Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is fighting to save his position in the face of seething anger from top generals and junior officers since the US covert operation that killed Osama bin Laden, The New York Times said in a report on Thursday, citing Pakistani officials and people who had met the army chief in recent weeks.
The newspaper quoted a “well-informed Pakistani” who had seen Gen Kayani in recent weeks and an American military official involved with Pakistan for many years as saying that Kayani faced such intense discontent over what was seen among the lower ranks as his cozy relationship with the US that a colonels’ coup, while unlikely, was not out of the question.
Quoting Pakistanis who follow the army closely, the newspaper said Kayani was under intense pressure from almost all of the corps commanders to “get much tougher with the Americans, even edging toward a break.” Washington, with its own hard line against Pakistan, had pushed Gen Kayani into a defensive crouch, along with his troops, and if the general was pushed out, the US would face a more uncompromising anti-American army chief, the Pakistani was quoted as saying.
To repair the reputation of the army, and to ensure his own survival, Gen Kayani made an extraordinary tour of more than a dozen garrisons, mess halls and other institutions in the six weeks since the May 2 raid that killed Bin Laden, said the Times. His goal was to rally support among his rank-and-file troops, who were almost uniformly anti-American, according to participants and people briefed on the sessions.
During a long session in late May at the National Defense University, one officer got up after Gen Kayani’s address and challenged his policy of cooperation with the United States, said the newspaper. The officer asked: “If they don’t trust us, how can we trust them?” according to Shaukat Qadir, a retired army brigadier who was briefed on the session. Gen Kayani essentially responded, “We can’t,” Qadir was quoted as saying.
In response to pressure from his troops, the newspaper quoted Pakistani and American officials as saying, Gen Kayani had already become a more obstinate partner, standing ever more firm with each high-level American delegation that had visited since the raid to try and rescue the shattered American-Pakistani relationship.
The Pakistani who met Gen Kayani recently was also quoted as saying that as part of his survival mechanism, Gen Kayani could well order the Americans to stop the drone attacks programme completely. The anger at the Americans was now making it more difficult for Gen Kayani to motivate the army to fight against the Pakistani Taliban, former Pakistani soldiers were quoted as saying.
“The feeling that they are fighting America’s war against their own people has a negative impact on the fighting efficiency,” Javed Hussain, a former special forces officer in the Pakistani military, was quoted as saying. The Times said discipline had become a worry, as had open rebellion in the middle ranks of officers, particularly as rumors circulated that some enlisted men had questioned whether Gen Kayani and ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha should remain at their jobs.
A special three-year extension Gen Kayani won in his position last year did not sit well among the rank and file, who perceived it as having been pushed by the US to keep its man in the top job, said the newspaper. Gen Kayani’s problems had been magnified by a groundswell of unprecedented criticism from the public, questioning both the army’s competence and the lavish rewards for its top brass, something that also increasingly irked modestly paid enlisted men, said the newspaper.
According to the notes of a participant in the session at the National Defense University, Gen Kayani acknowledged that Pakistan had mortgaged itself to the US, said the newspaper. In making the analogy to Pakistan as a mortgaged house, General Kayani said that if a person gave his house against a loan and was unable to pay back the loan, the mortgage holder would intervene, the participant was quoted as saying. “We are helpless,” General Kayani had said according to the person’s notes. “Can we fight America?”
Meanwhile, a spokesman of the Inter-Services Public Relations told Pakistan Today that the NYT report was being examined and a detailed response would be issued on Friday (today) after the approval of the army chief.
Kayani fighting to keep his job: NYT
