these, the commission should therefore be urgently set up. The military needs to introduce transparency in its affairs, particularly vis-à-vis its budgetary requirements. This would remove another major public grievance.